FINCHES and FIRE, the landscape has changed over the years, with greater areas in Northern Australia being burnt, causing damage to food sources and habitat for many species. This little double barred finch along with his cousins the Gouldian finch are just one species that suffer from the effects of fire. As they rely on grass seed, with some grass only seeding every few years, if the area is burnt annually they have no food for breeding season.

There is change happening with organisations such as @australianwildlifeconservancy who have collaborated with CSIRO to reduce the frequency and quantity of fires being lit in the North West Region of Australia.

Check out their eco fire video to understand what they are achieving. https://youtu.be/mSn2gv3tP60 @ Lake Argyle

Flying over the DC3 plane wreck in Vansittart Bay. Read on to learn about the miraculous survival behind this plane crash.

On the 26th of February 1942 during World War II, an American Douglas C-53 (DC3) went missing on a ferry flight between Perth and Darwin. The pilot was meant to land in Broome but after becoming disoriented in the dark, the aircraft flew past Broome and after running out of petrol was forced to make an emergency landing on a mudflat (seen in the video) in Vansittart Bay ,which is located some 600km from Broome.
Luckily, the four crew members and two passengers survived the landing. The two passengers were in the Australian Army reserves and were on their way to Darwin. The men were trapped on the beach for three days and were forced to use pipes from the downed aircraft to distil drinking water until they were rescued by the Corinthian, a commercial flying boat owned by Qantas.

Considering the remote location of the wreck site, it’s incredible that the men were located so quickly.

Hard nut to crack!

Pindan walnut, or Kalumburu almond. A native to the north west. Although we collected some Kalumburu almonds, which can be viable for many months even years, and collected from the base of the tree. Was such a hard nut to crack, the engineering department helped me out with the vice! (Thanks Scotty) So much work for such a little almond I could only imagine the time it would take for the indigenous to use their stone hammers to crack this nut open. Watch the little video on face book to see how we managed to crack the nut.

Wow…. the bungle bungles blew my mind, so impressive to be surrounded by these rock formations over 180m high, and ancient livistonia palms that are remnants of a much wetter Australian continent. Feels like you’re walking through Jurassic Park.

The world heritage listed Bungle Bungle Range is located within Purnululu National Park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

BUSH PASSIONFRUIT,

Bush passionfruit, or passiflora foetida, is a relative of cultivated passionfruit and native to Central and South America. It was introduced into Australia around 1880 and has since become an invasive species, extremely common across the top end of Australia. It’s a creeping, scrambling vine, often found growing over and around other plants and trees, but can also be found as a ground cover. Bush Passionfruit produce fruit at various times of the year. The fruit are initially green, turning yellow when ripe. The fruit are encased in a unique net which makes the species easy to identify. This feature, along with the fact that they are so common, makes them a good bush tucker for amateurs like me to go out and try. The fruit contain black seeds and a sweet tangy pulp, both of which are edible. The taste is similar to cultivated passionfruit, maybe slightly milder. https://youtu.be/6MgxacqnXTc

Bush tucker collecting and roadside wrap!

There’s a fair bit of tucker around the place in the Kimberley at the moment. In the Akubra (hat) we’ve got rosella flowers and leaves which I used raw on the wrap, can be cooked and used as spinach as well and the kapok flowers on the wrap too. The blue flowers are from the butterfly- pea and I’ll later put them in a tea, add some lemon juice to change the acidity and the tea will turn blue and mix it with the rosella flowers. Voila your organic meal.