From the Central Kimberley we headed up the Great Northern Highway and back into Kununurra. We caught up with a mate overnight, then headed towards Katherine (where we caught up with another mate – it’s good having mates all over the place!). We played with a pygmy mulga snake that had been caught on a snake call-out, then headed south and across the Barkly Tablelands.
Pygmy mulga snake (Pseudechis weigeli).
Pygmy mulga snake (Pseudechis weigeli).
Pygmy mulga snake (Pseudechis weigeli).
We kept driving east into the night, and came across four northern death adders in quick succession. (Note: death adders are a taxonomic mess at the moment. The northern adders in the Northern Territory are different to the northern adders in Queensland, and the NT animals probably represent at least two species. This doesn’t currently matter for my repticking obsession, as the northern adders are the only ones I’ve seen anywhere in the country.)
Northern death adder (Acanthophis praelongus).
Northern death adder (Acanthophis praelongus).
Northern death adder (Acanthophis praelongus).
Northern death adder (Acanthophis praelongus).
Northern death adder (Acanthophis praelongus).
Tiring, we pulled over into a truck stop and set up camp. We were approaching Borroloola, so I had a look around the camp site for a potential reptick: Gehyra borroloola. I got excited when I found a Gehyra on the first tree I looked at, but it turned out to be a plain old Geyhra australis.
Northern dtella (Geyhra australis).
The next morning we hit the road and headed towards Camooweal. We saw a number of inland bearded dragons (Pogona vitticeps) on or near the road, but were pushing ourselves to get to Camooweal so we didn’t stop to photograph any. One animal I definitely would have stopped to photograph was Varanus spenceri. We did end up finding and photographing one, but he was on the road and quite flat.
We camped overnight in Camooweal and then continued east to Mt Isa. When we arrived in Isa, we refueled, had a quick poke around some rubbish on the ground out the back of the fuel station (finding a Ctenotus saxatilis/inornatus thing), then kept going east. Our aim was to make it to Townsville by night fall.
Ctenotus saxatilis/inornatus
Reptick:
Acanthophis praelongus
