Seeing as I only have a few months left of a year long trip in Australia, I thought I would start putting some pictures from the last 9 months. Back in November 2011 myself and Matt Minchin, along with David Nixon, who flew out from England to meet us in Brisbane, headed out for a two week trip, driving 3,000km west from Brisbane to Windorah, Queensland. We'd be driving through many different kind of habitats during this time, giving us the opportunity to encounter a massive variety of reptiles and amphibians. Our main target species was the Inland taipan,
Oxyuranus microlepidotus, but unfortunately we were unsuccessful in finding any. We were, however, able to photograph many species on our wish lists.
We started out by driving to an area close to Dalby, around 3 hours drive west from Brisbane. After an hours herping in the area, we had already photographed our first few snakes.
Dwyer's snake,
Parasuta dwyeri 
Spotted black snake,
Pseudechis guttatus . We almost missed this snake - I thought I spotted a snake down a side road we drove past, and span the car around. Good job I did.
We also found this little Lace monitor,
Varanus varius .
That evening, we continued to drive west and ended up camping in Westmar. During the evenings road cruising, we came across four live eastern brown snakes,
Pseudonaja textilis, crossing the road, along with 8 DOR.
Matt with a eastern brown snake. We moved all the live ones we found off the road, to prevent them from becoming road-train fodder.
Unfortunately, this was the best shot I got during a quick photography session.
The next day was short of herps, and we spent much of our time trying to get some miles under our wheels, this time getting as far as Charleville. The most notable find of the day was a juvenile speckled brown snake,
Pseudonaja guttata, but this little elapid disappeared down a hole, just as we were getting our cameras ready - so sadly no photos!
Early one morning, we were driving down the road and spotted a small, dark-coloured lizard sat in the middle of the road. As soon as the car doors were open, the lizard bolted for the nearest tree.
I was roped in to climbing the tree
And we were rewarded with a Freckled monitor,
Varanus trisits
A short drive later, and we had another snake species photographed. This adult western brown snake,
Pseudonaja mengdeni, was found crossing the road midday.
Ridiculously common were Central bearded dragons. They littered the sides of the roads for most of the trip.
It wasn't long before we hit the red sand dunes that this part of Australia is so well known for - they are a very impressive sight.
Burn's dragon,
Amphibolurus burnsi 
We finally made it to Windorah, and continued on for a further 100km west to the Morney plains, home of the Inland taipan,
Oxyuranus microlepidotus. This was where we would be camping for the next 3 days.
David and myself, just past Windorah
And the Morney plains. The Inland taipans live down this large cracks in the ground, feeding on plains rats that also inhabit the area.
View from my tent
Just show how baron these plains are, heres a shot of Dave whilst we were out looking for Inland taipans.
We got up early each morning and head out searching, both on food and by car for Inland taipans, only giving up when the heat got unbearable. As previously mentioned, our attempts were unsuccessful.
I managed to catch a Plains rat - the main food source for most snake species that live out on the Morney plains. These rodents were in incredible numbers due to a lot of rain in the previous months.
Each evening whilst camping out on the plains, we would start to road cruise right on dusk. The herping this far out really didn't turn to much up, apart from a couple of species.
Stimson's python,
Antaresia stimsoni
Burton's snake-lizard,
Lialis burtonis 
During the day, we were on the trail of one of the largest reptiles found in the area
And they really aren't too difficult to find.
Yellow-spotted goanna,
Varanus panoptes panoptes
Ring tail-dragon,
Ctenophorus caudicinctus
With the pickings pretty slim this far out, we decided to start slowly making our way back, in the hope that we would have a little more success. This proved to be a good idea.
One of our many campsites throughout the trip.
Eastern hooded scaly-foot,
Pygopus schraderi
A rather annoyed Burton's snake-lizard,
Lialis burtonis 
One amphibian species I was really hoping to photograph was the Holy cross frog,
Notaden bennettii. We ended up finding several over the course of a few nights.
Beaked gecko,
Rhynchoedura ornata 
Box-pattern gecko,
Lucasium steindachneri 
We found several of these red king browns,
Pseudechis australis whilst road cruising at night. Unfortunately we also came across a lot of DOR.
The following animals were found whilst slowly making our way back to Brisbane through Bollon, St George, Westmar and Dalby over the period of 3 days.
Eastern spiny-tailed gecko,
Strophurus williamsi 
Snouted brown,
Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha
Curl snake,
Suta suta
De Vis banded snake,
Denisonia devisi 
Red-naped snake,
Furina diadema
Australian coral snake,
Brachyurophis australis
Grey snake,
Hemiaspis damelii
Spotted black snake,
Pseudechis guttatus
Spotted black snake habitat
Eastern long-necked turtle,
Chelodina longicollis
After getting back to Brisbane, we had a few days before David flew back to the UK, so we finished off with a little bit of local herping.
Keelback,
Tropidonophis mairi
Rough-scaled snake,
Tropidechis carinatus
Eastern carpet python,
Morelia spilota mcdowelli
That pretty much concludes this short trip. I will try and get more photos up from other parts of my Australian journey when I get the time.
thanks,
Tom
Mon 9 Apr - 16:20
