Veronika Wild

-Image is by Wildlife Photographer, David Cook The Eastern Rosella ( Platycercus eximus) is one of Australia's best known birds thanks to it's appearance on well known products such as Rosella Tomato Sauce, the traditional accompaniment to the Aussie meat pie and Arnott's Biscuits, including our ever popular TimTams Humans   have been in love with exotic parrots since the early explorers started bringing them home from the New World in the C16th. They love their bright colours, their sociability, their ability to be domesticated and the fact that many can imitate and even understand human speech.  Since then we’ve also found out that parrots are hugely intelligent and properly cared for, they can also be very long –lived -up to 60 years for larger parrots and 12 years for small ones like budgerigars. Parrots (Psittaciformes) are an ancient species believed to have evolved in Gondwana - the great South Land, 59 million years ago when all the continents were still join...

Where the glacier stopped in 1908 Things improve almost immediately. The hostel I stay in in Franz Joseph welcomes you with free bowls of hot soup on arrival and also has a free hot tub, though I use the opportunity to wash and dry my clothes instead.  The girl who shares my dorm is from Brisbane and we have a nice little ensuite, bar fridge and coffee making facilities in our room. The main lounge is a friendly place too.  Next morning, despite intermittent showers, I do the 6 Km walk to the glacier. You can see how far it has retreated, especially in the last decade. In 2008, glaciologists said that it would shrink a further 38% by 2100, but it looks like it’s way ahead of schedule. Still, the waterfalls along the way make up for the long walk across the rubble left behind.  They’d be famous in their own right if they weren’t being upstaged by a glacier. The long trek begins- you get an idea of the scale when you realise that there are two people wal...