So it's been a few weeks now but after finally recovering from my trip to Victoria's (or South Australia's; depending on which side of the border you ask) Big Desert National Park, I feel it's time to share you some of the images I captured, and much more importantly, the footage my older brother Billy captured!
It's been a while since I've had a break from the day to day goings on so having free reign over an entire week (sort of) was great. I was able to walk around with my camera and just shot freely in between helping my brother with his research.
Now I'm no scientist. I wish I was. I know my periodic table, I know mitosis like I know my toes, but alas, science and the inner workings of our universe is not my forte. So to the best of my knowledge Billy, the elder of the Geary brother's research is based around predator and prey interactions within the Big Desert national park.
Chris and Billy hammering in some camera traps in the setting sun.
All done in camera with the help of a trusty head torch (happened to be a nice red tone) and a larger torch placed inside of my tent. Took me a few tries to paint in a correct exposure but end result is purdy. Deakin University have even graciously shared it on their twitter feed promoting Billy's research.
You can read a bit about it on his supervisor, Euan Ritchie's blog where Billy has written about some of the finer details. Tagging along for the trip was Billy's also close friend and Wild Melbourne Co-Founder Chris McCormack. Together we spent a good 4 days collecting and deploying camera traps to find, film and identify what animals can be found in our wonderful wildlife areas. My brother has compiled a compilation of some of the best images into a YouTube video which can be viewed below. Aside from Dingos, Emus and a plethora of pesky Ravens there's a exciting amount of variety to the animals in the area; check it out!
While our trip had planned to be for 6 days, we did have to cut it short. Unexpected rain caused roads to flood and the thick clay and sand of the the terrain clogged even our specialised tires. Unable to continue on safely (we were somehow driving sideways at one point) we decided to call it a day and head home. Better safe than sorry.
Our 4x4 tires were turned to slicks with all the mud. We would have wrapped ourselves around a tree had we not called off the rest of our trip
With more trips scheduled I'll be definitely heading back to document more of my brother's research but unfortunately the next trip on July 10th falls on a very busy week for me. If you're keen to follow along, head over to my brother's twitter account @billyg84 as he's always keeping it up to date with new and exciting breakthroughs and news.