Back from Fiji, New Zealand and Australia!

[danh]

Hey all! I'm sitting here at 5 am on the computer as it's the after noon in Sydney. I arrived home last night after over 24 hours in transit and am eager to share all the fun I had. I spent the past 8 months backpacking through Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. I had heaps of fun, and encourage anybody sick of school to give it a go, especially if you're just finishing high school. It's great to take a year off before starting uni.

Anyway, while backpacking I did herping whenever it was possible, which was not as often I would have liked due to my lack of transport. I am in deep gratitude to the kindly Aussie herpers who showed me some awesome spots.

In total I conclusively identified about 130 different kinds of herps. Unfortunately most can be lumped under the incredibly scientific classification of LBS: little brown skink. Not that I'm complaining.

In case anybody's curious, some highlights include: Fiji ground frog, white-lipped sea krait, Wellington green gecko, goldstripe gecko, 2 sp of blue-tongued skink, tiger snake, diamond python, Rosenberg's goanna, water dragon (2 sub-sp), Common scaley-foot, red-bellied black snake, eastern brown snake, shingleback skink, giant burrowing frog, gold-crowned snake, northern snapping turtle, estuarine croc, freshwater croc, Merten's water monitor, Kimberly rock monitor, northern death adder, olive python, flatback turtle, and 2 species of these guys: