Thank-you to everyone who replied to my earlier RFI. I hope I
thanked you all individually, but I may have missed one or two
of you. I got a lot of really helpful information.
Now that we've got some more definite plans, I'm ready to ask
more questions. We've thrown out our grand train-ride plan
because we decided there are just too many other things to do.
The current plan is to spend time in four areas, as follows:
26 Feb - 4 March - Sydney area
4 March - 11 March - Cairns area
12 March - 18 March - Melbourne area
18 March - 24 March - Tasmania
This trip isn't meant to be a birding trip as such, but I intend
to do plenty of birding. We're going to rent cars in Cairns,
Melbourne and Hobart but not Sydney. I think I've got the Sydney
segment of the trip pretty well figured out with one exception.
We're going to spend a couple of days in Katoomba and since we
won't have a car, what we do is going to be confined to where we
can get to via mass transit. Suggestions on where the best
choices for seeing birds there are would be appreciated. We're
staying at the YHA hostel in Katoomba and as far as I can tell
the buses there don't start running until sometime after 9 in
the morning, so I think I need to find some places I can walk to
for birding in the early morning if possible. The other question
I have about Sydney is whether anyone knows of a bookstore that
sells a good selection of bird and natural history books. I know
about Andrew Isles books in Melbourne, but we're going to be
halfway through our trip before we get there.
For the Cairns segment of the trip, we're going to Michaelmas
Cay one day and we're spending two nights at Red Mill House in
Daintree. I think we're going to drive around the Atherton
Tablelands one day as well. Does that seem like it will give me
a reasonable chance of seeing a wide selection of birds? Is
there anyplace important that I'm leaving out? Our last day in
Cairns doesn't have anything particular scheduled and we don't
fly out until 1935 so we have most of that day to do something
else as long as it doesn't take us too far from Cairns. Is there
any place that is particularly good to look for cassowaries?
For the Melbourne part of the trip, we're planning on going to
Werribee one day and to Philip Island for a couple days. I'm not
sure what we're going to do for the rest of that week. I've
gotten a bunch of suggestions, all of which sound good but some
of which are simply too far to go in the time we have. Where
would be the best places to go for day trips that would let us
see habitat types that we won't see at Werribee and Philip
Island? Not boring my sister to death is part of the selection
criteria here, so the places we go need to be interesting apart
from just seeing birds or they need to be places we aren't goint
to stay at long.
Tasmania is the one spot I didn't get much information about
after my original request for information, probably because we
hadn't actually decided to go there yet at that point. We're
thinking about a boat tour and a spot-lighting tour with a
company called Sealife Experience out of Dunalley. Is anyone
familiar with their tours? We're also thinking of going to
Tahune one day and spending a couple of nights in the vicinity
of Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair. Any thoughts and
recommendations on this part of the plan would be really
appreciated. I haven't had much luck finding information about
birding in Tasmania, so any links to useful websites would also
be appreciated.
I'm having a hard time with planning this trip because I just
don't know enough to have a feel for what I'm doing. I feel like
I need a crash course in migratory and breeding patterns of
Australian birds so that I have a clue what is reasonable to be
looking for and what isn't. I want reference books that either
don't exist or can't be found here. Having books sent half-way
around the world so that I can turn around and carry them back
again isn't practical at this point. We've arranged to meet
local birders is a few places, but we'd be delighted if anyone
else wants to go out with us. Birding with someone who knows the
area is always helpful and I enjoy meeting people.
--
Katrina Knight
Reading, PA, USA
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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