A friend and I had an enjoyable day's bushwalking on the "backside" of
Mt Clunie - first peak along the McPherson from the Great Divide.
The first point of interest was a koala up a tree not that far from the
edge of the rainforest.
The second was a giant stinging tree - about 6 metres across its
butressed base. We then had a bit of a challenge climbing a steep
section while avoiding the gympie leaves that covered much of the
ground.
The third was a great lookout with extensive views to the south and
west, with a noisy pitta nearby. Further along we had a window view of
Mt Warning just to the left of Mt Lindesay. The rainforest - which had
quite a few hoop pines was a treat to walk through.
The fourth was a rainforest "dragon" we found while traversing along the
base of a razorback at around 1100 metres. It was about 30 cm long,
half body, half skinny tail. Its head, neck, left foreleg, right
hindleg and were a light grey, while its torso, right foreleg and left
hindleg were a dark redish brown [about the same colour as the soil].
It had opposeable toes on its front feet, while the fourth toes on its
hind were three times the length of its other toes [is 3 cm vs 1 cm].
It had a slight crest on its head and brownish eyes. It also played
dead stick to the point that it kept its tail rigidly straight and made
no move to grip with its toes while in the hand [only moved its eyes
slightly]. Ring bells for anyone?
After lunching at another great lookout at the neck of the razorback, we
saw some logrunners right on the summit and stepped over a small
red-bellied black snake before heading down Baffle Ck. This was rather
steep in its upper sections [had a couple of waterfalls to work around,
with gympie leaves strewn around a couple of sections requiring delicate
moves - fortunately I've been stung so many times another one doesn't
bother too much]. We didn't see a lot of birdlife there apart from a
few yellow-throated scrub wrens.
Birdwise, the pick of the day was down near the road where we passed an
old hut site - at the top of a bit of an escarpment - it had a great
whitefella midden at its base [would be a challenge for clean up Aus
given the thicket of young gympies in amongst the garbage]. The key to
this site was the large fig tree growing near the base of the cliff. In
short order we saw a wonga pigeon, brown cuckoo-dove, wompoo fruit-dove,
top-knot pigeon, satin bowerbird and regent bowerbird. The importance
of growing fig trees!
All up we saw around 40 species in our 5 km radius, which isn't bad for
walk where birding was secondary to bushwalking.
Regards, Laurie
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