TRIP TO TOWNSVILLE FROM DARWIN 20/12/09 to 10/0/10
Michael and I started off in our 1983 Nissan ute and with dog Sarah, our
dalmation/border collie cross (we think), early on a typical humid Wet
Season morning, and reached Elliott, 736 kms south, about 6 pm. The only
creature of note we¹d seen till then was a dead Black-footed Tree-rat near
Katherine.
Elliot had closed down for Christmas it seemed, and the only campground open
was rundown and basic, but was clean and tidy. I enjoyed having
Apostlebirds running around our tent, but not the noisy peacocks which were
present by the dozen and kept me awake most of the night, their cries almost
drowning out the soft calls of whistling-duck passing overhead. The only
other birds of note were three Channel-billed Cuckoos that belted past in
the morning pursued by some obviously unhappy Torresian Crows.
I wished to visit nearby Lake Wood but was told it was inaccessible because
of the extra heavy wet season rain, and so contented myself with watching
several small groups of low-flying Fork-tailed Swifts as we drove along. A
Black-breasted Buzzard circled high above and several small flocks of
Red-tailed Black Cockatoos were perched in the scant trees. Diamond Doves,
resplendent in blue-grey, white-spotted plumage and red eye-skin, strolled
casually along the bitumen. A black bundle of feathers on the Stuart
Highway in the middle of nowhere turned out to be a Eurasian Coot.
Further we found a Mulga Snake Pseudochis demansia, one of my favourite
snakes. Called Datbe by Kunwinjku people of western Arnhem Land, it is a
³woman¹s snake² and is represented by the blunt ends of digging sticks. My
older sisters tell me that it was the bringer of order in the Dreamtime..
Decimated in the Top End by cane toads, I¹ve not seen a Datbe for quite a
while, and yet huge specimens used to be found not far from Darwin.
Dodder, Cassytha filiformis covered much of the roadside vegetation. I
quite like to eat the fruit and would have stopped to look for some had I
known then that Michael had mainly packed tins of beans for our meals! The
most common reptile along this stretch of the road was an Amphibolurus
(dragon) - I didn¹t stop to check whether it was gilberti or temporalis.
Two species of honeyeater were common in the trees at Renner Springs, 820
kms from Darwin -White-plumed and Grey-fronted. My most northerly record of
the first is from Borroloola, in December 1999 and of the second from for Mt
Todd, north of Katherine where I was carrying out biological surveys in the
late 1980s. Several waterbirds were present in the pools, namely Purple
Swamphen, Darter, Little Black Cormorant, and Plumed Whistling-ducks. A
dead Black-shouldered Kite lay nearby. Zebra Finches were nesting in the
trees.
We stopped to camp near the Barkly Highway, at the 41 mile bore. This
beautiful little spot had all the requisite features including nice bush. A
couple of big puddles were already frequented by two pairs of adult
Red-kneed Dotterels and a very approachable immature. A pair of Red-backed
Kingfishers called vigorously before they mated on a branch nearby, a couple
of Golden-backed Honeyeaters flirted in the trees above and Grey-fronted
Honeyeaters hung about in the shrubs below. Families of Variegated
Fairy-wrens were flitting about the spinifex. Bustard were common in the
area. At sunset 300+ Fork-tailed Swifts glided in to feast overhead on
unseen insects.
Michael and I set up camera at a puddle in the hope that something
interesting might show up. However, the only life we attracted were three
German backpackers who came over to say hello and then drove off to explore
the rest of the camp ground. Then, despite the vastness of the area they
decided to set up camp, between us and the puddle. Maybe they felt safer
around us. Anyway they were delightful, very interested in wildlife and in
hearing about my semi-traditional relatives in Arnhem Land. I suggested
they not sleep on the ground as in the Wet Season all sorts of creatures pop
out of the ground, from mygalomorph spiders to giant centipedes and
scorpions. Next morning we showed them a sizeable specimen of the latter
that had set up camp under the floor of our tent. It had ensconced itself
directly under my pillow and kept waking me up with its audible scrapings.
Its smooth grey foliage and cream flowers make Eucalyptus pruinosa one of
the most beautiful plants of the NT and Queensland, and seeing this tree in
the early morning sunlight and at sunset always gladdens my heart. It was
growing in many of the areas we drove through on our way to Townsville. We
spotted another favourite feature of the Australian outback on the bitumen
10 kms before we reached the Barkly Homestead a Moloch horridus. We
picked the little creature up, and after taking its photograph, put it on
the side of the road. We also saw small reddish goannas, probably Varanus
tristis, eating grasshoppers. The most common birds on the road were
Australian Pratincoles, particularly around Avon Downs, and the ubiquitous
Diamond Dove.
We didn¹t see a great variety of raptors along the Barkly Highway, mainly
Black Kites, an occasional Kestrel, Brown Falcon and Brown Goshawk,
Wedge-tailed Eagle and Swamp Harrier. Neither were there many psittacids,
namely Galahs, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Little Corellas and a few
Cockatiels. I kept an eagle eye out for Grey Falcon, a bird I¹ve often seen
along the Victoria Highway in the western Top End, but no luck.
Mt Isa
Spinifex Pigeons were relatively common along the highway. Then, 150 km
before Mt Isa I spotted three new birds toodling along the verge - Squatter
Pigeons unmistakeable with their bold black and white facial pattern. A
few kilometres on and I suddenly stopped looking for birds fifth gear had
vanished. At Moondarra Caravan Park on the edge of town, other gears
disappeared.
Next morning Michael took the car to the Mt Isa Auto Centre over the other
side of town, a tricky drive as by then only one gear was functioning.
Bert, the mechanic and his crew ordered a reconditioned gearbox from
elsewhere on the continent (I know not where), but it wasn¹t going to arrive
until 4 January because of the holiday. Fortunately my AANT membership
allowed us free car hire for five days, so we collected our Nissan X-trail
from Budget, farewelled Billy and Jenny at Moondarra they had been very
helpful and set off again.
Just before Julia Creek we saw two Antilopine Wallaroos, a couple of very
colourful, well-marked dragons Ctenophorus isolepis (these we had seen
elsewhere) and again Fork-tailed Swifts.
We made Julia Creek where I had hoped to see The Dunnart, if not in the
flesh then at least at the Information Centre. Alas, all was closed. We
stayed in the local caravan park, a slightly shabby but very pleasant place
run by a lovely lady. However, her two kelpies took exception to Sarah and
looked as if they would attack.
Sarah is now twelve; no spring chicken, but neither is she a walkover. Last
year a pit bull terrier attacked our seven year-old neighbour and her puppy
while we were out walking. I had no way of stopping the dog ; there was
nothing to grab. As I threw myself towards the pit bull, something black
and white flashed past me. Tearing her leash from Michael¹s hands, Sarah
threw herself on the big dog with such ferocity that it fled. Faced with
the territorial caravan park dogs, Sarah mediated a course of action that
all three pooches agreed upon she persuaded Michael to throw sticks for
them all to fetch.
I would have liked to bird the swamps around Julia Creek Clamorous Reed
Warblers were calling in nearby reeds that I thought might harbour some even
more interesting wildlife! It wasn¹t to be we had to make Townsville by
Christmas Day - otherwise my offspring, Amber and Rowan, would be very
unhappy. However, we did visit the sewage ponds where we saw Brolga, Grey
Teal, Plumed Whistling-duck, Black-winged Stilt and White-winged Black Tern.
We did little birding in Townsville itself, our time there being taken up
with Christmas and family. However, at the port we spotted a pair of Yellow
Honeyeaters - beautiful birds.
On the 30th, we drove north to Blue Waters to meet up with Elena and Beth,
friends of Alan Gillander¹s who had kindly offered to show us Paluma. The
wet rainforest is a habitat I am unfamiliar with so we very much appreciated
them taking the time. Greg Bortolussi from Cairns also drove down to join
us.
Paluma
While waiting at Blue Waters we watched White-throated and Black-naped
honeyeaters in the trees around the caravan park and Black Kites feeding on
grasshoppers on the roadway.
Stopping at a little park on the way up we saw Barred Cuckoo-shrike and Pied
Monarch. I was most interested in this latter bird, having seen the similar
Frilled Monarch while working in Milne Bay, PNG. Noisy Pitta was calling but
didn¹t show itself. At Beth¹s lovely house we sat down with coffee to await
the birds, and we were not disappointed. Several were very tame
MacLeay¹s, Tufted, Bridled and White-cheeked honeyeaters coming so close
that I had difficult focussing my camera! A Spotted Catbird paid a brief
visit but was a little shyer.
On a walk through the forest we found ourselves almost deafened by very
large cicadas, beautiful creatures no wonder they were so popular during
the Art Nouveau period. Birds included Yellow Robin, Grey Fantail,
White-throated Treecreeper, both kookaburras and Forest Kingfisher.
Back at Beth¹s for lunch, other species came to call - both Bower¹s and
Little Shrike-thrush (interesting to see how similar they are); Large-billed
Scrubwren, Eastern Spinebill, Eastern Whipbird, and Grey-headed Robin. Just
before we left Beth and Elna took us to see the lek of a Tooth-billed
Bowerbird. All in all we had a wonderful day with some great people.
Back at daughter Amber¹s (or to use her Kunwinjku name, Ngalinawa, meaning
³rock snake, big one²), we made ready to leave, on what turned out to be
Townsville¹s wettest December day on record. That didn¹t auger too well for
birding, or for camping either.
Return to MI
10 kms west of Charters Towers we found an injured taipan, 2.5 m in length.
Its injuries were such that I doubted this beautiful creature would survive.
Already, a pair of Brown Falcons, perched in a nearby tree, were eyeing the
snake greedily. So that they wouldn¹t also become victims of a car while
feeding, I moved the snake carefully to the verge before dropping a large
rock on its head. We came upon yet another interesting road victim 90 km
east of Cloncurry a young Nail-tailed Wallaby.
At Cloncurry we stayed at the Gilbert Caravan Park, one of the nicest little
parks I¹ve ever seen. Peter and Cherryl, the managers, had left much of the
natural bush and boulders in place. Sarah enjoyed herself there as well.
Some little Indigenous girls had her fetching sticks until she dropped with
exhaustion.
On a walk through the spinifex at the back of the property we sent up a pale
bird that I would have identified as a Little Button-quail, except for the
white tips and band on the primaries. I saw a similar bird in flight at our
next campsite, 90 kms south along the Boulia Road. Could it have been a
Plains Wanderer? This is not a bird I know at all well, having only seen it
in Leeton, NSW last year. However, I¹d be happy to hear from other Birding
Aussers on this. I would have searched for the bird at night, only the
weather was pretty atrocious.
I had hoped to drive to Boulia but Michael was anxious to get back to Mt
Isa, and so we only spent one night camping, just off the road about 90 kms
from the Barkly Highway. Two years ago in December, we camped along this
road, a few kms out of MI, and awoke to find ourselves surrounded by
Kalkadoon Grasswrens, hopping around the tent like sparrows. This time we
camped on the flat among clumps of spinifex. No grasswrens but Variegated
Fairy-wrens came in close to look at us. Around our feet grew pink Ipomoea
and mauve Solanum spp. Serenaded by Rufous Songlarks, and dazzled by the
ultramarine and cobalt of the fairy-wrens, the pink and mauve flowers, and
the olives, emeralds, lime, gold, straw, bronze and rusts of the Australian
bush all against a cerulean sky, I felt so fortunate to live in such a
country. At sunset I felt utterly lost for words surrounded by such beauty.
No matter how nice the motel or caravan park, give me the bush anytime!
Again we saw our mystery quail-like bird in flight but it vanished into a
clump of spinifex on the other side of a barbed wire fence in a paddock
occupied by Brahmin cattle, and having had unhappy dealings with these
creatures in my time shooting buffalo, I wasn¹t game to chase it. Still, we
saw Brown Quail, Brush Cuckoo, Dollarbird, Rufous-throated Honeyeater,
White-throated Gerygone and a pair of Spinifexbirds. There were Masked
Woodswallows indeed these were common at many places we visited. At the
nearby creek crossing a Merten¹s Water Monitor slid into the running water
and swam away from us.
On 5th January, back at Moorinda Caravan Park we contacted Bert, the
mechanic, only to be told that the gearbox hadn¹t arrived. He¹d contacted
the supplier and it was to be sent up that day, which it was, but it was the
wrong one. Frustrated, Bert prepared to try again while Michael went to the
Budget Office to extend our car hire, only to find it had been hit by
lightning. Nevertheless through sterling effort, the staff there managed to
get the paperwork through.
In the meantime we set off for Bob Forsyth¹s Carpentarian Grasswren site.
The birds were calling but not visible possibly too late in the day. So we
contented ourselves watching Grey-fronted and Grey-headed honeyeaters and
Pictorella Mannikins, the latter fossicking under some spindly shrubs. We
later visited the sewage ponds. Quite a few birds there, but nothing new.
However, it was nice to see Hoary-headed Grebe again (not common in Darwin).
On the road home
In the end we decided to return to Darwin, and once our vehicle was fixed,
Michael would drive the hire vehicle back to Budget in MI, pick up our car
and drive home.
Earlier we had discovered our tarpaulin leaked, and one very wet night we
got soaked before we could put the fly over the tent. Both Michael and I
thought it very funny and couldn¹t stop laughing. Sarah who had been
sleeping at the foot of our air mattress indicated she would rather lie in
the torrential than share the tent with a couple of giggling idiots.
However, she returned within the half hour to poke her head inside, to
³check on the kids², we thought, and left again. The new tarp kept out most
of the rain, but during pretty violent weather we still got wet. However,
we¹d both camped in worse conditions I¹d once spent ten days camped in the
remote parts of the Mt Bundey station in the wet season, carrying out
biological surveys. My tent leaked in the torrential rain and we were camped
in calf-deep mud. Keith Martin got a foot infection and couldn¹t walk, and
I contracted food poisoning. The first night a Selencosmia sp., a large
mygalomorph with fangs larger than those of most Aussie snakes, got into my
tent and cuddled up to my bare thigh, the helicopter lost us and I had to
wade out into a swamp inhabited by large crocodiles to spread a blue
tarpaulin (Keith could hardly walk). It was great fun.
It rained very heavily for most of the return trip and the Barkly Highway
was flooded in parts. Where not long before there had been only dry
grassland, now there were deep puddles occupied by Black-winged Stilts,
Eurasian Coot, Plumed Whistling-duck, White-faced Herons, and a solitary
Green Pygmy-goose. 90 kms before Camoweal a flock of budgies wheeled over
us.
Our last Barkly H/way campsite was not particularly nice, overgrown as it
was with weeds, and strewn with rubbish. At sunset I stood quietly looking
around me when I notice a large skink nearby. Next thing it was at my feet,
busily catching unseen invertebrates without a care in the world. Other
lizards we also found here and elsewhere were Central Netted Dragon,
Ctenophorus nuchalis and Gilbert¹s Dragon Amphibolus gilbertii.
As on a previous trip at this time of year I expected to see huge swarms of
grasshoppers along the Tablelands Highway, and flocks of Little Curlew and
other birds feasting upon them.
However, there were relatively few grasshoppers and not one Little Curlew or
Fork-tailed Swift.
At Playford Creek there were 50+ Little Black Cormorants, 20 Glossy and
Straw-necked Ibis, Plumed Whistling-duck, 30+ Grey Teal, 2 Pink-eared Duck,
2 Eurasian Coot, 2 Sharp-tailed S/p, 2 Wood S/p, and several terns - 10+
Gull-billed, 50+ Whiskered and 15 White-winged Black. Further on at White
Bore Creek was a solitary Yellow-billed Spoonbill, and most of the ducks
already mentioned. However, a new addition was of three Black-tailed Native
Hen. I did manage to take their photo. Not so for the black and white
harrier that appeared not far above the car, 150 kms from Cape Crawford.
Our last campsite was at a most beautiful spot just off the Carpentaria
Highway overlooking a vista of steep hills covered with eucalyptus and
gullies. Sacred Kingfisher, Koel, Brush Cuckoo and Pheasant Coucal were all
calling. Little Friarbird and Silver-backed Friarbird were common here, as
was Red-backed Fairy-wren a brilliant male came in to have a look at us-
Grey-fronted Honeyeater (also flew in to examine us), Pied Butcherbird,
Weebill and Little Woodswallow.
The last animal recorded on the trip was a Frilled Lizard 150 kms south of
Mataranka. The day after we returned home, Michael set off again, to
retrieve our car. Meanwhile at home, while walking Sarah, I tripped over
and made a mess of my face and glasses in the gravel. Years of
buffalo-shooting and consultancy work in the remote bush and PNG, and nary
an injury. Fortunately, it¹s all healed with only five new scars as a
permanent reminder!
Our thanks to Beth and Elna for the wonderful day at Paluma, and to Alan
Gillanders for putting us in touch. Also, our thanks to Bert and his crew
in Mt Isa you did a might job, and to Billy and Jenny at Moorinda, and
Budget at Mt Isa for all your support. Peter Meyers is one of the most
prompt, efficient and helpful taxi drivers I¹ve met.
Lastly, membership of the NRMA, AANT, RACQ or whatever it¹s called in your
state or territory, is certainly worth the money.
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