Chlidonias presents: Bustralia
- Thread starter Chlidonias
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Magnetic Island
The reason I was in Townsville was simply because this is where the Greyhound bus comes in from Mount Isa. But the main reason I was staying in Townsville was because there is an island right offshore called Magnetic Island which has “guaranteed” rock wallabies.
There are a lot of species of rock wallabies (seventeen of them!). Many of them are scattered down the east coast, and some of them are even in places accessible without driving. I had only seen one rock wallaby in the wild before – the Mareeba Rock Wallaby at Undara when I was visiting Cairns years ago – and on this trip I was going to try and see a few more. So far I’ve got the Black-flanked Rock Wallaby at Alice Springs and the Purple-necked Rock Wallaby at Mount Isa. The next on the list I was aiming for was the Allied Rock Wallaby which is the one on Magnetic Island.
The SeaLink ferry to Magnetic Island runs roughly hourly from 5.30am and costs AU$42 return. I had arrived in Townsville on the Friday and used that afternoon for Townsville Common. There was rain forecast for Sunday and Monday so I chose Saturday for Magnetic Island.
I had been going to catch the 5.30am ferry but left it a little late and went for the 6.30am instead. This turned out to be fortuitous. When I went to the counter to buy my return ticket I only got charged $21. I checked the SeaLink website later and discovered that buried in the fares page was the Sunrise Saver, where it says “Save 50% when travelling on the 6.30am Magnetic Island Ferry service departing Townsville on weekends”, meaning I got there and back for only $21 purely through happenstance.
The ferry only takes twenty minutes – the island is really close. There were Allied Rock Wallabies sitting on the boulders of the breakwaters as the ferry entered the island’s harbour at Nelly Bay. I could have stayed on the boat and just gone straight back, a difficult mission successfully accomplished, but of course I wanted to see them better than that.
The place on Magnetic Island to easily see the rock wallabies up close is Bremner Point at the far end of Geoffrey Bay, just above Nelly Bay. The wallabies have traditionally been fed here by visitors so they are habituated to people. It didn’t take long to walk there, maybe twenty minutes. There is a footpath the entire way.
As soon as I arrived I saw a wallaby, out on the concrete eating corn. I took some photos and then it hopped up the nearby boulders and vanished.
There were some rather “inconsistent” signs here about feeding the wallabies. Don’t feed them – but these are the foods you should give them. I do understand the discrepancy. They have been fed here for years and if there were signs just saying “don’t feed them”, well people are going to feed them anyway, and usually on foods which are bad for them like bread and biscuits. I do wonder how many tourists are going to be carrying sweet potatoes and wallaby pellets in their bags though.
There is a little track going from the end of the road around the point, between huge boulders. There were a lot more wallabies through here.
I’d been on the island for less than an hour and had my wallaby photos. If only all animals were this cooperative. To fill the rest of the morning I then walked a track going from Geoffrey Bay back to Nelly Bay through the inland forest on the hills. This was hot, largely birdless, and not very productive. I did see at least three different skinks which I photographed.
Orange-flanked Rainbow Skink
Saxicoline Sun Skink
Eastern Striped Skink
I saw 22 species of birds today:
Orange-footed Scrubfowl, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Superb Fruit Dove, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Pheasant Coucal, Forest Kingfisher, Common Kookaburra, Welcome Swallow, Rufous Shrike-Thrush, Spectacled Monarch, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Dusky Myzomela, Helmeted Friarbird, Pied Currawong, Spangled Drongo, Australian Figbird.
This Common Kookaburra was amongst the birds seen today.
The reason I was in Townsville was simply because this is where the Greyhound bus comes in from Mount Isa. But the main reason I was staying in Townsville was because there is an island right offshore called Magnetic Island which has “guaranteed” rock wallabies.
There are a lot of species of rock wallabies (seventeen of them!). Many of them are scattered down the east coast, and some of them are even in places accessible without driving. I had only seen one rock wallaby in the wild before – the Mareeba Rock Wallaby at Undara when I was visiting Cairns years ago – and on this trip I was going to try and see a few more. So far I’ve got the Black-flanked Rock Wallaby at Alice Springs and the Purple-necked Rock Wallaby at Mount Isa. The next on the list I was aiming for was the Allied Rock Wallaby which is the one on Magnetic Island.
The SeaLink ferry to Magnetic Island runs roughly hourly from 5.30am and costs AU$42 return. I had arrived in Townsville on the Friday and used that afternoon for Townsville Common. There was rain forecast for Sunday and Monday so I chose Saturday for Magnetic Island.
I had been going to catch the 5.30am ferry but left it a little late and went for the 6.30am instead. This turned out to be fortuitous. When I went to the counter to buy my return ticket I only got charged $21. I checked the SeaLink website later and discovered that buried in the fares page was the Sunrise Saver, where it says “Save 50% when travelling on the 6.30am Magnetic Island Ferry service departing Townsville on weekends”, meaning I got there and back for only $21 purely through happenstance.
The ferry only takes twenty minutes – the island is really close. There were Allied Rock Wallabies sitting on the boulders of the breakwaters as the ferry entered the island’s harbour at Nelly Bay. I could have stayed on the boat and just gone straight back, a difficult mission successfully accomplished, but of course I wanted to see them better than that.
The place on Magnetic Island to easily see the rock wallabies up close is Bremner Point at the far end of Geoffrey Bay, just above Nelly Bay. The wallabies have traditionally been fed here by visitors so they are habituated to people. It didn’t take long to walk there, maybe twenty minutes. There is a footpath the entire way.
As soon as I arrived I saw a wallaby, out on the concrete eating corn. I took some photos and then it hopped up the nearby boulders and vanished.
There were some rather “inconsistent” signs here about feeding the wallabies. Don’t feed them – but these are the foods you should give them. I do understand the discrepancy. They have been fed here for years and if there were signs just saying “don’t feed them”, well people are going to feed them anyway, and usually on foods which are bad for them like bread and biscuits. I do wonder how many tourists are going to be carrying sweet potatoes and wallaby pellets in their bags though.
There is a little track going from the end of the road around the point, between huge boulders. There were a lot more wallabies through here.
I’d been on the island for less than an hour and had my wallaby photos. If only all animals were this cooperative. To fill the rest of the morning I then walked a track going from Geoffrey Bay back to Nelly Bay through the inland forest on the hills. This was hot, largely birdless, and not very productive. I did see at least three different skinks which I photographed.
Orange-flanked Rainbow Skink
Saxicoline Sun Skink
Eastern Striped Skink
I saw 22 species of birds today:
Orange-footed Scrubfowl, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Superb Fruit Dove, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Pheasant Coucal, Forest Kingfisher, Common Kookaburra, Welcome Swallow, Rufous Shrike-Thrush, Spectacled Monarch, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Dusky Myzomela, Helmeted Friarbird, Pied Currawong, Spangled Drongo, Australian Figbird.
This Common Kookaburra was amongst the birds seen today.
Pawpaw is a thing in Australia?
What do you mean by "a thing"?
Reading the notice board about feeding, the 'Do Not Feed' appears to refer to a long list of foods you shouldn't give, not to 'No Feeding' at all....
There are two signs. The yellow one (in the other photo) says "For their well being it is preferable that you do not feed them" and then goes on to say "If you must feed them, acceptable foods are..."
ah, I see it now and yes, that's a bit inconsistent certainly.
Is pawpaw something different in Australia than it is in the US? Pawpaw is a native plant species here and a popular food in certain areas, but it's generally considered difficult to impossible to cultivate and has to be collected in the wild. And outside of the few areas where it's popular, most people don't know what it is. Yet it's a common enough food in Australia that it can be a commonly offered food to wild wallabies?
Yes it is an unrelated tropical fruit. If you have heard of papaya, that is what anyone outside of the USA knows as pawpaw.
Townsville
The #206 bus to Pallarenda doesn’t run on Sundays so I couldn’t go to the Common today but there are two other buses from the same stop which do have a Sunday schedule. I looked on eBird’s map and picked out two sites which are near those routes and had birds recorded which I wanted to see.
The first site was the Ross River Bush Gardens for which I caught the #201 to Thompson Street and then it’s a 15 minute walk. Then I walked back to the same bus stop and caught the #200 to Kelso and walked for 25 minutes to the Borrow Pits and the Ross River Dam.
Thompson Street itself was good for birds before I even reached the Ross River Bush Gardens, including a flock of Plumed Whistling Duck on a sports field, a Nankeen Kestrel on a powerpole, a Great Bowerbird, a Sahul Sunbird, and several other birds in gardens along the way.
The Ross River Bush Gardens turned out to be quite a small patch of forest alongside a creek and I didn’t see a whole lot there. Interestingly, almost all the birds I saw in the trees were honeyeaters apart for a Blue-winged Kookaburra and an Olive-backed Oriole. There were Brown Honeyeaters, Brown-backed Honeyeaters, Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Yellow Honeyeaters, White-gaped Honeyeaters, White-throated Honeyeaters, and Helmeted Friarbirds. The Yellow Honeyeaters were new for the year-list.
The buses only run hourly on Sundays, and so with nothing much happening at this site I decided to get back to the bus stop to catch the next #200 to Kelso. Just as I reached the stop it suddenly started raining extremely heavily, but it had stopped by the time the bus got to Kelso.
The Ross River Dam is just south of Kelso, and right before the dam there is a wetland with the unusual name of “the Borrow Pits”. The lakes here were created when soil was being dug out to build the walls of the dam – in effect they are pits from which the soil was borrowed. It’s not a great name because clearly the soil isn’t going to be returned, so it in fact wasn’t “borrowed”, but that’s where the name comes from.
There were, again, not a lot of birds in total at the Borrow Pits, although there were still more than on any of the water remnants at the Townsville Common. There were Great, Plumed, Little and Cattle Egrets, White-faced Herons, a White-necked Heron, a Black-necked Stork, White Ibis, Royal Spoonbills, Pied Stilts, Little Black and Little Pied Cormorants, Australian Darters, and even a Caspian Tern. The only waterfowl were Black Ducks, which is the default around here at the moment.
Easily the best bird of the day, week, probably month, was a pair of Channel-billed Cuckoos high in a tree being mobbed by a posse of Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Magpie-Larks, Figbirds and Drongos. If you’ve seen almost any kind of cuckoo before then forget those because Channel-billed Cuckoos are totally different. They are huge birds with an enormous beak, like a prehistoric-looking hornbill. They are also migratory, going back and forth between Australia and New Guinea, so are only in Australia for part of the year. Even so, it’s amazing how infrequently people see them when they are so big.
The lake of the Ross River Dam was very large and almost empty of birds. There was a big flock of pelicans and cormorants fishing together in the distance but otherwise the only birds were a few Darters here and there.
Walking back to the bus stop I swung by the Borrow Pits again, where I saw two more cuckoo species in the trees – a Sahul Brush Cuckoo and an Australian Koel. There were also Agile Wallabies out feeding and drinking on the far side of the lake.
I saw 53 species of birds today:
Australian Little Grebe, Australian Darter, Great Cormorant, Little Black Cormorant, Little Pied Cormorant, Australian Pelican, Plumed Whistling Duck, Great Egret, Plumed Egret, Little Egret, White-faced Heron, White-necked Heron, Eastern Cattle Egret, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Caspian Tern, Whistling Kite, Black Kite, Nankeen Kestrel, Feral Pigeon, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Spotted Dove, Peaceful Dove, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Australian Koel, Channel-billed Cuckoo, Sahul Brush Cuckoo, Blue-winged Kookaburra, Dollarbird, Welcome Swallow, Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike, Magpie-Lark, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Brown Honeyeater, Brown-backed Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Yellow Honeyeater, White-gaped Honeyeater, White-throated Honeyeater, Helmeted Friarbird, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie, Spangled Drongo, Olive-backed Oriole, Australian Figbird, Great Bowerbird.
The #206 bus to Pallarenda doesn’t run on Sundays so I couldn’t go to the Common today but there are two other buses from the same stop which do have a Sunday schedule. I looked on eBird’s map and picked out two sites which are near those routes and had birds recorded which I wanted to see.
The first site was the Ross River Bush Gardens for which I caught the #201 to Thompson Street and then it’s a 15 minute walk. Then I walked back to the same bus stop and caught the #200 to Kelso and walked for 25 minutes to the Borrow Pits and the Ross River Dam.
Thompson Street itself was good for birds before I even reached the Ross River Bush Gardens, including a flock of Plumed Whistling Duck on a sports field, a Nankeen Kestrel on a powerpole, a Great Bowerbird, a Sahul Sunbird, and several other birds in gardens along the way.
The Ross River Bush Gardens turned out to be quite a small patch of forest alongside a creek and I didn’t see a whole lot there. Interestingly, almost all the birds I saw in the trees were honeyeaters apart for a Blue-winged Kookaburra and an Olive-backed Oriole. There were Brown Honeyeaters, Brown-backed Honeyeaters, Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Yellow Honeyeaters, White-gaped Honeyeaters, White-throated Honeyeaters, and Helmeted Friarbirds. The Yellow Honeyeaters were new for the year-list.
The buses only run hourly on Sundays, and so with nothing much happening at this site I decided to get back to the bus stop to catch the next #200 to Kelso. Just as I reached the stop it suddenly started raining extremely heavily, but it had stopped by the time the bus got to Kelso.
The Ross River Dam is just south of Kelso, and right before the dam there is a wetland with the unusual name of “the Borrow Pits”. The lakes here were created when soil was being dug out to build the walls of the dam – in effect they are pits from which the soil was borrowed. It’s not a great name because clearly the soil isn’t going to be returned, so it in fact wasn’t “borrowed”, but that’s where the name comes from.
There were, again, not a lot of birds in total at the Borrow Pits, although there were still more than on any of the water remnants at the Townsville Common. There were Great, Plumed, Little and Cattle Egrets, White-faced Herons, a White-necked Heron, a Black-necked Stork, White Ibis, Royal Spoonbills, Pied Stilts, Little Black and Little Pied Cormorants, Australian Darters, and even a Caspian Tern. The only waterfowl were Black Ducks, which is the default around here at the moment.
Easily the best bird of the day, week, probably month, was a pair of Channel-billed Cuckoos high in a tree being mobbed by a posse of Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Magpie-Larks, Figbirds and Drongos. If you’ve seen almost any kind of cuckoo before then forget those because Channel-billed Cuckoos are totally different. They are huge birds with an enormous beak, like a prehistoric-looking hornbill. They are also migratory, going back and forth between Australia and New Guinea, so are only in Australia for part of the year. Even so, it’s amazing how infrequently people see them when they are so big.
The lake of the Ross River Dam was very large and almost empty of birds. There was a big flock of pelicans and cormorants fishing together in the distance but otherwise the only birds were a few Darters here and there.
Walking back to the bus stop I swung by the Borrow Pits again, where I saw two more cuckoo species in the trees – a Sahul Brush Cuckoo and an Australian Koel. There were also Agile Wallabies out feeding and drinking on the far side of the lake.
I saw 53 species of birds today:
Australian Little Grebe, Australian Darter, Great Cormorant, Little Black Cormorant, Little Pied Cormorant, Australian Pelican, Plumed Whistling Duck, Great Egret, Plumed Egret, Little Egret, White-faced Heron, White-necked Heron, Eastern Cattle Egret, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Caspian Tern, Whistling Kite, Black Kite, Nankeen Kestrel, Feral Pigeon, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Spotted Dove, Peaceful Dove, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Australian Koel, Channel-billed Cuckoo, Sahul Brush Cuckoo, Blue-winged Kookaburra, Dollarbird, Welcome Swallow, Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike, Magpie-Lark, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Brown Honeyeater, Brown-backed Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Yellow Honeyeater, White-gaped Honeyeater, White-throated Honeyeater, Helmeted Friarbird, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie, Spangled Drongo, Olive-backed Oriole, Australian Figbird, Great Bowerbird.
Townsville
I was in Townsville for just a few days, and this was the final day before heading up to Cairns. I had checked through eBird and saw that a sighting and photo had been added for five Spotted Whistling Ducks being seen at the Melaleuca Viewing Area just two days ago (the day I went to Magnetic Island). This viewing area is on the long dirt road coming into the Common from the south so I hadn’t gone there on my earlier visit. The ducks may have even been there then.
I caught the bus to Pallarenda as before and walked through to the Freshwater Hide which is next to the parking area at the north end of the long dirt road.
The “usual” birds were seen along the way, including Brolgas, Crimson Finches, Owl Finches, Brown-backed Honeyeaters and a Pheasant Coucal. A bird less usually seen (on this trip) was a Banded Rail.
From the Freshwater Hide it is about 3km south to the Melaleuca Viewing Area. On the way you pass by the Pandanus Viewing Area which is completely dry at this time of year. The only birds there were some Brolgas and a White-faced Heron.
Between Pandanus and Melaleuca I had an unexpected lifer, when I saw a bird of prey with a red underside soaring overhead. I went through the raptors to make sure there was nothing else it could be, and it was indeed a Square-tailed Kite. This is a bird which is patchily distributed across Australia. I’m not sure it’s a bird you can specifically target because it could be anywhere, you’d just have to come across it through chance as I did.
At the Melaleuca Viewing Area I found that there was still a good amount of water there. It was clearly much reduced from what it would normally be like, but it was still a bigger lagoon than what was remaining at the hides.
There were a fair number of birds present, from Comb-crested Jacanas and Black-fronted Dotterels pottering about on the edges to the bigger wading birds like spoonbills and various egrets. I was pleased to see quite a number of Glossy Ibis there – a new one for my Australian bird list.
What wasn’t there, though, were the Spotted Whistling Ducks. I scanned through the Black Ducks in case they were hiding amongst them, and moved around the lagoon to get different angles in case they were tucked away somewhere, but I didn’t see them anywhere.
Another half a kilometre or so along the dirt road from the Melaleuca Viewing Area is the Payet’s Viewing Tower which overlooks another (currently very small) lagoon. There was a scattering of birds here, but nothing which wasn’t at the other areas.
From the tower, continuing south along the dirt road, it is around 3km more to the main road running down the coast (and then another kilometre to the nearest bus stop). In this stretch there is a track called the Forest Walk which is a loop trail. It was the middle of the day by now, so it was much too hot for many birds to be out. The only ones seen were Leaden Flycatcher and Helmeted Friarbird.
There was a lot of walking in the heat today but, while I didn’t get to see the Spotted Whistling Ducks, I did see a Square-tailed Kite which is better in a way. With the ducks there are known sites where they can reasonably be expected to occur (with luck, I guess!), but the kite wasn’t even on my list of birds to search for because they are too random.
I saw 52 species of birds today:
Australian Brush Turkey, Australian Black Duck, Great Egret, Plumed Egret, Little Egret, White-faced Heron, Eastern Cattle Egret, Brolga, Banded Rail, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Comb-crested Jacana, Pied Stilt, Spur-winged Plover, Black-fronted Dotterel, Silver Gull, Square-tailed Kite, Feral Pigeon, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Bar-shouldered Dove, Peaceful Dove, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Pheasant Coucal, Common Kookaburra, Dollarbird, Rainbow Bee-eater, Welcome Swallow, Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike, White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike, Tawny Grassbird, Golden-headed Cisticola, Leaden Flycatcher, Magpie-Lark, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Mistletoebird, Brown-backed Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Helmeted Friarbird, Owl Finch, Crimson Finch, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie, Spangled Drongo, Great Bowerbird, Australian Raven.
I was in Townsville for just a few days, and this was the final day before heading up to Cairns. I had checked through eBird and saw that a sighting and photo had been added for five Spotted Whistling Ducks being seen at the Melaleuca Viewing Area just two days ago (the day I went to Magnetic Island). This viewing area is on the long dirt road coming into the Common from the south so I hadn’t gone there on my earlier visit. The ducks may have even been there then.
I caught the bus to Pallarenda as before and walked through to the Freshwater Hide which is next to the parking area at the north end of the long dirt road.
The “usual” birds were seen along the way, including Brolgas, Crimson Finches, Owl Finches, Brown-backed Honeyeaters and a Pheasant Coucal. A bird less usually seen (on this trip) was a Banded Rail.
From the Freshwater Hide it is about 3km south to the Melaleuca Viewing Area. On the way you pass by the Pandanus Viewing Area which is completely dry at this time of year. The only birds there were some Brolgas and a White-faced Heron.
Between Pandanus and Melaleuca I had an unexpected lifer, when I saw a bird of prey with a red underside soaring overhead. I went through the raptors to make sure there was nothing else it could be, and it was indeed a Square-tailed Kite. This is a bird which is patchily distributed across Australia. I’m not sure it’s a bird you can specifically target because it could be anywhere, you’d just have to come across it through chance as I did.
At the Melaleuca Viewing Area I found that there was still a good amount of water there. It was clearly much reduced from what it would normally be like, but it was still a bigger lagoon than what was remaining at the hides.
There were a fair number of birds present, from Comb-crested Jacanas and Black-fronted Dotterels pottering about on the edges to the bigger wading birds like spoonbills and various egrets. I was pleased to see quite a number of Glossy Ibis there – a new one for my Australian bird list.
What wasn’t there, though, were the Spotted Whistling Ducks. I scanned through the Black Ducks in case they were hiding amongst them, and moved around the lagoon to get different angles in case they were tucked away somewhere, but I didn’t see them anywhere.
Another half a kilometre or so along the dirt road from the Melaleuca Viewing Area is the Payet’s Viewing Tower which overlooks another (currently very small) lagoon. There was a scattering of birds here, but nothing which wasn’t at the other areas.
From the tower, continuing south along the dirt road, it is around 3km more to the main road running down the coast (and then another kilometre to the nearest bus stop). In this stretch there is a track called the Forest Walk which is a loop trail. It was the middle of the day by now, so it was much too hot for many birds to be out. The only ones seen were Leaden Flycatcher and Helmeted Friarbird.
There was a lot of walking in the heat today but, while I didn’t get to see the Spotted Whistling Ducks, I did see a Square-tailed Kite which is better in a way. With the ducks there are known sites where they can reasonably be expected to occur (with luck, I guess!), but the kite wasn’t even on my list of birds to search for because they are too random.
I saw 52 species of birds today:
Australian Brush Turkey, Australian Black Duck, Great Egret, Plumed Egret, Little Egret, White-faced Heron, Eastern Cattle Egret, Brolga, Banded Rail, Black-necked Stork, Royal Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Australian White Ibis, Bush Stone-Curlew, Comb-crested Jacana, Pied Stilt, Spur-winged Plover, Black-fronted Dotterel, Silver Gull, Square-tailed Kite, Feral Pigeon, Torresian Imperial Pigeon, Bar-shouldered Dove, Peaceful Dove, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Rainbow Lorikeet, Pheasant Coucal, Common Kookaburra, Dollarbird, Rainbow Bee-eater, Welcome Swallow, Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike, White-bellied Cuckoo-Shrike, Tawny Grassbird, Golden-headed Cisticola, Leaden Flycatcher, Magpie-Lark, White-breasted Woodswallow, Sahul Sunbird, Mistletoebird, Brown-backed Honeyeater, Blue-faced Honeyeater, Helmeted Friarbird, Owl Finch, Crimson Finch, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie, Spangled Drongo, Great Bowerbird, Australian Raven.
Townsville to Cairns
Travel day! There’s not much to write about. I caught the Greyhound bus at 8am and was in Cairns at c.2.30pm. The arrival time was supposed to be 1.40pm but there were roadworks in several places along the route which slowed things down considerably.
The bus was half empty which was surprising because when I was booking it most of the seats were marked as occupied. However, when the bus reached Mission Beach that was when the other half of the passengers got on.
I kept my eyes open for Cassowaries along the road to Mission Beach but none were seen. This is a bird very high on my “wanted list”. When I was in the Cairns area twenty years ago, everywhere I went I was just missing Cassowaries. At Kuranda, Cow Bay, Cape Tribulation, the Daintree - there was always a Cassowary there the day before, or sometimes even just an hour before, but never when I was there. I even stayed a night at Cassowary House in Kuranda specifically to see their resident family of Cassowaries, but the two days I was there were the first days in ages when the birds didn’t turn up.
Etty Bay (way south of Cairns) is now the recommended spot for Cassowary, but the closest bus stop is at Innisfail which is still many kilometres distant and I wouldn’t fancy walking along the main highway. I’ll just be trying my luck instead at the other usual spots (Kuranda etc).
In Cairns I stayed at the Cairns City Backpackers. It’s just around the corner from the Greyhound stop at “Cairns Central” (the train station, the main city bus terminal, and also a mall), and it had the cheapest rooms on the booking sites (although still NZ$76 per night – and that’s a room without an attached bathroom). In Cairns, and also in some other cities like Darwin, many of the hostels have age-specifications now, usually something like 16-35, which means I can’t just stay anywhere even if I wanted to be in a dorm.
I’m in two minds as to whether I’d recommend staying here. The location is convenient in that it is very close to the buses and a mall with a supermarket, and it is quiet, but it is very basic for the price, the shared kitchen is tiny and not very clean, and there aren’t enough bathrooms (although both the latter points weren’t an issue when I was there because there seemed to be only a few other people staying there).
The main negative however was that the key to my room was the same key which unlocked both the gates at the street (which are closed at night). When I checked in the guy said the key also unlocked the gates but it wasn’t until a bit later that this sunk in and I realised that this meant that every door key unlocked the gate, which must mean that every room has the same lock, which means that everyone staying there can get into every room.
I was only in Cairns for two days then went up to Atherton. I’m back in Cairns now (as of posting this), so if anyone has suggestions or ideas on where to go for wildlifey things – either in Cairns itself or in the surrounding areas - then feel free to share and I can see what works for me.
I saw just 12 species of birds today - I didn’t see much of anything from the bus, and I didn’t do anything in Cairns after arrival:
Little Black Cormorant, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Black Kite, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Rainbow Bee-eater, Welcome Swallow, Willy Wagtail, White-breasted Woodswallow, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie.
Travel day! There’s not much to write about. I caught the Greyhound bus at 8am and was in Cairns at c.2.30pm. The arrival time was supposed to be 1.40pm but there were roadworks in several places along the route which slowed things down considerably.
The bus was half empty which was surprising because when I was booking it most of the seats were marked as occupied. However, when the bus reached Mission Beach that was when the other half of the passengers got on.
I kept my eyes open for Cassowaries along the road to Mission Beach but none were seen. This is a bird very high on my “wanted list”. When I was in the Cairns area twenty years ago, everywhere I went I was just missing Cassowaries. At Kuranda, Cow Bay, Cape Tribulation, the Daintree - there was always a Cassowary there the day before, or sometimes even just an hour before, but never when I was there. I even stayed a night at Cassowary House in Kuranda specifically to see their resident family of Cassowaries, but the two days I was there were the first days in ages when the birds didn’t turn up.
Etty Bay (way south of Cairns) is now the recommended spot for Cassowary, but the closest bus stop is at Innisfail which is still many kilometres distant and I wouldn’t fancy walking along the main highway. I’ll just be trying my luck instead at the other usual spots (Kuranda etc).
In Cairns I stayed at the Cairns City Backpackers. It’s just around the corner from the Greyhound stop at “Cairns Central” (the train station, the main city bus terminal, and also a mall), and it had the cheapest rooms on the booking sites (although still NZ$76 per night – and that’s a room without an attached bathroom). In Cairns, and also in some other cities like Darwin, many of the hostels have age-specifications now, usually something like 16-35, which means I can’t just stay anywhere even if I wanted to be in a dorm.
I’m in two minds as to whether I’d recommend staying here. The location is convenient in that it is very close to the buses and a mall with a supermarket, and it is quiet, but it is very basic for the price, the shared kitchen is tiny and not very clean, and there aren’t enough bathrooms (although both the latter points weren’t an issue when I was there because there seemed to be only a few other people staying there).
The main negative however was that the key to my room was the same key which unlocked both the gates at the street (which are closed at night). When I checked in the guy said the key also unlocked the gates but it wasn’t until a bit later that this sunk in and I realised that this meant that every door key unlocked the gate, which must mean that every room has the same lock, which means that everyone staying there can get into every room.
I was only in Cairns for two days then went up to Atherton. I’m back in Cairns now (as of posting this), so if anyone has suggestions or ideas on where to go for wildlifey things – either in Cairns itself or in the surrounding areas - then feel free to share and I can see what works for me.
I saw just 12 species of birds today - I didn’t see much of anything from the bus, and I didn’t do anything in Cairns after arrival:
Little Black Cormorant, Spur-winged Plover, Silver Gull, Black Kite, Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, Rainbow Bee-eater, Welcome Swallow, Willy Wagtail, White-breasted Woodswallow, House Sparrow, Common Mynah, Australian Magpie.
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