Not the Barrier Reef

We were back in the more familiar environs of Gordons Bay at the weekend. Its warming up a bit but still nothing like the bathtub water of the tropical north. We did see a smashing big Wobbegong though and at last Allan got a nice clear picture although I think he was a bit scared to go round to the head end and get a close up!

Wobbegong

Road-trip to Cairns

The van

Does this explain the $1 a day rental price?

Well a campervan came up at the last minute and so the holiday was on. They let us hire it for $1 a day and as long as we got it from Sydney to Cairns in 8 days they'd throw in $210 worth of fuel as well. Can't complain about that.

Crossing the border

We put another 3500 km on the clock which had already done over a staggering 360,000 but despite this the van was great. Apart from the fact that the rego was out of date making it illegal, the van was super and made for a very pleasant place to stay.

Surfers Paradise (?!)

Howard feels at home in Noosa

We set off north and did pretty much all of NSW in one go stopping a couple of hours short of the border in Yamba (rubbish). We then stayed a night in Byron Bay (hippy town but pretty nice), Lamington NP (could have been a bit quieter) and then arrived in Noosa. This place is magic with great food and lovely people so we stayed a second night meaning we had a real slog up to Mackay the day after.

Fishing in Noosa

From Mackay we headed onto Townsville, which is a good place to go out of an evening, before arriving in Cairns 8 days later on time.

A long day's drive

We then had two full days in Cairns to visit the reef (snorkeling with turtles!) and recover before the flight home.

Cairns at last

Out on the reef

Birds of the road-trip

Peaceful Dove

There wasn't enough time for extensive birding on the trip and so only a meagre three new ones were added to the list.

Square-tailed kite in the bag...

We had one night and an early morning in Lamington NP just over the border into Queensland. This should be an awesome birding spot but with the Queensland school holidays in full swing, the place was packed and I think most birds had run away. I was onto a Lyrebird of some sort at one stage and plunged off the track into the jungle only to give up after being attacked by a group of vicious plants. I returned to the path bleeding and then the next day all the little puncture wounds turned into big red boils. Crazy. And it may not even have been an Albert's Lyrebird anyway. The consolation prize consisted of several friendly Logrunners #382 which seemed happy enough next to the path.

... and the Freckled Duck

Between Lamington and Noosa we stopped at two sites reported online and much to Howard's relief we spotted the birds at both places in only a few minutes. A pair of nesting Square-tailed Kites #383 in a southern Brisbane suburb and a Freckled Duck #384 in a pond in the middle of the town of Gatton (only a slight detour!).

Anyone see a honeyeater?

Later on the trip we spent a couple of hours in the Eungella NP as I tried in vain to hunt down the Eungella Honeyeater. Only discovered a few years back, it lives there and nowhere else. Eungella is aboriginal for "misty mountain" and this was fairly descriptive I'd say as a huge inpenetrable cloud sat over the hills cutting visibility to about 10-20 m in places. No wonder they only found the honeyeater a few years back.

Pelican