Claire's Aussie-bucket-list Road Trip _ 01

My goddaughter, Claire, (from the UK) has been in Australia on the second year of her working visa. During her first year we did a short trip featuring Kangaroo Island. This time her dreams were bigger (way bigger). Before she went back home -- to a job hopefully -- there were certain places she wanted to see. A summary would be Cairns, Darwin, Uluru.

Claire especially wanted to see some waterfalls, any crystal shop we passed and to do some hiking (although the English view of hiking is a nice walk along well defined tracks. My previous excursion on the Three Greys trip meant my knee was not in a good state for any vigorous, challenging hikes but that meant I was not a hindrance to Superzoom Claire as she powered through hikes left, right and centre. Despite lots of chit-chatting on the phone and via social media, it wasn't until Claire came to Sale a few days before the off that we crystallised the plans around her revised bucket list of Lake Mungo, the Great Barrier Reef, Lawn Hill, Litchfield NP and Kakadu, Uluru, Coober Pedy and the Flinders Ranges. About 12,000 kms. Six weeks. I had to be back for lambing.

Although visiting several key birding areas in Australia, I assured Claire that it wouldn't be a birding trip. At all. However, I did stipulate that we had to do the western Victorian Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo count (on Day 2 of the trip), check out a Sandstone Shrike-thrush at Lawn Hill and look for Yellow-breasted Mannikins which had been reported very recently in Katherine. Owning the vehicle we were going in was a substantial bargaining chip!

After camping in Coleraine, spending a day doing 60km at 10kph for 8 RTBCs (we were one of the few teams to see them -- numbers well down this year) we checked out the Silo Art Trail running from Rupanyup to Patchewollock in north-western Victoria. It is a pretty impressive feat to produce 2-dimensional art of a 3-dimensional surface at any scale, let alone wheat silo scale!

Red-rumped Parrots Psephotus haematonotus

Seen at Coleraine. The male is colourful, the female less so.

Silo Art Trail

Rupanyup

Sheep Hills

Rosebery

Brim

Lascelles

Patchewollock

From there we headed north, through Mildura, to Lake Mungo National Park.

Wandering Dutchman eats Regent Honey

Or does he?

After our Culburra Beach experience we went searching for Rockwarbler in nearby Bomaderry Creek Reserve with a three kilometre walk through a gorge of beautiful environment but no Rockwarbler. A big dip. But did manage to spot a Brown Cuckoo-Dove on the way out.

Brown Cuckoo-Dove

An overnight stop with my cousin Edwina meant we were refreshed for the next couple of days in Capertee Valley looking for ... Regents Honeyeater. There were some Birdline NSW reports with an exact location where they had been seen in the last two days. We camped for two nights at Glen Davis; in the "village" itself with showers and shelters. Nice spot. Capertee Valley is very well set up for birding with info sheets available from the internet [click here] and locally. They have established 18 birding sites within the valley with advice on what birds are likely to be seen and visible roadside markers at these points. An excellent job indeed. Here are some of the birds we saw on our way in to the valley.

Brown Thornbill

Sacred Kingfisher with a BIG meal

Fan-tailed Cuckoo

The Regents had been seen 1.1 km beyond a locked gate going into the Capertee National Park. So we parked and walked. Lots of bird activity. Yellow-tufted Honeyeaters everywhere, Brown-headed, Yellow-faced, Striped, White-naped, White-plumed, Spinebills, Noisy Miner, Bell Miner but no Regent's. However, in the big tree at the nominated spot we saw Little Lorikeets. Boy, do they move fast. We were able to observe them for many minutes but it was a hard job. Taking photos was even harder.

Little Lorikeet

The next day we went back for another look. No luck again finding Regent's but here is what else was about.

Australian Hobby

Collared Sparrowhawk

Diamond Firetail

Grey-crowned Babbler

Red-rumped Parrot, male