On Mon 23rd, after one final morning stint with the birds, we reluctantly packed up and headed south towards the Tablelands. It was really sad to leave and even once we got to our destination at Mareeba Gorge, the cooler weather, and civilisation made us question whether we should have stayed just a few more days?? The upside though was that we would get to spend more time in this region, as we were unable to head to southern outback Queensland around Lake Diamantina, due to all of the recent flooding.
Anyway our stay at Granite Gorge was lovely- we had a nice bush camp down at the back near the edge of the swimming hole. We had the very cute Mareeba rock into camp throughout the day and night and there was a rope swing into the river- lots of fun!! The people here had a collection of various parrots and it was the Fiery Parrakeet that brought back memories for Chris from his childhood. He came across this rare but naturally genetic mutation red form of the Eastern Rosella) in the wild around bendigo. As he identified it, he was encouraged to study it
further and write it up, which he did and it was published in the Australian Birdwatcher. They also had a very tame and friendly Eclectus Parrot and Galah which we had the chance to hold and give a little scratch behind their head. Merlin was also lucky to hold their beautiful juvenile Storrs Monitor. We had 2 nights here and due to its proximity back to Mt Lewis and Julatten, we went in search again for the Parrot finch. Although we stumbled across some stunning little creeks and watercourses, we unfortunately didnt stumble across any of these cryptic birds.
From here we headed back to Bonadios RV park as we were hoping to glimpse the platypus and Lesser Sooty Owl again. Wow- what a change! We were now in the start of peak time for nomadic travellers and boy you could tell as the park was very full when we pulled in. Luckily Jan and Ross got there ahead of us and bagsed us a spot. Although the playtpus eluded us during this stint here, we were able to get onto the Lesser Sooty. We heard its unmistakable call late afternoon early evening as we were going to
head out to dinner. We decided to delay dinner just a little to find it. We were in luck and got some great views of this spectacular creature. We had a fabulous dinner and although exhausted, upon hearing it call when we got back to camp, Chris decided to head out in search of it again. He had a fabulous time and was rewarded for his dedication with some amazing photos. However, at 5am, this little guy was calling to us again and so very close that he even woke me up!! So we all decided we may not get this chance again for some time, so up we hopped in search of him. It was a wonderful experience.
Later on we packed up and headed out for Chambers Rainforest Retreat. We loved this place on the way up and given the awful weather we had at that time, were keen back and experience it under good conditions. Again it was so amazing having the in to our balcony each morning and seeing the striped possums in the evenings. Our focus this time was to see some new varieties of possum, the Lumholz Tree kangaroo
We headed out to the Nerada Tea Rooms as we knew the habitat surrounding here was good for tree kangaroos. This was a experience for us. We had a delicious lunch and then got lucky glimpsing the Tree kangaroos perched up high and munching on the large leaves, much like a koala. These creatures have a very cute face, large tan to dark brown rounded body with legs and tail. Although they are arboreal, on appearance they seem a bit awkward and non adapted to their environment and unfortunately they succumb to some of the perils of the forest, namely falling from a height.
The next day we again explored our local patch before heading back out to where the we encountered the tree kangaroos.
