Tuesday 29th April
I woke real early and got up and got the fire going, frost on the ground and mist over the river, lovely spot but we decided to move on as its too cold.
Our set up at the Mersey river.
Fog over the river
Blue wren
Scarlet Robin
Mersey river
Murchison Range
Coming down the hill into Penguin
Monday 6th – Tuesday 7th
Monday was sorting, packing and stocking up for heading west.
Tuesday we headed off at 10.30 am and going to the Campasepe River camping spot. Before we headed off the tree loppers arrived and I got some shots of them doing there work. Had a good run thru, camp site is nice and roomy, shade and nice toilets etc, no showers. River was dry and they had not long done a burn off.
Star trails. Campasepe River.
Tree Loppers at work at the relations place.
Toilet block, rubbish bins, parking and camping. Campasepe River.
Apostile birds at Charters Towers Dump point area, so hot this day.
Columbia mine shaft entry. Charters Towers.
Loved this, on the way today.
Macrossan River and rail bridge, big camping area here.
Macrossan camping. This is not far out of Charters Towers.
Monday 29th
Happy birthday to my eldest son, big 50. 🙂
After getting a few things done around the camper we headed off to Cape Bowling Green, packed lunch as we know it will be an all day tiki-tour. There is camping at the National park but is pretty ordinary and heaps of midges. Went into Cungulla, what a lovely place, sat by the estuary, a lady was throwing out a round net, was dam good at it as well. Heaps of Brahminy kites and ospreys soaring, lovely to watch. Camels with dwarf cows and bulls, the cows were jet black and I didn’t get a good photo.
A Storm Bird or Pheasant Coucal.
Rocks everywhere here just like at Magnetic Island.
Bush after the fire, looks so nice and green new growth.
Part of the salt pans as we enter the road to Cape Bowling Green
Camel
Brahminy Kite
Lady throwing out her net. This is at Cungulla. Salt Pans,
Friday 19th
Had a neat day, went out to stay at some peoples place at West Point on Magnetic Island, so beautiful. Checked out the beach, then got to Sunglow Ave. This place is incredible, all rooms are like bungalows and connected with board walks, this is their house, big dams, bird life amazing. Beautifully landscaped and then on two boundary’s is National Parks, and ocean so very private. This place is actually For Sale, I have included some photo’s and you can contact the owners direct if you wish to know more about the property, its on 10 acres. Contact me on my contact page for phone numbers of owners.
Main entrance to the dining area
Entrance to the kitchen bungalow and dining room on the right in the bush.
Dining room
Open aired dinning room attached to the kitchen bungalow.
Other end of lounge bungalow.
Inside lounge bungalow.
main bedroom bungalow from lounge bungalow.
One dam and lounge bungalow on right, guest room bungalow on left.
Landscaped gardens.
Kitchen bungalow. Main bedroom bungalow in background.
Looking out from kitchen sink to lounge and dams through the doors.
Board walk from kitchen to lounge bungalow.
Main bedroom bungalow on left and bathroom, wardrobe and laundry in room on the right.
Kitchen bungalow from lounge bungalow.
View from the lounge bungalow looking out.
By the Dam and fire.
Andrew heading out to the fire pit, we had our meal there in evening, really nice. Andrews the Chef so meal was great.
Bush Curlew in the palms by the Dam.
Beach 5 mins from the property at West point.
landscaped gardens at Sunglow Ave. Lounge Bungalow in background.
Woke to a beautiful day so we had breakfast, cleaned up and Don got the tarp up over the camper, so now we are secured for the rains. The dam/lake is low but still lots of water. We have toilets, cold showers and trees. Very uneven ground as it is all just paddocks,so you get what you can. Lots of people with boats, blow up canoes and rubber ducks. Don and Jack went rowing several times. I got tea all prepared early so didnt matter about the weather. A chap called around to all the sites, hes getting a delivery service up and running and was asking about what we might want. Gets the stock from Monto and keeps his delivery fees low. His email for info is womble_91@hotmail.com Jamie Harris is his name. He owns the 4×4 shop in town. We went for a big walk around all the bays, so big. Havent been to the wier yet. Had chicken tonight with veggies all in one pot. Don had a big fall today, thought he’d knocked himself out for a second, but he dented his head at the forehead by the hair line, got the bleeding stopped and put a cross plaster on it. Hes ended up with a very big bruise on his leg at the top. Weather does not know what it’s doing but its overcast and windy. Not as cold tonight with the cloud cover.
22nd April Tuesday to 23rd Wednesday
Packing up today and going to stay in Miles as we need to do a big wash. The fire was still going this morning so had my cuppa by it, so nice. Caravan Park pretty run down but clean enough, more to the point the washing machines were not to exe, so I got 3 loads washed and dried, hot showers and went to pub for tea. Was a very noisy night as we are right on the Hwy trucks all night, never mind catch up tonight.
Camp site at Miles caravan park
Red Winged Parrot
Red Winged Parrot
Red Winged Parrot
24th April Thursday
Up at 4.30 am made a cuppa and watched the sky change, all the miners heading off to work or coming home, so much mining and gas mining going on, unbelievable. Heading to Chinchilla to get Dons tablets, but we couldn’t get them so they ordered into Dalby so when we go there on Saturday they will have them for him. Off we go to Archer’s Crossing, get there and Chris & Kate are there, they decided to drag the holiday out a few more days. Stayed a couple of days here, lovely lot of water in the river, very green, some sort of algae in it so we did not put the rubber ducky in. Went for a big walk, did some night shooting and sat around the fire with Kate & Chris, bed by 8 pm.
River at Archers Crossing
Down at the boat ramp, Archers Crossing
Big area for camping
Archers Crossing camping, lots of room on the banks of the river
Wednesday 1st, Happy New Year to everyone.
Woke to another perfect day. Had my usual morning cuppa listening to the sounds, such a wonderful way to start a day. We had two Female bowers and 3 Male bowers hanging about camp, playing in the wood pile, getting grubs I think. After breaky got cleaned up and got some shots of the bowers.
This dark Bower is the Male.
This is the Female Bower.
Just relaxed around camp, don’t even need to leave camp to get to see things, always something going on. Lots of people heading down the road out of here and we just have new neighbours down the far side move in. Went for a walk up the road and saw baby Willy Wagtails, mum was protecting them from other birds, that’s what caught my attention, her noise, so cute they are, as is all babies. 🙂
Baby Willy Wagtails.
Baby Kingfisher.
The country road. I have used Infrared on it.
Had another camp fire tonight. Good night. This is the second to last day of our holiday 😦
Tuesday 31st
Woke a wee bit later this morning, was great, Kay & Mark were all set up and ready to leave early so we all had a cuppa and said cheerio for now, this was 7.15 am.
We had a very overcast day so this is good, as I went down to the kingfisher spot and sat, but not a lot happening, I could here the kingfisher going off down the creek further, so headed back to camp. People on the other side of us were gone by lunch time so we now have all the paddock to ourselves, except for the bulls all going off and a goanna visiting again, plus there is a storm brewing.
These two bulls were always in competition, they must have their own girls and protecting there inheritance.
Saw the most amazing sight, sitting watching the rain this afternoon and saw that the gum leaves were jumping up in the air, a good couple of inches and I haven’t been drinking ha-ha, but really watching, it was the big spits of rain hitting the very dry leaves made them jump, I wish now that I’d taken a wee video shot as photo’s didn’t do it. Filled all the containers up again, so that’s good saves our tank water. After the rain had stopped the thunder continued for hours just rolling around the hills, such a great sound.
Sat around the fire for as long as I could stay awake, the thunder was still rumbling, made for a very pleasant and relaxing time, but didn’t make it to midnight, the end of another year 2013 over.
Monday 30th
At least the nights are quiet cool considering the hot days we’er having, so that’s a blessing, once 5 am arrives it’s time for me to get up, the days are to beautiful to waste it in bed, had my morning cuppa and sat listening to the birds etc, then decided I would go down to my spot where I know the kingfishers lands to fish and I’ll set up my bird hide, leave it there while having breakfast so as not to disturb it very much. I have the water as back ground so that’s not great but will have to try anyway.
The morning has been quiet, but while I was in the bird hide I could hear the kingfisher really going off, so pocked my head out and saw that the kingfisher was attacking the Goanna, so it must be getting to close to where the baby kingfishers are.
After lunch took a walk down to the Ford to see what bird life was there but it was getting to hot even for the critters, not even much bird sounds. On my way back I saw a movement in the bush so went thru the fence to check it out, turns out to be a baby Bower bird, so cute. Mother Bower bird was watching, so took a couple of shots and slowly walked away so not to disturb them, it had obviously fallen out of the nest as it was very young.
Did a trial with frog shooting tonight using the Betta Beamer, it’s a flash with a defuser on it.
Friday 27th
Went into Warwick to get some stores, it rained last night and on our way back from Warwick you could see the storms brewing, fork lightning, black clouds. When we got back Kay said that it had really rained which we could tell, then only a few showers and now all fined up. So good for the country side, they need rain very badly.
Went to get some photo’s of birds down by the water hole and the chap came down to where we were going to sit on the log which we had been doing before and said there is a python carpet snake sitting in there, he showed us, we got some photo’s and then moved away to the water. It was beautiful and very curled up, reckon about 6 feet long.
When we came back up to the trailer, Don noticed a small frog jump out by the fire pit, then another and then when we started really looking there was like a migration, so many all along the bank right up to Kay’s site. So tiny, didn’t know what sort they were as hard to tell when very small, i’m talking about as small as my thumb nail.
Made a Gluten Free bread in the camp oven yesterday, turned out bad, burn’t the bum out it, far to much in the small camp oven, and the coals were to hot in the fire, so made another one today, and only ¼ of the amount, turned out good to look at, bad to eat, then I knew that it still has to rise, so tomorrow I will try again but do it in the Weber. I will get it right sooner or later.
Mark is doing a big casserole in the camp oven for all of us, and I have we just realized that there is mushrooms in it and Don can’t eat them, so he will do something else for himself.
Looking at K & M site from our site, posting this to show how roomy it is.
Our site from the entrance, we have neighbours on the right side, but still plenty of room. K & M site is to the left of this image.
K & M site from the bottom of entrance.
M & K sitting back relaxing, our site in the background. To the left of where Mark is sitting was a Red Bellied black snake today.
This is a carpet snake of some sorts, just bathing in the sun, warming up, there are heaps of little birds in this area, so plenty of prey for him I imagine. 
A frog in the grass in daylight. He is the Lesueur’s Tree Frog.
Judy's Trekabout 