Month: May 2018

Toowoomba Region / Redwood Park

Published on by Anthony and Stephanie2 Comments

Water Bird Habitat

The Waterbird Habitat – Showgrounds Toowoomba

Wow, what a day, it started a bit shabby when we got up extra early to have our pod in at the suspension specialists by 8 am. It seems they forgot about us and wouldn’t have space for at least a few hours, so we trundled back to the Toowoomba Showgrounds and stayed hitched up, got the camera and binoculars out and wandered down to the dam here. We have been to these grounds before but didn’t realise there is quite a bit of bird life there, at least a few hundred Plumed whistling ducks, they are just gorgeous with their continuous whistling chatter, a pair of night herons hiding in the trees, two pink eared ducks plus of course the standard cormorants and black ducks etc. Anthony got some great photos of a little corella flying over the dam, there are hundreds of those around here.

Corellas at the Showgrounds

Eventually we could take the van in at 10:30am. Then we drove down to the bottom of the range to a place called Redwood Park, blink and you would miss it, we only knew about it after googling birdwatching in Toowoomba and Wow, is there some bird life there. Lots of bugs and crickets which equals lots of birds and this really isn’t a good time for birdwatching being almost the start of winter. There’s heaps of walking tracks but we didn’t walk very far at all and found a great spot where the honeyeaters were coming down to drink in a rock pool. We will definitely go back for another look and walk a bit further and also I reckon in spring or summer it must be amazing there, we will have to come back somehow then.

Birds of Redwood Park
We picked the van up late afternoon and all went well though we do have a few more issues to deal with ( under there) there is always something . So we had a really good day, great weather and tomorrow we really have to start some maintenance work, washing, polishing, paint the roof, do some siliconing , amongst quite a few annoying little jobs we havent had time to deal with, though it might be a late start with 3 degrees expected in the morning😬😬
Enjoy the pics, Cheers
Steph and Anthony.

Lamington Ranges / Canungra (Our first Blog)

Published on by Anthony and Stephanie14 Comments

Start of Border Track, Lamington Ranges

Hello everyone,

We had a great first week away from Stanthorpe and Work. It’s taken a little while to get into a travel routine after full on working for seven months and having a set routine for shopping eating, sleeping etc. It’s a bit hard to change but we are getting there.

In with the new
Out with the old

We stopped in Warwick on the way to Canungra, where our new bald eagle head sticker was waiting. Its called (a bad hair day and cross-eyed) funny hey? Its our 4th sticker in 10 years so not too bad. The last one we put on ourselves and it’s quite a big job so we decided to leave it to the professionals this time and only took about an hour then we were on our way. Lots of road works and the dreaded lollipop men seemed to be out in force which seems to be standard on Qld roads.

Canungra Showgrounds
Our campsite at Canungra

It’s always nice pulling into the Showgrounds in Canungra, the gateway to Binna Burra and O’reilly’s, both in the Lamington Range NP. That night we headed down to the Gold Coast to catch up with my sister Denise and her hubby Mark. We went to the Outback Spectacular horse show, it was a great night out.

Outback Spectacular
Celebrating Nissi’s Birthday
The next morning we hightailed it up to Binna Burra where we did a 5 hour hike through the rainforest. It’s just beautiful country up there, through some nice big trees and a beautiful waterfall. Sadly. we couldn’t get good photos because the sun was in the wrong place. There weren’t many birds about, but I guess it is winter.
Moran'sFalls
Moran’s Falls, Lamington Ranges
On the Coomera Trail, Lamington Ranges
The next day Mark and Denise came and stayed in Canungra overnight so we drove up to O’reilly’s, which is about 1 hours drive and a very windy road, and of course, plenty of road works to contend with, as they have had a lot of landslides. We had more luck with birds, as they feed them there. Lots of beautiful parrots and rainforest birds, we were hoping to get photos of the amazing regent bowerbirds we had seen there before but being winter it seems a lot of their usual birds are on holidays somewhere warmer.
bowerbird-708-x-400

Find more info about the lamington Ranges and O’reilly’s here

Steph & Denise having fun with the locals at O’reilly’s
Fortunately there is plenty of bird life just around the grounds here at the Showgrounds, as it’s next to Canungra Creek.
Yesterday we drove to Wyarolong Dam about an hour, it’s near Beaudesert, a beautiful spot, heaps of walking tracks but only saw a few birds. I’m sure around spring though it must be a place to visit.
On the way back we stopped in to visit one of Anthony’s friends from the Navy whom he hadn’t seen for about 25 years, Leanne and her husband Ian made us very welcome on their beautiful property near Jimboomba. The scones and great coffee were very welcome. Their Beautiful horses, dogs, cat, children and chooks were very friendly. So all in all we had a great day.
Today we have made our way back up Cunningham’s Gap to Toowoomba to have some work done to the suspension of the van among other jobs which are overdue. This will be a good week to catch up on that.
Cheers for now
Stephanie & Anthony