I, naturally, woke up early to make the most of being on Rottnest as soon as I wake up. It would probably be quite nice to spend an extended period of time on Rottnest because although the accommodation is relatively expensive, you can bring across basically as much stuff as you like and there is a full kitchen. After dropping of my key, I headed out for the day's birding to thoroughly bird the Western side of the island and the mixture of rocky coastline, lakes, and heath with patches of remnant woodland. A surprising bird sighting was a Sacred Kingfisher which I wasn't expecting because they mainly migrate North at this time of year. Although the lakes were extremely full and just about bursting their banks with the unusually large amount of rain over the ... read more

I’ve used the word ‘chilling’ quite a lot in this blog. I don’t know why, I don’t particularly like the phrase to be honest, but it’s just one that I seem to employ quite regularly when I’m too lazy to be more eloquent. Anyway, I’ve used it as the title today, because it’s winter here and relatively far south so it does get fairly cold, easily into the single digits and up into the hills it almost approaches freezing during the nights. Although it’s actually warmer than I was expecting and it’s not much colder than the Atherton Tablelands near Cairns which are cold because of the high altitude. It’s rather like a British autumn here, with daily rain at the moment that’s mostly drizzle and comparable temperatures to a British autumn. I’ve been in Perth ... read more

I managed to get up for morning birding this morning which was nice because there was a lot of bird activity despite the fact that it was absolutely freezing cold (11 degrees) although my cold is definitely getting better because I was able to keep warm somewhat (as would normally be the case for me even down into the single digit negatives). 11 degrees is quite cold for a tropical rainforest though. (Well, almost tropical) I didn't get up to see the lunar eclipse because the moon was up all night scaring off all th hundreds of pygmy possums that would have otherwise come out and then the moon had the gall to expect me and look at it. Selfish and self-entitled that moon. Does anyone really like it? All it does is sit there not ... read more

We checked out of our Atherton accommodation in the late morning as our final two nights in the tablelands would be in a different place at Chambers Wildlfie Lodge at Lake Eacham which is just down the road. The whole tableland is a very small area. Before going on though, I had to buy some warm clothes from Atherton. I will be borrowing warm clothes from relatives in Perth and I hardly brought any warm clothes at all since I usually am ok in warm weather clothes even down to single digit temperatures but I seem to have lost my temperature regulation ability with this illness so I needed some warmer clothes. We then headed on towards Lake Eacham with a brief stop at the Curtain Fig and then a longer stop at Lake Barrine. The ... read more

We headed off from Mossman in the late morning to go to our next stop, a very short 25km drive back towards Mount Lewis where I had been the last two nights. I had managed to persuade my family to have a one night stay and a place called Kingfisher Park Birders Lodge and the sort of place it is should be evident from the name. It's a small property with a patch of rainforest with lots of birds (and some mammals) in it and a creek at the bottom that is home to a platypus. They have the showiest Pied Monarchs that I've ever seen, several bird tables about that attract finches and doves and honeyeater, and normally resident Pittas but apparently recent relatively cold weather means they're not about at the moment. The owner ... read more