New Years Day 2013

After having worked late and arriving home after 1 o'clock in the morning for 2 nights in a row (Ian waited up for me in sympathy), I wasn't going to have another late night on New Year's Eve.  Ian and I went to bed early and woke at 7 - a sleep in for us!

Waking refreshed, we decided to check and see what was happening at Hasties Swamp and anywhere else along the way.

So, up the scenic Kuranda Range we went, looking for Cassowaries along the way (in vain).  The low lying cloud amongst the rain forest trees created an eerie atmosphere.  I suppose the Cassowaries may have been a bit spooked and were hiding.

Then it was on to the Mareeba Saleyards which is usually a hive of activity for all sorts of birds - especially Channel-billed Cuckoos.

Channel-billed Cuckoos are the largest of our parasitic birds.  They migrate to New Guinea and Indonesia for the winter and come to the Mareeba Saleyards in summer to breed (they might go to other places as well).  They mainly use Currawongs, magpies and crows for their host as they are a large bird of 58-65cm.

Channel-billed Cuckoo

This Channel-billed Cuckoo got self concious when he caught me looking at his beak, so he flew away.

Channel-billed Cuckoo

Looking about for more victims for my camera lens, I spotted this mangy looking Sulphur-crested Cockatoo - minus his crest.

He also got self concious



                                                                     and flew away.


The reason there are so many birds at these saleyards is because of the huge and very old Fig Trees which grow there.

The cattle that come to the saleyards to be sold, enjoy the cool shade they provide.

Female Fig-bird

The Fig-birds that come to the saleyards, come there for the Fig Trees.  They love figs.

There is more than enough figs to go around and the Pale-headed Rosellas are taking their share.

Watching all the birds eating figs made us hungry, so we had some too. YUK! We had better go to McDonalds for some people food.

They forgot to put the sausage in Ian's Egg and Sausage burger.  He is used to them getting his order wrong and wouldn't let me take it back.

It was time to go to Hasties Swamp at Atherton.  As I watched the newly ploughed rich red earth of the Atherton Tablelands, I got my hopes up that I would see some Brolgas.

We have had a long dry season this year in the Wet Tropics and Hasties Swamp was transformed to Hasties Paddock with a small puddle.

Intermediate Egret in Breeding Plumage

But the small puddle held a beautiful treasure.

An Egret stood among a group of Glossy Ibis.  His filament-like breeding plumage couldn't fail to impress some luck lady Egret.

Then we got too close and he flew away.










Since the star of Hasties Swamp had flown away, we jumped back in the car and continued on our merry way.

Not long after we were treated to this family of Brolgas feeding in a paddock.  Brolgas eat snails, frogs, small fish, beetles etc and they also eat roots.



Birds that dwell on the waters edge and in wide open spaces have quite a large personal space that they don't like you to intrude into and Brolgas fall into this group so we left them in peace before they flew away.

Next place we dropped into was Lake Barrine which is always a popular place for locals and tourists alike.  It was so popular today that there were no parking places left, so we flew away.

Down the Gillies Range we went to make our circuit home.

"STOP!!!", I cried.

Ian stopped the car.

"Jabiru", I said.

Ian backed the car up to the previous paddock to where there was a stately Black-necked Stork, minding his own business.

We took photos, then I got out of the car to try and get closer.  Although he wasn't alarmed by me, he had his personal space of about 100 meters and as I got closer, he casually moved away so as to keep that distance.

The funny thing was that, as he was keeping his distance from me, he was moving into the territory of the Plovers which breed at this time of the year.  This caused them to turn into  what Ian calls 'Messerschmidts'.






So, I take a step forward and so does the Stork.  In swoops the plover.

The Messerschmidt  gets in closer and closer. . .

Too close for comfort.








The Black-necked Stork flies away with the Messerschmidt in hot pursuit.

 The beginning of a Happy New Bird Year for us and for you too.

Cairns Esplanade

Well, it's been about 6 weeks since we returned from our sailing trip.

Ian has signed up for some TAFE courses which will lead to a Coxswains cetificate and I started a new job driving shuttle buses between Port Douglas, Cairns Airport and Cairns city.

After not having worked for over 4 months to working a 6 day week, I needed a Guurrbi.

What's that?



I've copied this extract from Willie Gordon's site http://www.guurrbitours.com/

I've had the pleasure of taking one of Willie's rock art tours.  It is a spiritual interpretation which mingles the art with ones own personal experiences.

Well, now and then when Ian and I need to have some time out together, which is often, we say we need a Guurrbi, and off we go with our cameras and take photos of mainly birds, plants, nature or anything interesting.

Our Guurrbi might be a bit of a loose interpretation of Willie's but that's what it is to us.

Today I needed time out before starting work this afternoon so, with time being short, we did a little trip to the Cairns Esplanade, in the hope that the wading birds were pushed up close to the shore by the rising tide.

We had no sooner stepped out of the car and started to make our way, when a Willie Wagtail decided to take advantage of Ian's footsteps disturbing the insects in the grass.

Willie Wagtail waiting for someone to disturb the insects

Ian co-operates

Mangrove Robin

We had to sail to the top of Cape York Peninsular to see one of these Mangrove Robins as they were always secretive and elusive in Cairns.  Now they decide to let us see them up close back home.

White-Breasted Woodswallow

This little White-fronted Woodswallow returns to his lookout with a tasty little morsel.

A bumble-bee gathers nectar while a green ant sneaks up from underneath.  Green ants are very territorial.

Godwits

The tide was already high when we got there, so most of the waders had gone to where waders go when they're not wading.  A small group of Godwits had decided to relax by the water's edge.

Some fishermen (and kids) relaxing by the water's edge.

Ali in action

It was time to go as I had to work this afternoon.  On the way back to the car, I 'enjoyed' Ali and her owner enjoying a game.

Dogs are great people.

Low Isles 1

We - Ian and I - have just returned from a 4 month trip to the Kimberleys in our yacht "Winkali".  


 Low Isles: 

These islands are about 1 hours sail from Port Douglas on a favourable wind or 8nm in distance.  A popular destination for tourists and local yachties alike.

They consist of 2 islands: 
Woody Is which is the larger mangrove/coral cay island.  There are restrictions on access to this island as it is an important breeding area for many birds and other marine life.
Low Is is the smaller of the two and is a vegetated sandy coral cay with a light-house and several buildings on it which have accommodated light-house keepers and scientists in the past.  The light-house itself was automated in 1993 but there are still caretakers residing on the island who take weather readings, prepare the beach for tourists.  There is also a short interpretive walk across the island.

Woody Is

Low Is

What did we do?  We left Port Douglas with our crew for the day which consisted of Jessee (Ian's daughter), Josh and Gaye (Jessee's friends) and Lokki (Gaye's son).  Lokki turned out to be the feature of the day as his joy and enthusiasm was infectious.

With Lokki and Jessee sharing duties at the helm, we made it safely to Low Isles where we moored for the day.

Ian took the crew over to Low Is to do a bit of exploring, both above and below water.



Then it was back to Winkali where the fun escalated.   Marine life came from all directions to share lunch with us.

Batfish

Giant Trevally

More Batfish

Batfish and Ramora

This Black-tipped Reef Shark and his Ramora (sucker fish) wanted lunch too.

Lokki  wonders whether the shark has had enough lunch.

Low Isles is a favourite island destination for Ian and I.  Many birds breed there at different times of the year.  There are a few resident Ospreys which have built nests on the Lighthouse.  They are often seen flying back to their nests with a fish in their talons.  At the moment Bridled Terns, Blacknaped Terns and Pied Imperial Pigeons are busy in their nests.  

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I published this blog as 'Around Cairns' a couple of weeks ago and intended to be informative about the areas around Cairns that Ian and I go to.

I've changed my mind and decided to keep it in the Winkali theme, as when we went away.

See you soon.

The Great White Hunter Returns

Rob and Henma on Easy Rider

Wayne and Barbara on Casper

We finally left Seisia on 11 Nov on a small good weather window.  Casper, Easy Rider and 2 others left the day before to get a couple of hours start from Cape York.  






















We sailed day and night and caught up with them the following evening at Shelbourne Bay.

The following morning we left for Portland Roads at 3 a.m.  Not good sailing that day.  We tacked 24 times into head winds, and covered 82nm to do 45nm.  We made it into Portland Roads 18 hours later and amazingly, all four yachts made it within minutes of each other.

Bougainvillea

Portland Roads is a small settlement of shacks and homes with a permanent population of 8.  It has no shops or facilities except for a small restaurant which caters for the tourist trade during the dry season.  We all had a delicious meal there which was as good as any you could hope for in any city. Rob and Henma shared their beer and wine with the rest of us who had all ran out. 

Thanks Rob and Henma!

Hibiscus

Flowers grew in abundance creating cascades of colour.


We spent almost a week there waiting for the next favourable weather window.  Once again, we waited behind for another day after the others had set sail which was just as well.  The toilet decided to block that day.  I'll spare you the details of the unblocking. . .  you don't want to know :(

The weather had turned for the better and we had a great sail to Morris Is, then to Cape Melville where we met up with Easy Rider again.

Cape Melville

The coast was spectacular with boulder cloaked mountains, multicoloured foothills, brilliant green mangroves and golden beaches.


At first light  it was off again as we continued to take advantage of the weather window.




We set off on glorious calm seas, tinted with the rosy glow of early morning sunrise.


Crazily balanced rocks formed small islands off the end of the cape.





















Fish, dolphins and birds were all gorging themselves on the schools of bait fish passing through.  I had a happy morning with my camera and made the most of the calm conditions and early morning light.

The Great White Hunter made the most of the conditions and set the rod.   

I made a short movie.

This movie uses 27.7mb and goes for 1:41s.  

Next stop was at Cape Bedford where we had anchored on our way up.  We had an electrical storm that night which continued till early the next morning. Winkali got a much needed fresh water wash.

I was looking forward to the next stop which was Hope Isles.  We arrived there early in the afternoon and unlike the stop on the way up, the seas were friendly and sparkly.  

We launched the dinghy for the short trip to the island. On the way up from Cairns we had been moored off the island for 4 days and only ventured there once because of the windy conditions.  Since then, we have had anchorages which have been over a mile from the shore, due to shallow waters, and had to cross in all sorts of winds.  Now when we looked at the ridiculously short distance to the island, we couldn't believe that we hadn't gone over more often on the first stay.


The tide was high so I didn't get the variety of birds which feed on the sand reefs at low tide but I was rewarded with Terns feeding over a reef close by.

"You dive in and grab a fish like this, junior"

 I managed to capture this sequence of photos of a Crested Tern (the one with the fish) teaching its offspring to fish.

"now I hope you are watching"

"Because now I'll drop it so you can get it yourself"

Along comes a pesky seagull, in for a free feed as they do.

Tern jumps in to rescue the meal before seagull gets it. Junior observes.

Tern and seagull fight.  Junior observes.

Fish gets away while Tern and seagull fight.  Junior observes.

Seagull starts to fight dirty.  Junior is watching and learning.

Junior comes in for a closer look as Seagull takes a chomp at Tern's wi

The weather held up once again and the following morning we left on our final leg to Port Douglas.

This is the final chapter of this Winkali trip.

We didn't do the voyage we set out to do.  No we don't regret that.  We were running out of time for the west coast and even if we had continued, we would have been too rushed to have enjoyed the experience.  

We have met some great people on our return trip who have been mentioned in this blog and we hope to stay in touch and maybe sail along side them again in future travels.

We will now try to find some work as we spent a lot more money than we expected to and there are a few repairs that need doing to Winkali before we set off again . . . . like locating and repairing a couple of leaks which dampened our enthusiasm on more than one occasion.

We've gained experience and learnt a lot, not only about sailing either.  

I've learnt how to do a blog! It's taken many hours, usually in trying to make the text and photos go where I want them - they do have a mind of their own.

See you soon.