We got to Boulia in the early afternoon, set up camp, and
went for a look around town. It’s not a huge town, and their main tourist
attraction is the Min Min experience. The Min Min lights is a phenomenon in
this region of the outback, where over the last century, many people have
reported seeing a ball of light from an unknown source. Some people believe
there must be a scientific cause, such as gas escaping from the ground, whereas
others believe the lights are spirits. The first report was in 1918 above the
ruins of the old Min Min hotel, hence the name. The Min Min experience is a
sound and light, animatronics show, where “locals” tell you of their experience
with the lights and share their theories of what the lights are. It was really
interesting, and worth seeing.
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| Boulia, QLD. |
We stayed in the caravan park for one night, and it seemed
to be the best spot for birding in the town. The park is right next to the
river, and across the road is an area of bush. We had flocks of budgies,
cockatiels and galahs flying over, restless flycatchers and white-breasted
woodswallows by the river, and more.
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| Restless Flycatcher, Boulia, QLD. |
Not far out of Boulia, we had our first excitement of the
day. We had slowed down to pass some cattle on the road, and had barely started
to speed up again when we had to come to a halt once more. On the road in
front of us were two Australian Bustards! Amazing! Then, another one walked out
and joined them! We looked to the right and saw two more! We looked to the left
and saw five more! TEN AUSTRALIAN BUSTARDS!!! I jumped out of the car and took
a few photos, but it wasn't long before the birds all flew away.
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| Australian Bustards, near Boulia, QLD. |
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| Australian Bustards, near Boulia, QLD. |
We had barely gotten going again when – “Brolgas!” Three beautiful brolgas in the grass at the side of the road.
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| Brolga, near Boula, QLD. |
We set off again towards Bedourie, still elated from our
mornings sightings. Then, suddenly, the loud noise of a rock hitting the car.
The back window was shattered but still intact, thanks probably to the window tint.
“Ah well, better than a roo
in the radiator”, said my dad, rather chilled about this spot of bother, and on
we continued.
Soon we approached a cattle grid in the road, and we held our
breath as we crossed, waiting for the window to fall out completely, but it
held. A bit later we heard the tinkle of a
little bit of glass falling into the back of the car, but the rest stayed in
place.
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| Shattered back window on the Rav, Bedourie, QLD. |
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| Shattered back window on the Rav, Bedourie, QLD. |
The window was crumbling away from the edge, and we knew we would have to find a solution before starting on the Birdsville
track. Without a window we would have nothing to keep the flies and dust out
of the car. We found nothing at Bedourie that we could use to cover or secure
the window, so we continued on to Birdsville. The window held out, we were
able to get some cardboard boxes and duct tape from the hardware store, and I spent an hour or so covering and sealing up the window under many layers. Problem Solvered!
***Please Note - you should not repair a broken front windscreen using this method*** :-D
It appears that this kind of damage occurs when a rock flicked up by the car, ricochets off the trailer into the back window, so if you're towing a vehicle, keep this in mind! We had been
worried about damaging the car on the Birdsville Track, but this incident
occurred on the bitumen!
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| Outback glass repairs, Birdsville, QLD. |
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| Outback glass repairs, Birdsville, QLD |
The
rest of our time in Birdsville was spent devouring hearty meals in the pub, and
pies at the bakery. We had our first taste of camel, in the Birdsville Bakery’s
famous, award-winning Curried Camel Pies. We checked out the Birdsville
Billabong, but unfortunately couldn’t walk too far along the Pelican Point
track as it became boggy and covered with water.
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| Horsfield's Bronze-Cuckoo, Birdsville, QLD. |
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| White-backed Swallows and Fairy Martins, Birdsville, QLD. |
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| Red-backed Kingfisher, Birdsville, QLD. |
We drove out to the Big Red sand dune, and I was delighted
to pick up another lifer on the way - a group of INLAND DOTTERELS.
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| Inland Dotterels, near Birdsville, QLD. |
I didn't think Big Red looked all that big, but apparently it looks more impressive from the other side. We weren't going to attempt it in the Rav, but we watched a man drive up and over the sand dune in a proper 4WD, and it
took him a while, but he eventually managed to get back over.
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| Little Red Sand Dune, near Birdsville, QLD. |
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| Big Red Sand Dune, near Birdsville, QLD. |
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| Navigating the route back over, Big Red Sand Dune, near Birdsville, QLD. |
The following day, we set off down the Birdsville Track towards home. After two and a half weeks away, it felt good to be heading south. The first leg of the Birdsville Track from Birdsville to
Mungerannie, is about 300km, and we did it in about 5 hours. The road wasn’t in
too bad condition, and we even passed a team grading part of it.
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| Crossing the SA Border! |
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| Birdsville Track, near Mungerannie, SA. |
We hadn’t see much bird life along the way, and once we got to
Mungerannie, we discovered that the lagoon had barely any water in it. When it has water, this place attracts all sorts of interesting birds, but the only
birds we saw there were willie wagtails, magpie larks, white-backed swallows,
masked lapwings, and a black-fronted dotterel. We also had a noisy flock of
little corellas roost near our tent. We had our dinner in the iconic Mungerannie Hotel – chicken
parmies and a couple of drinks, and retired for what was probably the coldest
night of our trip yet.
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| Mungerannie Hotel, SA. |
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| Mungerannie "lagoon", SA. |
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| The Maccas still hasn't opened at Mungerannie, and we didn't see any buses stop here. |
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| Old mail trucks, Mungerannie SA. |
After that, there's not much left to tell! The next day we got an early start and did the last 200km of the Birdsville Track to Marree in 3 hours. From
Lyndhurst onwards the road is all bitumen, so we made better time. We had already planned that our last night on the road would be spent at Peterborough, but had expected to stay somewhere in between Mungerannie and there. In the end we were both pretty keen to get home, and we decided
just to go for it and drive the 600km, 9 hours, to Peterborough all in one day. Since we arrived just as darkness was falling, we spent the last night of our trip in a
motel room, rather than try to set up the tent in the dark. This turned out to
be a fantastic idea, because Peterborough felt even colder than the previous
night at Mungerannie. We visited my uncle and auntie again that evening, and again for breakfast, before driving the rest of the way home. The weather in Adelaide was a bit wet on the way through, but the cardboard back window made it all the way home. Our two cats, Luna and Shadow, were over the moon to see us back home again, and were very clingy and smoochy for the next couple of days!
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POST TRIP SUMMARY
After many months of planning, our big trip is over and done with. Overall we had a fantastic time, despite me getting sick on our second day with Bronchitis and, as it turns out, a chest infection, which lasted for the rest of the trip. The plentiful bull dust on the unsealed roads, especially on the Birdsville Track, was not good for my condition. The flies in southwest Queensland at this time of year were also quite bad, so if you're heading up there, buy a fly net to wear over your hat/face all day, every day. Obviously breaking the back car window wasn't great either, but the temporary repair of duct tape and cardboard got us all the way home, and didn't cause us too much bother aside from creating extra cleaning (lots of dust and small pieces of glass in the back of the car). The car insurance policy has the "no excess on glass claims" option, so we should be able to get it repaired with no extra expense. We also had one of the brakes on the trailer come loose on the track, which my dad ended up just disconnecting them to get us home (we had the brakes installed as an extra safety precaution, but the trailer weight is below the legal limit to tow without them).
But enough with the lowlights! We travelled 5,118km, through three states, in 20 days. I saw 115 birds species, including 13 additions to my life list. Perhaps I would have spent more time and energy looking if I hadn't been sick, but I'm pretty happy with what I did get to see, and missing some just means I still have plenty of reasons to travel! Of the birds we did see, there were some pretty special birds that we just don't get close to home, and plenty of the birds that weren't lifers, were ones I had only seen once or twice before. The museums we visited were great, and I honestly learned so much about Australian history that I didn't know. We met some lovely people from all over the country, everyone had different backgrounds and stories, but all shared the same love of travelling and seeing this beautiful country. My dad is my favourite travel buddy, and I can't imagine having done this trip with anyone else. Despite being together 24/7 in the car, the tent, and everywhere else we visited, we got along well (the vast majority of the time!) and he did so much of the driving while I dozed off or had coughing fits, not to mention running up all of those kilometres on his car! I'm eternally grateful to him for making it possible for me to explore this part of the world. We're happy to be home for now, but it won't be long before we start planning our next big adventure, and perhaps some small ones too :-D
Below is a list of the 115 bird species seen on the trip:
1.
Emu
2.
Black Swan
3.
Muscovy Duck (domestic type)
4.
Australian Wood Duck
5.
Pacific Black Duck
6.
Mallard
7.
Grey Teal
8.
Musk Duck
9.
Pink-eared Duck
10.
Hardhead
11.
Australasian Grebe
12.
Hoary-headed Grebe
13.
Little Pied Cormorant
14.
Australasian Darter
15.
Australian Pelican
16.
White-necked Heron
17.
Great Egret
18.
Intermediate Egret
19.
White-faced Heron
20.
Australian White Ibis
21.
Straw-necked Ibis
22.
Royal Spoonbill
23.
Yellow-billed Spoonbill
24.
Black-shouldered Kite
25.
Wedge-tailed Eagle
26.
Black-breasted Buzzard
27.
Black Kite
28.
Whistling Kite
29.
Australian Bustard
30.
Black-tailed Native-hen
31.
Eurasian Coot
32.
Brolga
33.
Pied Stilt
34.
Banded Lapwing
35.
Masked Lapwing
36.
Red-kneed Dotterel
37.
Black-fronted Dotterel
38.
Inland Dotterel
39.
Silver Gull
40.
Little Button-quail
41.
Australian Pratincole
42.
Crested Pigeon
43.
Spinifex Pigeon
44.
Diamond Dove
45.
Peaceful Dove
46.
Horsfield’s Bronze-cuckoo
47.
Laughing Kookaburra
48.
Red-backed Kingfisher
49.
Sacred Kingfisher
50.
Nankeen Kestrel
51.
Brown Falcon
52.
Red-tailed Black-cockatoo
53.
Major Mitchell’s Cockatoo
54.
Galah
55.
Little Corella
56.
Cockatiel
57.
Red-winged Parrot
58.
Bourke’s Parrot
59.
Australian Ringneck
60.
Pale-headed Rosella
61.
Greater Bluebonnet
62.
Red-rumped Parrot
63.
Mulga Parrot
64.
Budgerigar
65.
Rainbow Lorikeet
66.
Spotted Bowerbird
67.
Brown Treecreeper
68.
Variegated Fairywren
69.
Noisy Miner
70.
Yellow-throated Miner
71.
Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater
72.
Red Wattlebird
73.
Singing Honeyeater
74.
White-plumed Honeyeater
75.
Crimson Chat
76.
Brown Honeyeater
77.
New Holland Honeyeater
78.
Blue-faced Honeyeater
79.
Striped Honeyeater
80.
Noisy Friarbird
81.
Yellow-rumped Thornbill
82.
Chestnut-rumped Thornbill
83.
Yellow Thornbill
84.
Grey-crowned Babbler
85.
Hall’s Babbler
86.
Chestnut-crowned Babbler
87.
White-breasted Woodswallow
88.
Masked Woodswallow
89.
White-browed Woodswallow
90.
Black-faced Woodswallow
91.
Grey Butcherbird
92.
Pied Butcherbird
93.
Australian Magpie
94.
Black-faced Cuckooshrike
95.
Grey Shrikethrush
96.
Rufous Whistler
97.
Crested Bellbird
98.
Willie Wagtail
99.
Grey Fantail
100. Magpie-lark
101. Restless Flycatcher
102. Little Crow
103. Australian Raven
104. White-winged Chough
105. Apostlebird
106. Jacky Winter
107. Red-capped Robin
108. Hooded Robin
109. Welcome Swallow
110. Fairy Martin
111. White-backed Swallow
112. Rufous Songlark
113. Mistletoebird
114. House Sparrow
115. Zebra Finch
