Day 23- 10/11/10 Downhill...

After the obligatory early start, we hit the road heading northeast towards St George, the first big town since Broken Hill. The plan was to stop at a couple of national parks along the way, most notably Thrushton NP, a welcome-looking large green patch on the map. In the event, it was a challenge just getting to Thrushton: situated far up rural roads away from the main highway, we had to pass through private property blocks and almost a dozen cattle gates before we finally reached the park, which was itself rather a disappointment. The park itself was two large patches of scrubby sclerophyll, sitting diagonal to one another and abutted by pasture lands. Though the websites we consulted stated that camping was allowed, we could find no way into either of these patches; there were no trails leading into them, just roads around their periphery. We did try and bird, but it was late morning and activity had already begun to wind down; what we did see was not new. The most notable species present were Rufous Songlark, Crested Bellbird, Red-capped Robin, Plum-headed Finch (Neochmia modesta) and Brown Treecreeper (Climacteris picumnus). We were on the look out for Painted Honeyeater (Grantiella picta), especially since the mistletoes on which it specialises were in flower, but came up empty-handed.

With nothing going our way, we fairly flew to St George, arrived in time for lunch, and from there to Dalby to spend the night at Lake Broadwater. Maybe we had been on the road too long, but pressing issues too complex and irrelevant to recount here also meant that by this point, our enthusiasm had abruptly faded. Having travelled so far so fast, we effectively decided to cut our trip short and arrive at Brisbane a couple of days early. The trip was reaching its end, our chance for seeing some of the more iconic dry-country birds –quail-thrushes, grasswrens, grey falcon, orange chat etc– long gone. The fauna was becoming steadily familiar: gone were the Little Crows and Little Ravens, back came the Torresian Crows. Budgerigars, Mulga Parrots and Cockatiels vanished, replaced by Rainbow Lorikeets and Laughing Kookaburras. Yellow-faced Miners were no more; we were firmly back in Noisy Miner territory. Nevertheless, one or two last-ditch ticks still trickled in: I saw my first Red-winged Parrots (Aprosmictus erythropterus) just out of Moonie, and two new reptiles turned up on the road out of St George: Black-headed Monitor (Varanus tristis) and Burns’ Dragon (Amphibolurus burnsi).


At nightfall we drove the partly-tarred road leading off the highway to Lake Broadwater, picking up a species of legless skink: Eastern Robust Slider (Lerista punctatovittata) (above), and a Robust Velvet Gecko (Oedura robusta), both new to me. As a coupe de grace, our herping effort for the night was curtailed by a sudden gale which picked up half an hour after nightfall, which also made our camping setup rather effortful. I lay in my tent trying to fall asleep, as the wind howled outside. It was an anticlimactic and rather mediocre end to what had so until now been a fine trip.