Our first campsite is Horseshoe Lagoon, 3kms down a narrow, sandy track off the main dirt road through Lakefield/Rinyirru National Park, a very remote place of tropical splendour on Cape York. Just to check our vehicle fits, we do an initial reconnaissance on foot, a pleasant hike for an hour.
The lagoon is divine, a place of such wild beauty.
All around we hear the chuk-chuck-kerchuk hollow sounds of dozens of green-backed orioles. A great egret tiptoes through the water margin, neck outstretched much longer than its body, eyes intent, quivering with excitement and bobbing head rapidly side to side before making a lightning strike.
Many other birds can be seen or heard: figbirds, blue-faced honeyeaters, jacanas, masked lapwings, doves, little friarbirds and even an agile wallaby munches by.
Our campsite is occupied by the murmurings and honks of magpie geese in their daily ritual of teetering precariously in their evening tree roost then descending cautiously at first light to bathe and feed.
A meter-long freshie crocodile scurried along the water's edge just in front of me.
Meanwhile a forest kingfisher trio perched above the billabong's dried mud edges, kept scanning motionless until swooping on a juicy spider or cricket.
A majestic, white-bellied sea eagle glided overhead. A cheeky bowerbird kept bouncing all around us, throwing us sideways looks before sneaking onto the table to make off with a bread tidbit prize.
The break of day was a sensational concert. At first, a piercing incessant whistling for 20 minutes of dozens of yellow honeyeaters which suddenly ceased instantaneously as first light appeared, only for kookaburras to take over, chortling madly, whilst the skeins of geese murmured as they tracked across the sky, followed by spoonbills, ibises, whistling ducks, then shy brolgas with their haunting cry.
Walks around the edge of the lagoon are a joy. Enormous palms soar out of the bush. I find an active bowerbird bower with architect in attendance, calling shushing sounds to bring attention to his work, never quite finished with his obsessive twig tweaking.
A couple of dead cleverly glued green ants nest are found on the ground.
What fabulous splendour in a beautiful insect, the aptly named graphic flutterer, dancing above the dry grasses.
No recent rain means the almost complete lack of biting, pestering bugs. Heaven.
Time lazes for us. Our view of the billabong constantly changing, constantly riveting.
Blistering heat takes over from the morning cool, but all is tempered by shade and gentle breezes.
Time to make citrus damper in the campoven on the campfire. Time to drink wine as the afternoon turns the trees, grass and water's surface to gold. What a welcome back to the Tropics in all their glory!
=========================================================================
Lakefield National Park, Cape York, FNQ, Far North Queensland, Queensland, Horseshoe Lagoon, Birds
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment: