Galena Bridge Rest Area

Visited: early wet season

Recommendation: This is a lovely rest area. If you visit here, it is more likely that you are camping but don't forget the wildlife. There is plenty here.

Galena Bridge is over the Murchison River about halfway between the bottom of Shark Bay and Geraldton. There is a rest area and campsite on the north side and a larger camp on the south side. They are well established and provided for. The main bridge is realtively new but the old one is still there and can be driven over, from one camp to the other. As you can see from my photos, it is really lovely. On the eastern side of the bridges is a pool with trees lining the banks. It is a lovely area. 

Over the bridge were these interesting native cockroaches with their yellow bands and I also found this centipede. I'm not sure of the species but they were great to photograph.

Another really good find was my first decent view of a Prickly Gecko first I couldn't really understand why it was called prickly but if you look at the photograph below it is actually covered by little bumps. There were also some stunning spiders around. Officially, I was creeped out by them but you couldn't help but admire this Wolf Spider.

Australasian Shoveler (Anas rhynchotis) 

The next morning, I woke up to the beautiful call of a Grey Shrikethrush and several Ring-necked Parrots bouncing around on the roof of my van. My early morning walk, brought the water birds along the river, lots of coots, ducks, teal and swans. 

As the sun cleared the clouds away it was lovely to watch the same ring-necks sitting up high in the trees, dozing in the warmth of the sun. There were Tree and Fairy Martins here and it was nice to see them sitting up in the morning light along with the Welcome Swallows. White-backed Swallows have been reported here but I didn't get any sign of them.