Carnarvon Gorge

Visited: late winter

Recommendation: This is a wonderful oasis on the route between north and south Queensland. If you are passing, it is an incredible place to stop. If you are not passing, you should plan a trip there!

We were heading north, back up to far north Queensland, and decided to stop at Carnarvon Gorge on the way. It was a little bit of a detour, but we planned our route around it, and it was a lovely drive. Once we got past Roma, the agricultural fields gave way to the Outback proper. It was mostly open woodlands, not the sparse scrub that you usually see in the Outback. And it was, well, it would have been lovely if it hadn't been for the really heavy thunderstorm we were driving through. Strong winds, loud thunder, and lots of lightning, and of course, extremely heavy rain. There were numerous bushfires in the area as well, and we were quite thankful for the rain to help put those out.

It's about 40 kilometres from the highway to get to Carnarvon Gorge, and we were staying at the Big Four Caravan Park. And as soon as we got close to the caravan park, it just struck us how incredibly lush the area was, and it was totally unexpected. If you were dropped in here by helicopter... you would think you were in the Cairns area, or somewhere up in Cape York. It was so beautiful, huge eucalyptus trees, as well as palms, and grass, green, green grass everywhere.

Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)

It looked like there had been quite a bit of recent rain, which just made everything come alive. The caravan park itself was just stuffed full of birds and wildlife. Pretty-faced (or Whiptail) Wallabies were everywhere, and having struggled to shoot them in the past, I was blown away by how common they were here. There are also Eastern Grey Kangaroos and Black-striped Wallabies. We looked for the latter but didn't see any.

Whiptail Wallaby (Macropus parryi)

 And as it was mid-spring, it was cuckoo season, and there were all the usual suspects here. And in fact, during the night we could still hear the Channel-billed Cuckoo and the Pacific Koel calling on and off all night. Over our stay here, we saw both the male and female Koel in full mating mode. The male would harass the Noisy Friarbirds until they chased him off and then the female would sneak in to lay her eggs.

Pacific Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea)

Also present in the area were plenty of Pheasant Coucal with their distinctive low booming call. We lucked out one morning and saw this stunning male bird sitting out on a log.  

 The gorge area of the national park is centred around a rather disappointing Visitor Centre. From there you can choose from a range of walks of differing lengths and difficulty. I was happy enough in the heat to wander the short nature trail that runs along, over and back towards the centre taking in a beautiful creek. I was accompanied on my walk by lots of Red-browed Firetail, They chattered and groomed and flitted about the place and it was just so beautiful to see. A group of Red-backed Fairywren were also enjoying the long grass and sunshine and the male sat up for me. The creek itself was lovely, shallow and clear with the occasional Azure Kingfisher zipping past every now and again.

The nature trail opened up at times into small grassy clearings, which hosted more birds looking for food. I shot this young cuckoo and I was hoping it might be an Oriental Cuckoo as they had been reported recently. The Facebook ID group confirmed it as a Fan-tailed Cuckoo. I wasn't disappointed as it was still lovely.

Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis)

At one spot I flushed a Tawny Grassbird. I got a quick shot but and I waited around but once it dived back into the grass, it never reappeared. On the drive back to the campground we spotted a few Brolga in the soggy grass but, as ever, they slipped back into thicker foliage.

The gorge areas were lovely to spend time in. Around the centre are picnic areas and a camping site that is only open periodically. The surrounding trees, bushes and palms played host to lots of birds getting ready for the nesting period. Laughing Kookaburra were the noisiest and seemed to squabble with everything else in the area. On the other hand, were the very shy Pale-headed Rosella whose presence was only really heard with their contact clink call. 

Back at the caravan park, I spent some considerable timing just wandering the area. There is access to the creek which runs around 3 sides of the park. Platypus are seen here, but we dipped on them this time. I was fascinated by the amount of Apostlebirds, White-winged Chough, Pied Currawong and Australian Raven that all co-existed in the area. There were plenty of squabbles but they appeared to be able to cope quite well.

In the canopy of the trees, the Australian Figbird were largely heard but tricky to see. I was very keen to find them as they are the green and grey form found in the south - very different to the yellow species in Far North Queensland. The Blue-faced Honeyeaters seemed to move around so much that they stayed out of the birds way.

The chough were very interesting as they roamed around the park in their small family groups with lots of young birds being shown the ropes. 

White-winged Chough (Corcorax melanorhamphos)

In the trees sat Grey Butcherbird and the park reverberated with its maniacal laughing call pretty regularly. And in the undergrowth, we saw a couple of Squatter Pigeon. Again, this was a southern subspecies, different to those found futher north. They lack the orange facial markings.

In a patch of trees was a colony of Little Red Flying Foxes. They are not here all year round so it was a thrill to be able to see them heading out at dusk. 

And after dusk had settled into a very dark night, there were lots of other things to see. The most exciting was my first Rufous Bettong. First we had to navigate the huge numbers of Cane Toads that littered the area but the bettong sat in the same place on 2 nights of our stay. We didn't want to get too close but it was my highlight to see these small marsupials. On the road outside the park, we found a Burton's Legless Lizard which I think are very beautiful with their pointed faced. This one had clearly eaten a rather large meal recently.

There were plenty of frogs all over the site, not just near the creek. The Common Tree Frog sat on boundary posts, looking like a blob of off jelly! On the ground, we were lucky on to tread on the tiny Burrowing Frogs. They are classed as medium sized frogs, reaching a size of 4-5 cm, but they look pretty small to me! As so often the case, the Stony Creek Frog was the most common species here.

Eastern Stony Creek Frog (Litoria wilcoxii)

The best and worst experience we had was when we had returned from a night drive around the area. On investigating a thump on the roof of the van, we found a stunned young Sugar Glider on the ground. It was already getting cold when we found it and with no mum around, we picked it to try to keep it warm. We spoke to 2 wildlife carer helplines and took their advice on keeping it warm and trying to give it honey to get it through the night. As we didn't have much hope for it, we reached out to the park management and were really disappointed when they told us they don't get involved in wildlife problems in the park. I get that but how could you turn your back on this little thing? We did what we could but by morning, it had died. We were very upset, as you might expect. 

Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps)