Where: Paluma NP, Wallaman falls, Atherton tablelands (Lake Eacham, Lake Tinaroo, Yungaburra)

We have a list of animals that we are determined to see in the wild during this trip. This list includes animals like the northern quoll, tree kangaroo, cassowary, northern bettong and the striped possum. So far we have managed to see several species on “Our list” including northern hairy-nosed wombats and koalas.

The platypus has proven to be quite the elusive animal and although we have pretty much spent most of our time traveling within their area of distribution, the quirky platypus has managed to evade us. Once we arrived in the northern areas of their distribution we realised that we needed to be more targeted in our search. So for almost a week, our choice of campsite depended solely on places where we might find them.

Platypus are most active at dawn and dusk, so for several nights in a row we would sit silently on the banks of rivers and streams waiting patiently for them. We tried Paluma NP, Wallaman falls and areas in the Atherton tablelands and yet there was no platypus sighting – although we did manage to see a water rat. It wasn’t until we arrived at the “Platypus platform” in Yungaburra that we finally saw our target – and in a creek surrounded by cattle paddocks and during the middle of the day no less!!

Another mission in the tablelands was to find Lumholt’s tree kangaroo.   We had been advised by multiple sources to go to the Nerada Tea Estate to find them. After searching through the remanent patches of forest on the property and finding nothing we headed to the Tea Estate café feeling dejected. It wasn’t until we were literally about to leave that a couple kindly told us where to find them in a patch of forest right at the front gate!

We’ve been doing a lot of spotlighting at night in these areas and so far we’ve seen northern, southern and long-nosed bandicoots, striped possum, giant white-tailed rat, sugar gliders, ringtail and brushtail possums, fawn-footed melomys and various wallabies.

For more of our wildlife photos (and other photos of our trip) check our site on flickr (Finlayson’s flickr albums)

Tyson is our 7-year-old Jack Russell x Miniature Pinscher dog and he joined us for the first 5 weeks of our trip. We were hoping to have him with us for the entire trip but it didn’t take us long to figure out that it was going to make things difficult when we wanted to spend time in National Parks. So with much sadness on my behalf, and much happiness on my mother’s behalf, we decided to send him back to my mum in Melbourne.

Those of you who have met Tyson may know of his cheekiness (aka naughtiness), but we were incredibly surprised at how well behaved he was on this trip. He met so many new animals including horses, cows, kangaroos, wallabies and possums. He got within a metre of a common wombat and barely had any reaction (which is interesting considered he barked at a statue of a wombat!). He learned very quickly that Colin the cat was the boss and avoided eye contact with him at all costs.

We will miss him on the rest our trip, but I know he is currently being spoilt by my mother and no doubt will put on several kilograms of weight due to overfeeding.

Here are my favourite photos of Tyson on his adventure up the east coast and a special selection that I like to call “The many sleeping positions of Tyson”.

Gympie

From Toowoomba we headed up to Gympie to visit friends Pete and Bree (and kids Angus and Tawni) whom we had originally met in Roxby Downs a long time ago. They had recently settled in Gympie after finishing their own 18-month trip around Australia, so we spent a lot of time picking their brains for some of the best things to see and do. They had just moved into the house on their beautiful new property just out of Gympie after living in their campervan for another 6 months. Again we got roped into some weeding as we walked around the property 🙂 Unfortunately it was a very brief stop, but it was so great to catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen in almost 10 years!

Wildlife Disease Association conference

We back-tracked a bit down south to Maroochydore to attend the 2015 International Wildlife Disease Association (WDA conference). I almost felt like I was back in New Zealand because so many of my kiwi friends (actually mostly Aussies living in NZ) were there too. It was also a great chance to catch up with many of my friends and colleagues from zoos and wildlife hospitals across Australia and the rest of the world!

Graeme helped a colleague from the UC Davis Oiled Wildlife Care Network run a full day workshop on oiled wildlife response while I attended a workshop at Australia Zoo on koala medicine.

It was a fantastic conference with so many great and inspiring presentations. Just what I needed to re-invigorate my passion for conservation medicine and wildlife disease.

Zilzie/Rockhampton

Graeme’s father and his family come from Rockhampton where Graeme’s Uncle Arch and Aunt Jeanette still live. Graeme’s other Uncle, Brain and wife Fiona, have bought themselves a winter house in nearby Zilzie by the beach in order to escape the Melbourne winter.

We indulged in some relaxing activities, walked the dogs on the beach, read books and had some quality “puzzle time“. While we were kayaking in the bay one day we are pretty sure we saw a dugong!

Graeme’s cousin Scott and family have a farm on the west side of Rockhampton. Scott has become a horse trainer and has trained some of his horses to do tricks like sitting on a beanbag and lying down on a rug! Graeme and I also had our chance to ride a horse and (try to) make it do some tricks.

It was also my birthday during this time so we spent the day snorkeling and relaxing on Great Keppel Island.

Townsville and Magnetic island

I finally managed to convince my mother to come and join us for a weekend in Townsville. It was another relaxing weekend full of afternoon naps and eating delicious food. We managed to squeeze in some sightseeing as well when we finally made it up Castle Hill on our third attempt.

After saying goodbye to mum and Tyson (see next blog) at the airport we headed over to Magnetic Island. This was one beautiful island and we finally saw some wild koalas including a mum with a joey. We also caught up with a friend of a friend (who is also the friend of another friend – complicated I know!), Andes, who lives on Magnetic Island and knows far north Qld very well. He gave us heaps of great tips on where to go to see rare wildlife.

And thus ends the “staying with friends” portion of our trip. From here on in we are sleeping in our camper!

Now that we’re more than a month into our adventures, I figure it’s probably time that I contributed to our blog so what better way than with a detour to visit one of Australia’s rarest mammals, the northern hairy-nosed wombat. It was roughly fifteen years ago that I ventured into the world of wombats near the South Australian town of Swan Reach. I ended up being involved with various projects in South Australia on southern hairy-nosed wombats for around four years. A lot of those projects were focussed on developing techniques that could be applied to the closely related and critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat, which at the time consisted of one population of approximately 100 individuals, with as few as 25 breeding females. Despite being widespread in Queensland and into New South Wales prior to European settlement, this species was already in decline when land clearing in key habitat areas and further pressures such as predation led to the numbers being so low. For more than 20 years a recovery team, led by Alan Horsup, has worked tirelessly to save this species. Serena and I made sure that Epping National Park was on our ‘places to visit’ list and after a catch up with Alan in Rockhampton we made the drive out to the park. The park is now surrounded by a dingo-proof fence because in the early 2000’s they were recognised as a major threat to the survival of young wombats. The facility is first-class, given its location, with a large sheltered area for volunteers and staff to gather and has ample

accommodation. Water is the big issue out there as there has not been a decent rainfall event for three years! We drove out into the park on dusk and spotted a variety of birds and lots of swamp wallabies. But it was when the sun had finally set that we managed to see our first northern hairy-nosed wombat!! We managed to see another four of them before we went back into to camp for dinner, as well as a couple of spectacled hare-

wallabies, which are also doing well within the park thanks to the dingo proof fence and supplementary water supply. After dinner we went out for another few hours of spotlighting and managed to see another five wombats! Looking through the visitors book at the park, it was clear to see that we were very lucky to have seen so many of these rare creatures in one night. It was also great to see so many familiar names that have visited the park from the wombat research community. It is estimated now that there are around 200 wombats in the Epping population as well as a handful that have been translocated to a site in southern Queensland. So hopefully we’ll be seeing this iconic Australian animal for many years to come.

Location: Southbrook (south of Tawoomba), Qld

Hanging out with: Jen the horse vet – friend from vet school.

From northern NSW we headed into Queensland to a small town in the middle of nowhere called Southbrook. Our friend Jen was working there as a locum vet at the Equine clinic. We headed into Tawoomba to have a look around but we where hindered by the heavy fog that settled in.

After our breakfast with a view we decided to head out of the fog and drive to Warrick to take a look at their Jumpers & Jazz festival. The townsfolk knit, crochet or sew jumpers for the trees on the main street to keep them warm during the winter, while musicians sing some jazz on the street or in the cafes.

There was of course the obligatory stop at a winery on the way.

Back at the Equine hospital Graeme witnessed for the first time how sperm samples are collected from stallions for breeding purposes.

Getting a bit behind in my blogs, but that’s what happens when you’re having fun!

After visiting George, we headed to the Hunter Valley for an afternoon of wine, olive and cheese tasting and packed our fridge with the local produce.

Now remember how I said to remember the names Pete and Kia…well we spent the remainder of our time in NSW visiting their family and friends.

WALLABADAH

Hanging out with: Doug and Laurice – Pete’s parents,.

Again I hear you say “where?” It’s about 30mins south of Tamworth and where Pete grew up. For me it was a time to relax on the farm while Graeme helped Doug with a bit of feral pig control.   And one never goes hungry when visiting the McGilchrist farm! We also stopped in to say hi to Pete’s sister Nerida and family in Tamworth.

BYRON BAY

Hanging out with: Thomo and Frewie (real names Matt and Clare) – Pete and Kia’s friends from Uni.

One night in Byron to crash Matt and Clare’s holiday. They gave us many tips for our travels around Australia as they had done the same thing once up a time before children.

WOLLONGBAR

Hanging out with: Julie and Jakob – Kia’s parents.

Where: Between Byron Bay and Lismore.

We did some lovely coastal walks in the area and spotted some humpback whales breaching in the bay while dolphins were surfing the waves – simply beautiful.

Location: Bucketty (about 1.5 hours north of Sydney).

Hanging out with: George again.

George (our tree-climbing, koala-catching friend) recently bought a beautiful rural property in Bucketty (don’t worry, I’d never heard of it before either). George loves nature so it’s no surprise that his property has a pond for the local frogs and a lot of bushland. He has renamed the area “Frogetty” accordingly.

It was also another opportunity to catch up with more frogging friends (Bobby, Morton, Seline, Alan and Sam) who joined us for dinner, slideshows of photos and wildlife spotlighting. Sam took this cute photo of a sugar glider up a tree.

We had a weekend in Sydney in mid-July catching up with many of our friends. Graeme and I lived in Sydney for about 18 months while Graeme worked on his PhD so we had lots of Uni friends to catch up with.

First we stayed with Aaron and Al in their house in the Blue Mountains. A bunch of our Sydney Uni friends came over for dinner, Yvonne, Mike, Trevor, Matt and Lindsey. Our traveling card game “Cards against humanity” made its debut and so there was plenty of laughter into the early hours of the morning.

We then moved on to stay with our friends Sarah and Dean and family in Castle Hill. They moved to Sydney about three years ago when Dean had the opportunity to pursue his interest in sustainable energy and started a job working on solar-hot water systems with Reeme. Sarah is working on a project to “Make the Parramatta River swimmable again”.

We also managed to squeeze in a lovely lunch with our friends Tim and Meggan and a quick visit with Graeme’s cousin Bruce and his wife Kate and babies.

Apologies to the other Sydneysiders who we didn’t get to catch up with due to time constraints!

Location: Newnes. Surrounded by Wollemi Nation Park.

Hanging out with: My cousin Chris, his wife Margie and kids, Ben, Thomas and Matt.

Somewhere in the planning stage of this trip, someone had the bright idea that we should go camping in Newnes with my cousins who live in Sydney. What we forgot to factor in was that July is the middle of winter! Although, the days were sunny, the nights were frosty to say the least. But we kept the campfire burning, rugged up in our thermals, woollies and beanies and my cousins had the forethought to bring their skiing clothes to keep warm.

The town of Newnes was once a thriving coal shale mine and distillery. At its height there was a population of around 1200 workers. But when the Great War came a hundred years ago, the plant shut down, people moved out and the buildings fell into ruin. The Newnes hotel still stands, but it has been turned into a museum. We camped on the banks of the Wolgan river just opposite the old hotel.

This was the first time we stayed in our camper. It was a very useful first run as we soon discovered that there was no gas in the gas bottle when we went to cook our dinner. Luckily we had a dutch oven with grill and jaffle iron so that we could cook on the fire.

There is also a Glow Worm tunnel near by. The tunnel had been cut for the railway, but when the shale plant closed down, the glow worms took over. After a relaxing morning and lunch we finally headed off to the trail head at 3pm, crossed the freezing cold river in our bare feet, only to find a sign that said it was a 4 hour round trip. Given that the sun was going to set in 2 hours we decided to just walk a small portion of the trail, so unfortunately we never made it to the glow worms.

The wildlife in the valley was abundant. There were hundreds of red-necked wallabies, many common wombats and plenty of bird life so our camera also got a good work out.

Location: Bathurst

Hanging out with: Ian Glen

Connection: Ian is the brother of our friend Al who we met at Sydney Uni (and then followed each other to Western Australia and then New Zealand!)

Al has been us telling about his brothers award-winning distillery in Bathurst for a long time, so of course we couldn’t resist checking it out. The Stone Pine Distillery is located on the outskirts of Bathurst, but unfortunately no longer have a cellar door…that’s when it pays to have connections!

So we dropped in on Ian and he was happy for us to taste his wares. Their main product is gin, but he has diversified into experimenting with infused liqueurs with a focus on Australian native plants such as finger-lime.

It was also another example of how small the world can be. Ian spent six years in Scotland learning his craft in a small town out of Elgin. Our Scottish friends, Jill and Fraser, come from that area and as it turns out Jill’s father supplied the barley to Ian.

We bought a selection of produce (gin, spiced rum and finger lime liqueur) for our trip and we were on our way.