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Message: <blockquote data-quote="birdboybowley" data-source="post: 1201802" data-attributes="member: 60953">Up early and found the Purple-crowned Fairywrens creeping around in the grasses by the car and then later a superb view of a pair right next to the bridge, which is a scary place to stand as a roadtrain thunders past! These birds are really stunning. In total we had about 6 pairs here. We refuelled at the roadhouse and set off for Darwin, and soon found ourselves on dual-carriageways with traffic lights and everything...seems so long since we saw one!! We turned off down towards Edith Falls, and, following directions given to us a guest at the BBO, stopped about 5kms down the road where a small creek still had some water in it. It didn’t take long to find 10 Gouldians, comprising 2 black-headed males, 2 females and 6imms...you can never get bored of looking at these birds!! The falls themselves were very nice, but also very busy. A huge bushfire was raging along the entrance road and the sky was full of Black Kites swooping down to take advantage of food available.We finally reached Howard Springs, about 30kms south of Darwin late in the afternoon. It’s open from 8-8 and there’s a lovely pool and surrounding monsoon forest which holds a lot of good birds. The best was without doubt the confiding Rainbow Pitta that we watched till it got too dark to see properly. What a fabulous bird! Orange-footed Scrubfowl, Little Shrike-Thrush and Spangled Drongo (not the same species as the Asian Hair-crested, which is often called this) were all new too. This place is also a mozzie magnet and they are voracious!! We cooked up food in the carpark as there’s toilets and running water and camped further up the road nearer Gunn Point. The following morning we returned and birded it properly, again the first bird of note was the pitta again – even closer this time! My first Emerald Doves for Oz were seen as we followed the track clockwise, with lifers including Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove, Lemon-bellied Fly, Brown Whistler (split from Grey), Dusky Myzomela, Rufous-banded Honey and Australasian Figbirds (of the ‘Yellow’ race here). My first male Shining Flys, Varied Trillers, Brush Cuckoo and an Azure Kingfisher were also good.[ATTACH]140827[/ATTACH][ATTACH]140824[/ATTACH]Back at the carpark we had a welcome cold shower and some breakfast. For the last few days I’d had a lump growing in my armpit and it was now really quite painful. I’d had a similar unpleasant occurrence of this back in Thailand when I’d gotten a huge abscess on my butt – those poor nurses at Kaeng Krachan village (normally when I drop my trousers and 4 ladies gasp I’d be pretty chuffed!)...so I knew what it was and what it entailed (Dawn was just praying she didn’t have to squeeze all the yummy juices out again....!) Oh joy, just what I need. So bought some painkillers and started eating them like M&Ms...The car’s seemingly drinking more fuel so we stopped at a garage and changed the fuel filter and left it at that for the time being. We reached Darwin and headed straight to the Botanical Gardens for lunch. The gardens are truly lovely, and a perfect place to relax in. The heat is quite a shock even at this time of year, so the shadows under the huge trees were a welcome retreat.  A look in the trees behind the toilet blocks revealed the famous Rufous Owls complete with 2imms busy wing-stretching and squabbling. Seriously impressive birds, the adults every now and again opened an eye just to make sure everything was ok whilst the young seemed quite interested in me below and bobbed their heads up and down as they tried to figure out what I was! Forest Kingfisher was also seen near the carpark.[ATTACH]140825[/ATTACH]We spent the night at Fannie Bay, and cooked up dinner on a picnic table with thousands of tiny shell-clad hermit crabs crawling around our feet. We were woken the following morning at 6am by a council van telling us that we weren’t allowed to stay overnight in the city carparks...oops! We said we did look for signs stating that and because there were quite a few other cars already here we thought it was ok – he said the signs have been pulled down, again! He was very good and told us where they don’t go and check! Wow, we’ve become pikeys...!! We headed up to Buffalo Creek which had free bbq’s and showers so we based ourselves here for the next few days and slept just off the main road further down. We never did see the Chestnut Rail, but apparently the best chance for this is when the early morning tide is 4m and falling, but as this only happens a few days each month, our timing was out! We did see some other goodies here: nesting Lemon-bellied Fly in the carpark, Red-headed Myzomela, Large-tailed Nightjar, Northern Fantail, Helmeted Friarbird, Large-billed Gerygone and Varied Lorikeet. Out on the beach itself we had great views of Beach Stone-Curlew, Great Knot, Far Eastern Curlews and a vagrant White-winged Black Tern. A couple of huge Salties frequented the creek and also saw a Bottlenose Dolphin cruising down it one day. Scarily, a few fisherman stood waist deep whilst fishing here....[ATTACH]140823[/ATTACH]Visiting the Royal Darwin Hospital for my abscess was fun – I had a local anaesthetic stuck straight into it which hurt like hell, then it was slashed open and drained....hmm lovely, there was so much blood it looked like my arm had been amputated! This annoyance meant we had to stay around Darwin for a few days and I had to visit the local medical centre to have my wound redressed and cleaned – which involved putting a strip of mesalt into it..OUCH! They even shaved my ‘pit! We visited all the various places round Darwin using Niven’s book as a guide: Holmes Jungle Reserve, Knuckey Lagoons, East Point and Lee Point and saw some good bits including Rainbow Pitta, Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove and Bush Stone-Curlew which were quite common especially at Lee Point, along with Large tailed Nightjars, as we cooked dinner one night. A visit to Nakara Primary School gave us point blank views (finally!) of a pair of Barking Owls sitting up in one of trees out front. Luckily it was a Saturday when we visited as walking round a primary school with bins and video camera is probably not advisable! [ATTACH]140826[/ATTACH]We spent some time doing normal stuff – cinema, shopping, relaxing, picked up my new mp3 player that my mum had sent out to me after the other one ‘broke’ in Thailand and bought a nifty gadget that allowed it to be played through the car stereo – ah, music!! We also discovered Cash Converters, a great place to buy secondhand cd’s, phone chargers....excellent! (One piece of advice when visiting Oz is that students get loads of concessions – trains, cinema, pizzas, etc – so we got fake student id’s made up in Bangkok for £2 each, the best £2 I’ve ever spent!!)Finally got the all-clear from my nurse and with loads of medical dressings on-board we set off for Kakadu. Dawn was set to be nursemaid again for a few days! We stopped for a break at the impressive Fogg Dam and made our way to the viewing platform at the end. There were huge numbers of waterfowl here: herons, egrets, ibises, ducks and a showy pair of White-bellied Sea-Eagles that talon-locked and finally landed out in front of us, much to the consternation of the egrets! We also saw a huge stick insect (about 1ft long) as we drove out. We entered Kakadu and finally camped for the night past Jabiru at Malabanjbanjdju.The following morning we left early and headed for Nourlangie Rock which itself was amazing with its ancient Aboriginal rock-art. We scored with beautiful Banded Fruit-Doves here and White-lined Honey nearer the Gunwarddewarde Lookout which gave exceptional views and the flocks of corellas and cockatoos below just typified the area perfectly. We dropped into Cooinda and walked out along the boardwalk and had good views of Forest Kingfisher, Shining Fly, Brolga, Grey Goshawk and a Dingo that walked through the marsh. We stopped for the night at Gunlom Falls and walked the very steep track to the top of the escarpment. Beautiful surroundings and views, but alas, no White-throated Grasswrens, although after the debacle of the last member of this family I didn’t really look too hard – and we’d also been told they’d only been seen twice this year up there. We did get Chestnut-quilled Rock-Pigeons, Sandstone Shrike-Thrush, Helmeted Friarbird (of the ammitophila race) and Black-breast Buzzard. I did make the mistake of not looking where I was going and stopped by a bush to look at a shrike-thrush. The next thing I knew was pain all over as a glut of yellow and green ants rushed me from the branches and had to be pulled off one at a time, even from my wounded ‘pit...OUCH OUCH!! That’ll teach me! We waded into the tranquil pool at the foot of the falls which was where Crocodile Dundee was filmed and at the campsite that night, Dawn found a toad that did improve to be that invasive alien, the dreaded Cane Toad! We unsuccessfully tried to the find the camp owner so some guys came over, agreed with what it was and unceremoniously threw it on their campfire...bit harsh really, could of killed it first!We left the following morning and as we drove out along the bumpy dirt road a falcon flew over. Knowing it just looked different, I dived out of the car and soon had a fantastic Grey Falcon in my bins...wow! Elated, we continued heading for Pine Creek. We dropped in round the sewage works and then headed up Mine Lookout Road where we met a British couple (that bizarrely knew one of my friends back home!) and after a while we had a superb family of Hooded Parrots in full view. Score - seriously nice looking birds. As time was growing short we headed out eastwards, stopping at Bitter Springs Campsite in Mataranka and got good but short views of the female Red Goshawk on the nest as she settled down for the night, and also got moaned at by the notoriously bad-tempered owner for trespassing...oops! No-one mentioned that you could see the nest from the main road....! Oh well, three top birds from the Top End in the same day! Now came the push into Queensland...</blockquote>

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