Birds

29 July – Tuesday

Birdwatching today. Up bright and early today to be at the Botanic Gardens before 8.30am. A volunteer guide armed with a big telescope and his offsider/lookout took five of us through the Gardens and Centenary Lakes on a seek and find mission. It was amazing how many different birds were about once one actually started looking! Some of the first sighted were the scrub turkey and scrub fowls, the fowls were very busy building a mound. The rainbow bee-eater would have been the prettiest bird seen this morning but the rarest, evidently, was the brown backed honeyeater. We were told a number of times how lucky we were to see them building a nest as well. We even got to see the yellow oriole which also lives in the caravan park and has a very distinctive call.

The Centenary Lakes is a large parkland which contains both salt and freshwater lakes and a small river which connects the lakes to the sea, mangrove swamps, a pandanis wetlands area, palm forest and open grassland. There is supposed to be a crocodile in one of the lakes, which isn’t surprising. The locals were worried about crocodiles coming up the river, so a wire net was placed across the water. The powers that be obviously thought that crocodiles couldn’t walk around the fence! We did get to see a large freshwater tortoise/turtle enjoying the sun. It is a beautiful area and we thoroughly enjoyed our nearly three hours walk.

The afternoon brought more frustrating dealings with Telstra. I discovered why the wifi internet is free here – it is extremely slow and has bars on sending to various email providers and also uploading photos to the blog. So decided to use the laptop – first big mistake. Wouldn’t connect, so rang Telstra – second big mistake. After two hours of being given the run around, being disconnected a couple of times, constantly explaining that I was travelling in a caravan and didn’t have a land line or multiple mobile phones to use, etc, I eventually asked to speak to a supervisor. I got the right lady! I offered to go to a Telstra shop to have the problem sorted out, she rang the shop manager and made the arrangements, then rang me straight back. They manager was waiting for us, set me up with a phone and the direct number to the supervisor (I kept it!), who had a high level techie waiting to help. We eventually worked out that the computer was okay, the mobile phone was okay but the USB connection on the phone was faulty. I could send it away to be repaired (not an option) or get a new phone. I am still a month short of being able to renew my contract without penalty, but that was waived. The supervisor rang me back to say she was aware of the outcome was very concerned about the time taken and the lack of support I had received and if I had any further problems, my call would be directed to her. Don’t know what her position is, but people certainly jumped when she said jump.

Weather report: cold night, down to 12 degrees, followed by a clear and breezy day which only got to 22. All the locals are freezing and the tourists haven’t got any warm clothes. There are frosts forecast for the Atherton Tablelands tonight.