MONDAY 16 NOVEMBER     ATHERTON

Woke up to clear blue skies and sunshine – wonderful. It seems to have been grey, cloudy and damp for so long.

There are so many birds around our site, because the grevilleas and bottlebrushes are flowering. Regular visitors include the bridled honeyeater, white cheeked honeyeater, eastern thornbill. Have also seen firetails, and lots of willy wagtails.

After John was eventually up and organized, we set out to drive the Danbulla Forest Drive, which goes around the very large Lake Tinnaroo. This has been formed by damming the Barron River; although its prime purpose was for irrigation water, it has also become a major recreational resource, for camping, fishing and other water based activities. As the recent “barra bash” weekend suggests, the Lake contains barramundi. It is artificially stocked with these, because the fish do not have access to salt water and so cannot breed. But apparently, the growing conditions in the Lake are so good that the barra grow to a really large size.

Drove out through Kairi village, then on the Tinnaroo Falls Dam Road. After crossing the outlet channel bridge, we stopped by the Dam to look at it – quite a large structure. It certainly holds back an impressive body of water. Realized I’d forgotten to bring my camera!

Kept on going around the Lake, on the Danbulla Road, calling in at the several camping grounds in the State Forest that surrounds the Lake. Some of these are on inlets where their outlook is over a relatively narrow arm of water, and surrounding hills and bush or forest. Others are by more open sections of the Lake and have a broad outlook. Some were more attractive than others and some had places one could park the van if we wanted to come and camp out here. One day, when we have solar power…….

Ate our picnic lunch at one of the camp grounds, where we lay on our backs and watched the white clouds scudding over. We are a long way from the rat race! While we were picnicking and cloud watching, a mudlark tried to attack itself in the big side mirror of truck, and shat all down the door. John was not best pleased.

The drive took us through bush, pine plantations and rainforest – lovely and varied. We stopped to view Lake Euramoo – a smallish crater lake which was nothing special.

A bit further on, visited Mobo Creek Crater – small and again, nothing special. However, we did see a bush thick knee here – just standing around in the bush, convincing itself it was invisible. I love these birds!

Our final stop was at the Cathedral Fig Tree – another strangler fig. The roots of this hang down to form a sort of chamber at the base. This is a great tree – really atmospheric, because one can walk right into it.

After that, returned via Danbulla and the Gillies Range Road, to Atherton. Our circuit drive was 206kms. A decent day’s outing.

Tea was cold corned beef and salad. It was a really nice piece of meat – very moist.

V phoned. They are now in Perth. B is doing landscaping work and they have taken an apartment in South Perth for six months. It is obvious that the planned living out of the station wagon has not really worked out; they had caravan accommodation provided when they were working at Hamelin Pool. V has applied for a job at the Casino, looking after staff wardrobes. It sounds like they left Hamelin a bit abruptly – wonder why?