Wild BNE

Earlier this month, I drove up to Airlie Beach in the Whitsunday Region to celebrate the 40th birthday of my close friend, Kat. Photo by Luke Martin. Our time there overlapped for one weekend, in which we enjoyed swims, drinks, hearty dinners and a sailing adventure around the islands. The celebrations and wonderful catch-ups flew by quickly, but when Kat and her husband Luke flew back down south on Sunday, I still had a week's worth of time at my disposal to explore the nature of Queensland's coast. I started with a journey into the forests of Conway National Park, just a ten minute drive east of Airlie Beach. I spent a sunny, humid morning walking up to the peak of Mount Rooper, through vine scrub and eucalypt forest. It was exhilarating!  I immediately saw a new species of bird for me in the carpark there, a female olive-backed sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis). After so much rain earlier in the week, the forest floor was also teeming with amazing fungi! After lunch back in town,...

Ring-billed gull, Corolla, North Carolina. Gulls have always interested me, perhaps because despite there being over fifty different species of them around the world, only one is familiar to me as a Queensland resident.

The Whitsunday Islands Whitsunday Islands, courtesy of Google Maps The seventy-four islands off the coast of Airlie Beach comprise the 'Whitsunday' group, named after the day that Captain Cook first sighted them. Prior to this, they had been the home of the Ngaro Aboriginal people for at least 9,000 years, and the descendants of these people maintain important connections to the islands in the present day. My main intention of visiting these islands was to scuba dive for the first time. The weather decided to present a bit of a challenge however, as the 'trade winds' kicked in immediately upon our arrival at Airlie Beach. This tropical phenomenon is often welcomed by the locals as it brings a cool sea-breeze and some refreshing rain showers to an otherwise muggy climate, but to me and my travelling companions, it meant that our tours kept getting cancelled and rescheduled. It did lend itself to some dramatic scenery though! Rain shower, Border Island horizo...

Airlie Beach Airlie Beach; courtesy of Google Maps Bidding farewell to the beautiful Eungella National Park (see 'Part One' of this trip report), me and my travelling companions packed our tents up and drove two hours through the canefields to our next destination: Airlie Beach. Being close to the Great Barrier Reef, the name of this town conjures up images of pristine white sands and clear waters, but the reality is quite different. It is actually more of a harbour town, with the nearby Whitsunday Islands absorbing the worst of the ocean swells so that Airlie's waters are calm and its shores muddy. To make swimming matters worse, the entire coastline is subject to swarms of Box Jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) from October to April. This almost-invisible menace is arguably the world's most venomous animal,

Eungella National Park Eungella National Park location; Image courtesy of Google Maps. My home state of Queensland is a huge place. Bigger than any of the United States, it is considered the sixth largest sub-national entity in the world, behind such remote provinces as Nunavut in Canada, and the Danish territory of Greenland. Though I've lived in and travelled through Europe and Canada, much of my birthplace remains a mystery to me. To rectify this situation, I planned a road-tripping holiday this year with my sister and her partner, in the Northern section of the state. My first visit to anywhere in the Tropics, I have since returned home with some of the most amazing wildlife experiences possible!