Road Trip Day 3 - Mount Magnet to Nallan Station

[gemfyre]

5/3/2011

Oh. My. God. These flies are going to drive me absolutely insane! Repellent does nothing, and some of them bite. And soon the mozzies will be out. On the bright side, I just discovered that a family of Grey-Crowned Babblers have their communal nest just behind the toilet block.

Just north of Cue I stopped in at a place called The Granites. This is an area rock breakaways and shallow caves that were inhabited by aboriginals once, there are some artworks around on the caves. They weren't signposted though so I didn't manage to find any. Strange to think that people lived out here, thrived, in the heat and the flies. I guess the flies weren't so bad back then, before cows were brought to this country, and the food was probably more abundant. I drove around a bit in there, but it was so quiet, not a birdcall to be heard. The place kinda gave me the creeps, so I headed onwards. I stopped by a large lake, which is usually a saltpan and had a look around, only thing of interest was some Red-capped Plovers. It's a challenge to birdwatch in a place where a lot of the insects are just as big as the birds.

The Granites Aboriginals lived in this area for many years, leaving artworks and artifacts in the shallow caves.

Up in this part of the country there are road trains. LOTS of them. If you stay on one bit of the highway one will roar by every 5-10 minutes. I guessed to myself that these may be 20-30 meters long. Then I saw the sign on the back of one - 53.5 metres! Lucky they poke along at a tidy pace so you don't really have to worry about overtaking them, you're better off riding in the slipstream and saving some petrol.

There she goes... A 3 trailer road train roars into the distance.

I pass over a lot of floodways. Not long ago there was water over a lot of these. Now mirages on the horizon only make it look like there is. More about water soon.

I got to Cue around midday and found that the tourist centre was closed, despite there being a big sign on the median strip pointing it out. The woman at the servo wasn't much more help. I was assured that the road into Nallan would be fine. I decided to head down to Walga Rock to check a few birding spots but was thwarted by a sign telling me that all the roads in that direction were closed (I'm guessing this is the flooding that's forecast to hit Kalbarri tomorrow.)

Cue This is the building that first comes to my mind when I think of Cue. It's not on the main highway, but I remember it's corrugated iron edifice.

Because Nallan is so close to Mount Magnet, I considered pushing onto Kumarina today. But I figured I'd check out Nallan, and see what I thought. Nallan is much more friendly than Ninghan, or even Cue. The guy greeted me (he told me he'd seen me in Cue) and quickly realised I was a birdo and mentioned that Frank O'Connor had been here just a few days earlier on his way to Broome - I'll probably see him up there with the AWSG expedition. He said I could put my swag in the shearer's quarters in case it rained and that he'd only charge me half price. He explained that it was off season, and his wife was with their son in hospital because he'd been in a serious accident. Wife usually does the cleaning up. So the place is cobwebby and gecko-pooey. There are showers and there is a kitchen! With a stove!! I hope I can get it to work, I am so having properly cooked roo tonight. Despite the station owner mentioning a few more people may be by to stay tonight, no-one has arrived.

Nallan Station - Shearer's Quarters I was overjoyed to see this kitchen. It was a lot like the shadehouse at the BBO.

I decided I'd spend the afternoon looking around Nallan and then push on to Newman tomorrow. That will take me about 6 hours - not counting stopovers.

I first went up to Lake Nallan, which is full to the brim with water and yielded a few ducks - including Plumed Whistling Ducks. Way south of their regular range - that's what lots of water does. I then went to check out Milly Soak, I would have loved to have wandered around here, but I couldn't because there was water everywhere! I even saw fish in the pools. The trees were covered in red dirt to a certain line - the line of the flooding just a few weeks back, wow, that was a lot of water.

Nallan Station - Milly Soak The high water level is really clear in this photo. A week earlier and I wouldn't have been able to get near here.

I took a wander around the homestead when I got back and started to set up camp outside. Considering the flies, I figured it'd be better to pitch my swag outside and sleep in my insect-free capsule. I then noticed the bowerbird pottering about and decided to stake out the bower and watch him for a while. While I was sitting by the bower an entire pet shop's worth of birds flew over - Galahs, Budgies, Cockatiels and Zebra Finches.

Nallan Station - Western Bowerbird bower Western Bowerbirds - like Great Bowerbirds, prefer white and silver decorations. Doesn't matter if they are natural, like shells, or artificial, like ring pulls, glass and tape reels.

Not too long after I moved back to the main area by the shearer's quarters I started writing this and the flies were driving me loopy.

I just moved everything inside the shearer's quarters. No flies! (at least, only a couple). Maybe because of all of the spiders? There are also geckos in here. Oh, and there are frogs in the toilets. :)

So I've decided to sleep in here on a bed. Hopefully I don't get too bug-eaten. It's 7:10pm and I'm starving, so I think it's time to cook and eat dinner, have a shower then head to bed. Long day tomorrow.

OMG, I almost burned my face off lighting that stove. Hee, old fashioned big gas stoves. But hey, at least dinner was cooked! As I ate it I had beetles crashing about, into my dinner and sometimes onto my head. Bacon, eggs and mushrooms on toast for breakfast, I really need to eat more, I have stacks of food that needs eating.

When I went to wash the dishes I noticed the plug was sitting in the plughole. When I removed it about 7 Desert Tree Frogs emerged from the drain.

Changed my mind again about sleeping arrangements when a mozzie started whining in my ear in the shearer's quarters. My swag is now set up ON the bed. So I get the benefit of shelter and a mattress, and my insect free capsule. These stations can pretty lonely at night. I think things will be different in a caravan park, when I'll have people around me, and hopefully a grassed site.



5/3/2011 (Mount Magnet, The Granites, Cue, Nallan Station, Nallan Lake, Milly Soak)
Australian Ringneck
Australian Shelduck
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Brown Falcon
Budgerigar
Chiming Wedgebill (H)
Cockatiel
Collared Sparrowhawk
Common Bronzewing
Crested Bellbird (H)
Crested Pigeon
Diamond Dove
Galah
Grey Shrike-thrush (H)
Grey-crowned Babbler
Inland Thornbill (H)
Little Crow
Little Woodswallow
Magpie
Magpie Lark
Musk Duck
Pied Butcherbird
Plumed Whistling Duck
Red-capped Plover
Rufous Songlark
Rufous Whistler (H)
Senegal Dove
Singing Honeyeater (H)
Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater
Splendid Fairy-wren
Tree Martin
Wedge-tailed Eagle
Western Bowerbird
White-faced Heron
White-plumed Honeyeater
Willie Wagtail
Yellow-throated Miner
Zebra Finch


See more photos from today here.

Comments

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

:raises hand for photos of big insects: :)

[pasdeschiens.livejournal.com]

Thank you, for writing all of this.
One day I'd like to make the trip up myself, but at the moment we're just looking at (another) Adelaide-Darwin-Adelaide later this year with the solar cars.

Next year though, when we have the new Hilux? *vroom*