Road Trip Day 8 - Sandfire to Broome
Mar. 30th, 2011 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyre10/3/2011
I slept until about 11pm when I realised I hadn't turned up the air-con enough and I was sweating profusely. So I turned it down to really cold, snuggled up under my quilt, and slept like a rock until 4am, when I got up and went to the loo then slept again until 6am. MUCH better. And the bugs weren't too bad later into the night.
Now time to pack, eat breakfast, then head to Broome. Yay!
After being accosted by a flock of geese on the way to the camp kitchen, I was on the road by 10 past 7.
The trip was pretty uneventful for the most part. I was quite surprised to find how far from the turnoff Anna Plains was – Ricki and I visited there for a day trip just after the wader expedition left in 2005. I checked out the start of the road into Port Smith – looked fine. Realised that Barn Hill is actually a station stay.
I was keeping my eyes peeled for the area of Roebuck Plains we referred to as “Sheep Camp” at the obs. This was where I went to (successfully) twitch Brolga and Painted Finch back in '05. The plains finally opened up around me and I eventually saw some trees up ahead which I thought might be Sheep Camp. There was also a sign warning of water over the road – the guy I chatted to last night had told me about this. I passed through the first section – a lot of area covered with water, but it was all quite shallow. As I drove along Black-winged Stilts took flight in front of me. After getting through the water I pulled over for a bit of a birdwatch. Ducks! Terns! A couple of waders! I didn't manage to see the Magpie Geese I'd been told about. Maybe on the way back. Although the trees didn't look to me like Sheep Camp once I got closer, I have a feeling it may be, because I didn't pass anything else that have could have been in on the way to the turnoff, and underwater it probably looked different anyway. The smell out there was amazing, fresh and slightly salty and it was just stunning to see so much water out there, a huge change from the record dry last time I was up here.
Upon reaching the turnoff (Roebuck Roadhouse) I filled up again so I'd have enough fuel to pop out to the Obs and back. About this time I was getting very excited. I was back in familiar territory. As I drove to the Observatory turnoff I noted familiar places – 12 Mile, the Roebuck Plains turnoff. The road into the Obs was not closed and in pretty good shape. There were a few large puddles – most of them had established tracks around them, but some required sloshing through – the base was pretty firm though. As soon as I got to Quarry Beach I stopped and went to look at the bay. The track into Quarry Beach has become very eroded and washed out, it's not easy to get onto the actual beach anymore. The tide was almost right in and I was disappointed to see no waders, just a lone Lesser Crested Tern. I called mum and announced excitedly where I was before moving on towards the Obs. I soon came across many cars parked on the side of the road – this must be the netting guys! I pulled in beside and went to investigate their progress. As I was grabbing my scope a few people appeared and I asked if the net had fired yet (if it hadn't I would have just gone on to the Obs, it was almost high tide so firing would inevitably be soon, and before firing is not time they would want to be disturbed). Yes, the net had actually just gone off and they were coming up to grab equipment. I grabbed a couple of boxes and carried them down to the shelter set up at the track into Richard's Point. I soon saw a few familiar faces and was recognised by Chris Hassell. Apparently they had caught about 450 small waders – Lesser and Greater Sand Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint and Broad-billed Sandpiper.
Seeing as I couldn't commit to sitting down and helping out with an entire afternoon's banding, I stood out of the way while Chris barked commands and got the teams organised. Very soon Chris was handed was a Greater Sand Plover and I realised there was a film crew there too – Chris has been managing to get a lot of publicity for the wader cause lately, which is great. Chris explained to the cameraman about the tiny orange device attached to one leg. It was a geo-locator. It registers the sunrise and sunset time everyday, and because sunrise and sunset are at a unique time any place in the world, once they recatch the bird, remove the chip and download the data into the appropriate program, they can tell within about 200km where the bird has been. It would seem quite a few birds have been installed with these geo-locators. Technology just keeps improving and the quality of data that can be gathered improves with it. Unfortunately they haven't invented a cheap enough satellite tracker to put onto a lot of birds, and they don't make them small enough yet for anything smaller than a Godwit. One special Godwit WAS installed with a tracker a few years back and the data they got back was quite amazing. This bird flew for about 11,000km non-stop multiple times, taking about 9 days to do it. Read a bit more about Godwit E7 here. I'm still hunting down the original article.
I checked out the other groups, most were processing Greater Sand Plovers, Ady was processing Broad-billed Sandpipers – which look absolutely tiny when you get them in the hand. About this time I was very hot and sweaty and needed a drink – I had left my water back in the car. So I headed on to the Observatory.
Although the office door said “Open” I couldn't see anyone around, so I just wandered around myself. The lower bathrooms have been painted, and I think the upper ones have been too. Ooh, the sites are very shady this time of year – if the weather settles down I will certainly have to throw the swag down. The shadehouse is a lot more organised now, the old glass doored fridge is gone, which is probably a good thing, and there are new solid doored fridges (the glass-doored fridge would never get very cold due to it's glass doors letting light – and therefore heat, in). I sat down and watched the birdbaths, a Goshawk came in and bathed in the back birdbath – I wonder if it's Chook, all grown up and in her adult plumage now? A couple of Double-barred Finches and some Honeyeaters were at the front birdbath. I could hear Babblers and Bowerbirds and Flycatchers, but wasn't wearing sunscreen and really – it was just too damn hot and humid to go bird hunting. I checked out the mudlab – full of wader expedition stuff and the warden's chalet, then went around the back of the dongas to see my old room. By that time I'd been noticed by the wardens (Glen and Sarah - a rather young couple – who only arrived in January and are still just learning the ropes themselves) who had been holed up in the office, and they invited me in. Wow – it's changed in there, things are rearranged, tidier, cleaner. There are now two new split-system air-cons which actually cool the place down. We chatted a bit about the obs and the wader guys and I explained how things had changed since I was there. I also asked about a possible lakes tour and as I had suspected – there is way too much water on the plains at the moment to get anywhere near the lakes. Ironic, when I was working here there wasn't enough water to fill them, now there is too much water to access them. But hopefully all this water everywhere will yield interesting birds that can be viewed from the road? After establishing that yes, most of the wader guys would be gone by Saturday and I could get a donga if the weather was still nasty, I headed off to town.
I got distracted by Blue Haze, as I thought I would be and pulled into Hidden Valley to spend all my money. I did spend quite a bit, but I had deliberately run myself low at home and this will last me ages. Because I spent so much Christine at Hidden Valley threw in quite a few freebies for me too. All the stuff is now making the caravan smell fantastic.
It was then onto town and the Tourist Centre. The sky was becoming threatening and the forecast was for storms. There is also a blue alert for a possible cyclone that will be forming on the weekend if it's going to form – great. It seems Broome has no places that do anything like budget donga rooms. My best bets were a backpackers (ugh, I'm not keen on backpackers, for any privacy and room you have to pay a premium price) or an onsite van. Roebuck Bay did onsite vans and a quick internet search revealed they were $75 a night. That was reasonable, a van would give me a double bed and a kitchen as well as air-con. And I really wanted to stay at Town Beach, this is the place Nan & Pop migrated to every winter for many years, I'm carrying on the legacy now.
I figured I'd just get a van but no, it's a van that's pretty much had part of the side cut out and a solid annexe attached, creating an open plan kitchen/dining/lounge room in the annexe and the beds in the van – two singles and a double. So, a stack of space. I quickly turned the air-con on full tilt and brought everything in, only a couple of things from the fridge needed ditching – the asparagus, which had been a markdown to begin with, and one egg that had been squished in transit. I sat in the annexe for a little bit attempting to cool down (the air-con unit informed me that it was about 34 degrees inside at that time. It's now done it's work and it's a lovely 21 degrees in here now). Eventually I realised that was hopeless, so I put sunscreen on, got changed and headed back out to explore all the old haunts.
The Port Jetty is now secured to the nines and you have to walk a mile to get anywhere that is accessible to the public. Kavite Road is closed, apparently it has been for a while, must be some severe damage out there or something. Gantheume is pretty as ever, the Osprey weren't on their nests at the time, but a few Frigatebirds flew over.
I ended my explorations at Cable Beach as the sun was setting and the tide was receding. It really is a beautiful beach, with its rock pools – which often have fish in them – and clean, white sand. Obviously they have had a lot of weather up here because a large portion of the beach is now all rocky instead of sandy like it used to be.
The roads into and around town have also changed slightly. Instead of the highway leading you directly into Chinatown, now there is a roundabout – one direction takes you to Chinatown, the other down the Gubinge Road extension into Cable Beach, which is expanding back from the shoreline very quickly. There are also a few new shopping centres – I will be investigating these tomorrow.
I popped 'home' briefly just to dry off and spray myself with the yummy body spray I bought at Hidden Valley, then headed back out to Matso's for dinner. I ordered the “Potted Seafood” (an entree) and a small chips. Turns out I didn't really need to order the chips, I had to leave some uneaten. The seafood was listed as “Marinated squid, octopus and cuttlefish served with Rocket and Turkish Bread". It was a jar of cold marinated seafood, there was also some fish and prawns in there, with a rocket and onion salad with a tasty dressing and four thick, soft, toasted slices of Turkish bread. The seafood was meltingly tender, marinated in dill and what was obviously a good quality olive oil. I picked out most of the onion from the salad and devoured that, and dipped the Turkish Bread in the oil as I worked through the seafood, just eating the occasional chip. In the end I brought one bit of Turkish Bread home because it was too good to leave behind.
I'm now back in my van and dead tired. I'm going to put “Midgie Magic” (one of the freebies from Hidden Valley) on my mozzie bites and go to bed. See you in the morning. The plan is to go to Coconut Wells in the morning before the tide comes in, shop in the afternoon (so I can hide in the air-con) and check out the poo ponds in the evening. But we all know how well plans are doing on this trip so far. :)
10/3/2011 (Sandfire, Roebuck Plains (flooded), Richard's Point netting session, Broome Bird Observatory, Blue Haze, Broome, Broome Port, Gantheume Point, Cable Beach)
Australasian Grebe
Australian Bustard
Australian Pipit
Bar-shouldered Dove
Black Kite
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Black-faced Woodswallow
Black-winged Stilt
Broad-billed Sandpiper (in hand)
Brown Falcon
Brown Goshawk
Brown Honeyeater
Common Greenshank
Common Sandpiper
Crested Pigeon
Double-barred Finch
Glossy Ibis
Golden-headed Cisticola (H)
Great Bowerbird
Greater Sand Plover (in hand)
Lesser Crested Tern
Lesser Frigatebird
Little Corella
Little Eagle
Little Friarbird
Long-tailed Finch
Magpie
Magpie Lark
Masked Lapwing
Mistletoebird (H)
Pacific Black Duck
Paperbark Flycatcher (H)
Peaceful Dove
Pied Butcherbird
Pied Cormorant
Rainbow Bee-eater (H)
Red-backed Fairy-wren
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
Red-winged Parrot
Rufous Whistler (H)
Singing Honeyeater
Swamp Harrier
Torresian Crow
Whiskered Tern
Whistling Kite
Grey-crowned Babbler
Willie Wagtail
Yellow-throated Miner
Zebra Finch
See the rest of today's photos here.
I slept until about 11pm when I realised I hadn't turned up the air-con enough and I was sweating profusely. So I turned it down to really cold, snuggled up under my quilt, and slept like a rock until 4am, when I got up and went to the loo then slept again until 6am. MUCH better. And the bugs weren't too bad later into the night.
Now time to pack, eat breakfast, then head to Broome. Yay!
After being accosted by a flock of geese on the way to the camp kitchen, I was on the road by 10 past 7.
The trip was pretty uneventful for the most part. I was quite surprised to find how far from the turnoff Anna Plains was – Ricki and I visited there for a day trip just after the wader expedition left in 2005. I checked out the start of the road into Port Smith – looked fine. Realised that Barn Hill is actually a station stay.
I was keeping my eyes peeled for the area of Roebuck Plains we referred to as “Sheep Camp” at the obs. This was where I went to (successfully) twitch Brolga and Painted Finch back in '05. The plains finally opened up around me and I eventually saw some trees up ahead which I thought might be Sheep Camp. There was also a sign warning of water over the road – the guy I chatted to last night had told me about this. I passed through the first section – a lot of area covered with water, but it was all quite shallow. As I drove along Black-winged Stilts took flight in front of me. After getting through the water I pulled over for a bit of a birdwatch. Ducks! Terns! A couple of waders! I didn't manage to see the Magpie Geese I'd been told about. Maybe on the way back. Although the trees didn't look to me like Sheep Camp once I got closer, I have a feeling it may be, because I didn't pass anything else that have could have been in on the way to the turnoff, and underwater it probably looked different anyway. The smell out there was amazing, fresh and slightly salty and it was just stunning to see so much water out there, a huge change from the record dry last time I was up here.
 |
Roebuck Plains - North West Highway A lot of water on the road too. Luckily not too deep. I'd drive through a puddle and immediately pull over to get my scope out and check out the birds. |
Upon reaching the turnoff (Roebuck Roadhouse) I filled up again so I'd have enough fuel to pop out to the Obs and back. About this time I was getting very excited. I was back in familiar territory. As I drove to the Observatory turnoff I noted familiar places – 12 Mile, the Roebuck Plains turnoff. The road into the Obs was not closed and in pretty good shape. There were a few large puddles – most of them had established tracks around them, but some required sloshing through – the base was pretty firm though. As soon as I got to Quarry Beach I stopped and went to look at the bay. The track into Quarry Beach has become very eroded and washed out, it's not easy to get onto the actual beach anymore. The tide was almost right in and I was disappointed to see no waders, just a lone Lesser Crested Tern. I called mum and announced excitedly where I was before moving on towards the Obs. I soon came across many cars parked on the side of the road – this must be the netting guys! I pulled in beside and went to investigate their progress. As I was grabbing my scope a few people appeared and I asked if the net had fired yet (if it hadn't I would have just gone on to the Obs, it was almost high tide so firing would inevitably be soon, and before firing is not time they would want to be disturbed). Yes, the net had actually just gone off and they were coming up to grab equipment. I grabbed a couple of boxes and carried them down to the shelter set up at the track into Richard's Point. I soon saw a few familiar faces and was recognised by Chris Hassell. Apparently they had caught about 450 small waders – Lesser and Greater Sand Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint and Broad-billed Sandpiper.
| Richard's Point The team gets prepared to process the waders. Chris Hassell had a Korean TV crew in on this day - he's managing to get a lot of publicity for the cause. I hope it helps. |
 |
Seeing as I couldn't commit to sitting down and helping out with an entire afternoon's banding, I stood out of the way while Chris barked commands and got the teams organised. Very soon Chris was handed was a Greater Sand Plover and I realised there was a film crew there too – Chris has been managing to get a lot of publicity for the wader cause lately, which is great. Chris explained to the cameraman about the tiny orange device attached to one leg. It was a geo-locator. It registers the sunrise and sunset time everyday, and because sunrise and sunset are at a unique time any place in the world, once they recatch the bird, remove the chip and download the data into the appropriate program, they can tell within about 200km where the bird has been. It would seem quite a few birds have been installed with these geo-locators. Technology just keeps improving and the quality of data that can be gathered improves with it. Unfortunately they haven't invented a cheap enough satellite tracker to put onto a lot of birds, and they don't make them small enough yet for anything smaller than a Godwit. One special Godwit WAS installed with a tracker a few years back and the data they got back was quite amazing. This bird flew for about 11,000km non-stop multiple times, taking about 9 days to do it. Read a bit more about Godwit E7 here. I'm still hunting down the original article.
I checked out the other groups, most were processing Greater Sand Plovers, Ady was processing Broad-billed Sandpipers – which look absolutely tiny when you get them in the hand. About this time I was very hot and sweaty and needed a drink – I had left my water back in the car. So I headed on to the Observatory.
Although the office door said “Open” I couldn't see anyone around, so I just wandered around myself. The lower bathrooms have been painted, and I think the upper ones have been too. Ooh, the sites are very shady this time of year – if the weather settles down I will certainly have to throw the swag down. The shadehouse is a lot more organised now, the old glass doored fridge is gone, which is probably a good thing, and there are new solid doored fridges (the glass-doored fridge would never get very cold due to it's glass doors letting light – and therefore heat, in). I sat down and watched the birdbaths, a Goshawk came in and bathed in the back birdbath – I wonder if it's Chook, all grown up and in her adult plumage now? A couple of Double-barred Finches and some Honeyeaters were at the front birdbath. I could hear Babblers and Bowerbirds and Flycatchers, but wasn't wearing sunscreen and really – it was just too damn hot and humid to go bird hunting. I checked out the mudlab – full of wader expedition stuff and the warden's chalet, then went around the back of the dongas to see my old room. By that time I'd been noticed by the wardens (Glen and Sarah - a rather young couple – who only arrived in January and are still just learning the ropes themselves) who had been holed up in the office, and they invited me in. Wow – it's changed in there, things are rearranged, tidier, cleaner. There are now two new split-system air-cons which actually cool the place down. We chatted a bit about the obs and the wader guys and I explained how things had changed since I was there. I also asked about a possible lakes tour and as I had suspected – there is way too much water on the plains at the moment to get anywhere near the lakes. Ironic, when I was working here there wasn't enough water to fill them, now there is too much water to access them. But hopefully all this water everywhere will yield interesting birds that can be viewed from the road? After establishing that yes, most of the wader guys would be gone by Saturday and I could get a donga if the weather was still nasty, I headed off to town.
I got distracted by Blue Haze, as I thought I would be and pulled into Hidden Valley to spend all my money. I did spend quite a bit, but I had deliberately run myself low at home and this will last me ages. Because I spent so much Christine at Hidden Valley threw in quite a few freebies for me too. All the stuff is now making the caravan smell fantastic.
It was then onto town and the Tourist Centre. The sky was becoming threatening and the forecast was for storms. There is also a blue alert for a possible cyclone that will be forming on the weekend if it's going to form – great. It seems Broome has no places that do anything like budget donga rooms. My best bets were a backpackers (ugh, I'm not keen on backpackers, for any privacy and room you have to pay a premium price) or an onsite van. Roebuck Bay did onsite vans and a quick internet search revealed they were $75 a night. That was reasonable, a van would give me a double bed and a kitchen as well as air-con. And I really wanted to stay at Town Beach, this is the place Nan & Pop migrated to every winter for many years, I'm carrying on the legacy now.
I figured I'd just get a van but no, it's a van that's pretty much had part of the side cut out and a solid annexe attached, creating an open plan kitchen/dining/lounge room in the annexe and the beds in the van – two singles and a double. So, a stack of space. I quickly turned the air-con on full tilt and brought everything in, only a couple of things from the fridge needed ditching – the asparagus, which had been a markdown to begin with, and one egg that had been squished in transit. I sat in the annexe for a little bit attempting to cool down (the air-con unit informed me that it was about 34 degrees inside at that time. It's now done it's work and it's a lovely 21 degrees in here now). Eventually I realised that was hopeless, so I put sunscreen on, got changed and headed back out to explore all the old haunts.
The Port Jetty is now secured to the nines and you have to walk a mile to get anywhere that is accessible to the public. Kavite Road is closed, apparently it has been for a while, must be some severe damage out there or something. Gantheume is pretty as ever, the Osprey weren't on their nests at the time, but a few Frigatebirds flew over.
 |
Ganthueme Point Lighthouse. No Osprey on the nest today. Threatening looking stormclouds coming over. |
I ended my explorations at Cable Beach as the sun was setting and the tide was receding. It really is a beautiful beach, with its rock pools – which often have fish in them – and clean, white sand. Obviously they have had a lot of weather up here because a large portion of the beach is now all rocky instead of sandy like it used to be.
| Cable Beach A guy playing guitar on the beach. It's always lovely here. No wonder it's one of the world's most famous beaches. |
 |
The roads into and around town have also changed slightly. Instead of the highway leading you directly into Chinatown, now there is a roundabout – one direction takes you to Chinatown, the other down the Gubinge Road extension into Cable Beach, which is expanding back from the shoreline very quickly. There are also a few new shopping centres – I will be investigating these tomorrow.
I popped 'home' briefly just to dry off and spray myself with the yummy body spray I bought at Hidden Valley, then headed back out to Matso's for dinner. I ordered the “Potted Seafood” (an entree) and a small chips. Turns out I didn't really need to order the chips, I had to leave some uneaten. The seafood was listed as “Marinated squid, octopus and cuttlefish served with Rocket and Turkish Bread". It was a jar of cold marinated seafood, there was also some fish and prawns in there, with a rocket and onion salad with a tasty dressing and four thick, soft, toasted slices of Turkish bread. The seafood was meltingly tender, marinated in dill and what was obviously a good quality olive oil. I picked out most of the onion from the salad and devoured that, and dipped the Turkish Bread in the oil as I worked through the seafood, just eating the occasional chip. In the end I brought one bit of Turkish Bread home because it was too good to leave behind.
 |
|
| Dinner at Matso's "Potted seafood" which was a jar of marinated squid, octopus, fish and prawns, with really nice Turkish Bread (great for dipping in the oil), salad and a side serve of chips that I didn't really need. Plus a lemon, lime and bitters, seeing as I don't drink beer. |
I'm now back in my van and dead tired. I'm going to put “Midgie Magic” (one of the freebies from Hidden Valley) on my mozzie bites and go to bed. See you in the morning. The plan is to go to Coconut Wells in the morning before the tide comes in, shop in the afternoon (so I can hide in the air-con) and check out the poo ponds in the evening. But we all know how well plans are doing on this trip so far. :)
10/3/2011 (Sandfire, Roebuck Plains (flooded), Richard's Point netting session, Broome Bird Observatory, Blue Haze, Broome, Broome Port, Gantheume Point, Cable Beach)
Australasian Grebe
Australian Bustard
Australian Pipit
Bar-shouldered Dove
Black Kite
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike
Black-faced Woodswallow
Black-winged Stilt
Broad-billed Sandpiper (in hand)
Brown Falcon
Brown Goshawk
Brown Honeyeater
Common Greenshank
Common Sandpiper
Crested Pigeon
Double-barred Finch
Glossy Ibis
Golden-headed Cisticola (H)
Great Bowerbird
Greater Sand Plover (in hand)
Lesser Crested Tern
Lesser Frigatebird
Little Corella
Little Eagle
Little Friarbird
Long-tailed Finch
Magpie
Magpie Lark
Masked Lapwing
Mistletoebird (H)
Pacific Black Duck
Paperbark Flycatcher (H)
Peaceful Dove
Pied Butcherbird
Pied Cormorant
Rainbow Bee-eater (H)
Red-backed Fairy-wren
Red-tailed Black Cockatoo
Red-winged Parrot
Rufous Whistler (H)
Singing Honeyeater
Swamp Harrier
Torresian Crow
Whiskered Tern
Whistling Kite
Grey-crowned Babbler
Willie Wagtail
Yellow-throated Miner
Zebra Finch
See the rest of today's photos here.
