Australia Part 4 - Ayres Rock, Uluru, Alice Springs and Katherine Gorge

From Melbourne we flew up to Ayres Rock and our visit to Uluru.

Unusually they had just had some unseasonable downpours, and the surrounding area was quite green, we were expecting much a much more barren landscape, but we can say we have seen a more unusual outback than most. It did have the advantage that some area of the rocks had had waterfalls and left black streaks down the cliff faces, this added a different aspect to the place.

Of course there were birds about, plenty of Crested Pigeons,

wandering through the Cafe as we had lunch. One other bird presented itself while we were eating, a
White-plumed Honeyeater

After lunch we went to visit Kata Tjuta another huge rock not far from Uluru, I have to say I think it's as good if not better than Uluru, Uluru just gets good press!
You can see the dark streaks where the water had recently been flowing.

After this is was a little down time at the hotel before going to the sunset viewing at Uluru,

a brilliant evening with a great sunset and plenty of bubbles, I think our group of 38 drank 28 bottles of champagne and there were quite a few non-drinkers! So the coach back to the hotel was fairly jolly!

Next day we set out for Alice Spings, but first we did a close up tour of Uluru, which was fabulous. It did give us a couple of birds as well!
Pied Butcherbird (m)

 White-plumed Honeyeater

 Pied Butcherbird (f)

 Willy Wagtail

 Pied Butcherbird (j)

We arrived in Alice Springs late afternoon, after a 6 hour drive, where in the whole time we only made 2 left turns, the second of those was to turn into the town!

The next day we went out to explore the McDonnell Ranges and see some of the fabulous gorges that are secreted away in there.

Of course there were always a few birds about, wrong lens though for this
White-necked Heron,

managed to get the 500mm on though for a
Whistling Kite,

 and a Rufous Whistler,

in the next gorge that we visited we were treated to some
Rainbow Bee-eaters,

I wanted to get closer but a bunch of lads intent on enjoying themselves went to the tree where they were hunting from so they frightened them off. Bl**dy tourists! 😊

The final gorge we visited was home to the elusive Rock Wallaby, apparently very shy and difficult to spot in the nooks and crannies, well not today!
Black-footed Rock Wallaby

A new bird showed up as well!
a Dusky Grasswren.

So a grand day out.
The next day we did a tour of Alice Springs itself, visiting the Royal Flying Doctor Service HQ, the School of the Air and the original Telegraph Station, the reason Alice Springs exists at all. So birding opportunities were few, however we did see a Brown Goshawk, Collared Sparrowhawk and some Zebra Finches to add to the list. After the tour we boarded the wonderful Ghan Train for our overnight journey to Darwin.

We had a great time on the train, boarding about 4pm and arriving into Darwin 24 hours later. We did however stop at the town of Katherine on the way and have a few hours there where we took a boat trip along Katherine Gorge, when we arrived at the boat jetty, there were a couple of trees nearby full of bats.
Little Red Flying Fox

Birds though were few and far between on a scorching morning, we did see some distant Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and an
Australian Darter

then an even more distant
Brown Goshawk (I think!)

So that it for this bit, next post will be about the Wetlands about an hour out of Darwin, a proper birding day!

Australia Part 3 - Melbourne

From Kangaroo Island we were driven back to Adelaide and then we flew across to Melbourne and spent a couple of days there. High on our agenda was to go to Phillip Island to see the Little Penguins. We have seen the spectacle of their dusk arrival a few times on various wildlife TV programmes, never thinking we would eventually get to see it ourselves. Phillip Island is actually a couple of hours drive from Melbourne and the trip down there included a couple of stops that gave us some more small birding and wildlife opportunities.
Purple Swamphen are to be found almost everywhere,

 Cape Barren Goose,

 Galah are also fairly widespread,

  Cape Barren Goose, close up!

 Yellow-rumped Thornbill,

 another New Holland Honeyeater,

 Australian White Ibis,

 Swamphen in for his close up,

 Swamp Wallaby,

 Sleepy (as usual) Koala,

 Eastern Rosella,

We eventually arrived at the Nobbies Centre to have our 'tea' with great views over Bass Strait,

after eating we had a few minutes before getting back on the coach and going over to the beach where the Penguins come in, we were fortunate to find a couple of the little beauties under a boardwalk near the centre,
Little (Blue) Penguins

After that we  were driven over to the Penguin viewing area, we had VIP tickets so were right at the front. There are no photos from this bit as photography is strictly forbidden as the flashes confuse the penguins, so we stuck to the rules, unlike the Chinese tourists who totally ignored it and were constantly trying to get in front of people, the wardens did their best it was a herculian task to keep then under control.
Anyway it was brilliant, the Penguins came in in phases with the recce party hanging around on the rocks making sure that all was 'safe'. Once the moved on another group would come in and do the same and so on. Once it was pitch black, we went back along the board walks, following the penguins inland and watching individuals turn off into the scrub as they neared their burrows. A magical evening.

The following day we went on a steam train ride from Belgrave just outside Melbourne up into the Dandenong Ranges. The train was called the Puffing Billy, I'll add a photo, just for the sake of it, I know its not wildlife, but hey-ho!

On the way to Belgrave we stopped for 'Morning Tea' made in a Billy Can, the plus being that where we stopped was in a forested area and the local Cockatoos, seem to know when to pay a visit,
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

a couple of other parrot species dropped in as well, but stayed well away, making photography difficult, especially as it was pretty dull and rainy.
Australian King Parrot,

 Crimson Rosella.

As the weather was shall we say a tad damp, little bird life was seen from the train.

The weather perked up in the afternoon and as we were back in Melbourne, we took a walk towards the Botanical Gardens. To be honest neither of us were feeling to well, so we never made it all the way there, but we did spend a little time in the adjacent park. This gave us a couple of new species which was nice, before we ambled back to the hotel.
Grey Butcherbird,

 and Long-billed Corella

Next stop Ayres Rock and Uluru.