For a Brit birder this is tricky – when thinking about it, it is difficult to separate from “Australia’s Top 10 places” but here we go (and we have not yet been to Darwin/Kakadu, Cape York or the Red Centre).
We have excluded all sewage works – they are not usually very interesting to a Brit birder who wants to see Oz endemics not waders.
We have not restricted ourselves to day trips – these are all areas worth several days. We have camped in most of them – this is important to us as it takes you really in amongst the wildlife. Most of these places have something else other than birds – scenery, mammals, flowers etc.
So this is our list of places which “If you could only go to 10 places in Australia this is where you should go”. It should net you a reasonable list!
1) Lamington NP, Queensland Huge range or Oz endemics, many very colourful and tame
2) Bowra, Queensland Also a huge range of Oz endemics though not so colourful or tame!
3) Atherton tablelands, Queensland Cheating really – rather a large area but the best bits would be Kingfisher Park, Mitchell Dam, East Mary Road, Abattoir Swamp, Hasties Swamp, Lake Barrine and “The Crater” (and Millaa Millaa tea rooms)
4) Strzlecki Track and Montecollina Bore, SA Really rare birds plus proper Australian scenery
5) Stirling Range Retreat, WA Most of the SW parrots and great flowers.
6) Sundown and Girraween NPs, Queensland Good trails, scenery and good birds
7) Flinders Ranges, SA Again, fantastic scenery plus birds
8) Dryandra, WA Good trails and plenty of SW endemics
9) Hattah-Kulkyne, SA A really good range of birds including difficult ones
10) Broome Bird Observatory, WA The place to get to grips with several almost identical gerygones and flycatchers, not to mention all those waders and birds of prey (and mosquitoes)
Runners-up are Leeton/Fivebough Swamp NSW, Round Hill/Nombinnie NSW, Bruny Island (Tas), Daintree area (Queensland), Bunyip (Vic), Dharug NP (NSW), Cheynes Beach (WA), Borah TSR (NSW), Capertee Valley (NSW), Gluepot (SA), Werribee (Vic), Barren Grounds/Fitzroy Falls area (NSW), Drysdale River/Mitchell Falls (WA). Also Macquarie Island must be mentioned – probably our single best days wildlife experience ever, but not really very useful on a Top 10 list!
Peter and Rosemary Royle ===============================
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