Birding Lamington N.P.

By Birding-Aus, on February 1st, 2012

Hello all,

I am a UK birder and will be birding Lamington N.P. in October of this year. I will be staying at O’Reilly’s ( of course!) and have been told that a 4wd is advisable for Duck Creek Road. The people at O’Reilly’s however , have said that the road is in very poor condition and may not even be passable at all during October. I see no point in going to the additional ( and substantial) extra expense of a 4wd if I can’t access the road at all. Does anyone know if the species particularly found there are accessible elsewhere around the lodge and , if so, can they be accessed by a 2wd vehicle? If the reply is too boring for most list members, please reply off-list!! Many thanks.

John. ===============================

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Roaminoz

February 1, 2012 at 4:24 pm

There is a 3 minute video on utube by a 4×4 traversing the track. I see the video was in 2010 so image it sure wont look like this anymore after our rain in January

Laurie Knight

February 1, 2012 at 5:40 pm

Fascinating. I have been down Duck Creek Rd many times in a Subaru (It is my normal way home from the Park – avoids the traffic in the afternoon and gives a nice round trip feel). It was a fairly easy drive – (I remember seeing a pair of youths driving a souped up Corolla or similar up the track one time) – so it must have deteriorated quite badly in the last year or so. Perhaps I will have a look later on when things are drier.

For me, the main issue was the top (rainforest) section being slippery during the wet – and there hasn’t been a lot of that over the last decade …

Regards, Laurie.

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Tom Tarrant

February 1, 2012 at 3:26 pm

Hi John,

Have tried to reply to this but was at work and then saw Nick’s reply. I haven’t travelled down Duck Creek road for several years so I would advise paying more attention to his tips rather than mine.

I certainly wouldn’t relish driving down Duck Creek road at the moment (Currently it is incredibly wet in SE Qld.) however it might well be much drier in October and if so possible to take a 2WD down there (I have done so on numerous occasions, though I’m not sure how you would go with rental-car restrictions…..probably best to avoid[?])

Birdwise, there are a few ‘specialities’, in the first stretch of rainforest I have seen Paradise Riflebird, Crested Shrike-tit, Albert’s Lyrebird but these can also be seen in other areas of Lamington NP. Where the vegetation changes to eucalyptus woodland you have a good chance of getting Spotted Quail-thrush, Red-browed Treecreeper, Glossy Black-Cockatoo, Buff-rumped Thornbill (and twenty years ago I saw Eastern Bristlebird fairly close to this road, but seems little hope now though)

If you let me know your ‘hit-list’ for SE Qld (offlist) I will try and help you out with other sites.

Tom

brian fleming

February 1, 2012 at 11:01 am

Some years back, in very dry conditions, we went to an O’Reilly’s Bird Week, including a 4WD trip down Duck Creek Road – my chief memory is of Glossy Black Cockatoos in some dry woodland with casuarinas. Always the possibility that you might find some other birders there at the same time who might also be interested. But last year’s appalling floods and this year’s very heavy rain will have severely damaged all tracks. Are you camping or staying at guest-house? If the latter you may find good bird-walks available. Ask them. Hope you see the Noisy Pitta. We missed it. We did get Albert Lyrebird and a Marbled Frogmouth, and more bowerbirds (Regent and Satin)than you could shake a stick at. Anthea Fleming

Chris

February 1, 2012 at 8:53 am

Hi John and others,

Duck Creek Rd is a nice little wet forest section adjacent to the rainforest. The only key species I am aware of that you can find there are Spotted Quail-thrush and Red-browed Tree-creeper. Eastern Bristlebird has not been seen in the area for many years. As far as I am aware, there are no other places close to O’reillys where these two species are “gettable”. If you are not tied to the guesthouse for your whole trip, there are places north and south-west of Brisbane where you can find those two species.

In terms of access, the road used to be doable by 2WD for the first section where the two species can be found. However if O’reillys staff say it is 4WD now you may not be able to access the areas by normal car now. You could potentially try to walk the road if you are fit, but it would be quite a walk if you can’t drive at least some of the road. I would recommend talking to O’reillys staff again about whether you can drive a few km down the road and walk from there.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Chris

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