Tish's Frilling Day Out

Tish was off today so we decided to go up into the Atherton Tablelands - an upland region to the south-south west of Cairns. It is an elevated, fertile plateau that forms part of the Great Dividing Range and is between 1600 - 4200 feet above sea level. It has a huge range of wildlife much of which is restricted to this part of Queensland.
Today as an introduction to the area we went to the Mareeba Wetland Reserve - although in all honesty it is more a Savannah reserve and quite similar to parts of the NT.
The reserve itself was about 7km down a well graded gravel track and was easily reached by a standard vehicle.
The track started off going through lush sugar cane fields before entering into dry woodland.
There were a few properties along the side of the track and one in particular caught our attention due to the garden features...

As we got to the entrance to the reserve we noticed something lying in the road

it was either an odd shaped piece of wood or something a bit more interesting so we drove forward very slowly and watched it .....

they run in the most ridiculous manner on their two hind feet.
It played peekaboo through the grass with us for a short while before it retreated to the safety of a tree

it is certainly the biggest Frill-necked Lizard that Tish and I have seen!

We continued on down the track till we reached the car park. The Reserve covers over 2000 hectares of lowland wetland and dry woodland as well as some higher dry hillsides. This makes the potential range of species quite interesting.
Although I was aware that the property had several family parties I certainly was not expecting to see this appear beside the centre..

apparently the Emu's come in off the dry woodland and hillsides to drink at the wetland and one family in particular then hangs around for a few days before vanishing into the bush.
This individual was almost too photogenic....

....with Cameron looking a tad concerned we retreated into the centre.

The views form the cafe / information area were impressive...

From the base here you can goon several walks up to 6km to various parts of the reserve but we decided to leave those for another day (probably in the winter), they also run twilight cruises which sound fun!

The centre was packed with wildlife itself. Hamish was most impressed with these

St Andrews Cross Spiders and spent a long time wandering round counting how many he could find (11 was his final tally).
The staff also pointed out this huddle...

 of what we think are Small Bent-winged Bats - very cute whatever they happen to be!

The centre itself was a large wooden framed open plan structure with a broad balcony overlooking the lake. Its beams provided the perfect opportunity for these Welcome Swallows to build their nest

A very interesting place and one to which we will be returning.