Spring Days

Having been stuck inside for the most part of the last three weeks we decided  to go and do a few more of the touristy things on the Tablelands whilst the children were at school.
On Monday a return to Lake Tinaroo was the order of the day

We had visited parts of the Lake for Jens birthday party a few weeks earlier but Tish and I fancied doing the complete drive around it.
The Lake is artificial and acts as a reservoir for irrigation water for the agriculturally rich areas of the southern Tablelands.

It drains via the damn wall and the water is then circulated through a network of ditches, culverts and pipes to the areas that need it.
At times the water levels drop considerably exposing the lake bed - on these rare occasions the birding can be spectacular. At the moment the levels are still quite high and the combination of water and flooded landscape features makes a striking contrast

The views aren't bad either

From Tinaroo we took a scenic route back through some of the small settlements on the Tablelands. One of my favourite is Yungabarra that has retained its original architecture and has a very colonial feel

We ate our lunch at one of the many Platypus Viewing areas but alas we did not see even the smallest ripple

although this was probably due to the fact that it was midday and the Platypus are out at dawn and dusk!
Today we went to Mareeba. We started off at Granite Gorge

where some of the wildlife was not so wild..

...although if he thought you were going near his girls he certainly got a bit annoyed!
The highlight and main reason for going there though are the endangered Mareeba Rock Wallabies.

They are quite hard to resist and we succumbed and bought some food to dish out..

They have very gentle hands until they think you are about to take the food away and then the claws come out.
They were very photogenic and I took a short video of them as well
http://youtu.be/iU8R773EOuI

But a day out with me would not be complete without a few birds and today was no exception. The highlight was also at Granite Gorge where these clockwork Squatter Pigeons tried to get some of the Wallaby food

They were unsuccessful but did keep following us to see if there was anything left.....
http://youtu.be/mM8qXR1mMy8