A massive day of driving lay ahead. I was astounded by the amount of birds out on the plains between MckInlay and Winton – literally thousands of them everywhere. A quick trip back to Skull Hole to collect the radio from the cave (and a bonus Hipposideros ater) preceded a quick coffee and snack back in Winton. I dropped the walkie-talkie off for Peter and headed down to Longreach. Barcaldine was a town tick for me; I saw my first Pale-headed Rosella in about two weeks here. The kilometres rolled under the wheels … I stopped in Alpha for a wee and then had dinner at a fine establishment in Blackwater. When I emerged, the sun was setting. The drive to Bluff was consequently a bit slow as I didn’t want to smash into one of the Roos that were looming in the dark. An ice cream at a quaint little hotel in Bluff raised the spirits before my sojourn to Taunton.

I wasn’t interested in trespassing so was basically limited to cruising the entrance road. This was littered with Black-striped Wabbalies, which had me stopping constantly… Eventually I pulled up at the gate into the park without having gotten the Nail-tail. Much weeping, gnashing of teeth etc ensued before I calmed down. I thought I’d do another lap and come back to the gate, so I turned around and headed back to have another look at the Black-stripes. After turning around again, I slowly cruised up the road at about 10 km, looking out to the left of the car. I looked back in front and yelped – a Bridled Nail-tail was literally at touching distance out of the right window! Panic stations! I leaped out and walked after him, getting some good views when he parked up in the paddock to look back at me.

He continued to move away, so I tried the same trick – going down the road and coming back. This time I found a mum and a joey. I watched them browsing for a while in the bins under red light before grabbing a shithouse record shot (below). So good! A big grin was on my face all the way back into town.