I woke up to a noisy miner chick under my awning today.

I also took a quick video:

It didn’t look injured, more like it had tried to fly and ended up on the ground.  Mary-Jo, who lives in the RV parked behind me, said she’d found two others on the ground as well.  The parents were still with them (and a bunch of other adults, cooperative breeders that they are), but I thought we should probably put them in a box just so no one would step on them or run over them.  The park owners gave us an old box and helped us put them under her house, so they were out of the way.

After that excitement, I set off for Nightcap National Park.  It was a difficult drive, through a lot of unsealed roads (and when the roads were sealed they were only just wide enough for two cars to pass each other), but I finally got to Minyon Falls.  I pulled up first at Minyon Grass, a little picnic area just opposite the waterfall that gives a good view of it.

This is what greeted me as soon as I hopped out of the car:

In spite of all that noise, I never managed to see a bird beyond a quick shadow here and there as they darted among the trees.  Dammit, birds, ignore your instincts and just stay still for me!

Then I drove along a short dirt track to the top of the falls.  There was a little picnic area, and I spotted a goanna (or more specifically, a Lace Monitor) crawling away from the ruckus.

That’s a very long tongue.  I also got a close-up when he settled down in a sunny patch:

Then it was just a short stroll to the waterfall.

The falls are 100m tall.  Have some vertigo-inducing pictures I took from the edge of the lookout:

My knees were wobbling and my stomach felt funny while I was taking those photos.  It didn’t matter that there was a handrail and bars to stop me tumbling over – it still didn’t feel nice to lean over and have a look.  Interesting, yes, but not nice.

I was much happier taking these pictures of the view:

Then it was off to Protesters Falls!  And if I thought the road to Minyon had been tricky, it was nothing compared to this one – I actually met a grader coming the other way, and had to reverse until I reached a point it could go past me!

They warned about the road flooding in heavy rain, and they weren’t kidding:

And this was after no rain for two days!  That little bridge took you past the path to the waterfall and into the carpark and picnic area, so I had to cross it on foot once I’d parked.  It wasn’t even deep enough to soak my shoes, but that’s still a lot of water after two dry, warm days.

I found another goanna near the corner of the carpark:

I thought this was one of the usual yellow robins, but the way the colouring extended over its back gave me pause.  I looked it up, and sure enough, this is the Pale-yellow Robin.

I never even knew yellow robins existed, and now there’s two of them?

You could only go to the base of Protesters Falls, and everything seemed much more tropical down off the hilltops.  Nightcap is a remnant of the Big Scrub, and you can sure see it:

Notice how subtly I slipped those landscapes in?  It’s strange to think that this and a few other national parks are all that’s left of a once-gigantic rainforest.

You could hear the rushing stream throughout the whole walk, even when you weren’t next to it.  I got a video of another pale-yellow robin, preening itself above the water:

Then finally, I came upon the waterfall itself:

Protesters Falls is named after Australia’s first successful anti-logging protest, which saved this section of the national park in 1979.  I had lunch on those rocks, then headed back to the carpark.

On the way, I heard some scuffling in the leaf litter, so I stopped to have a look.  At first I didn’t see anything, but as I kept looking and listening, I finally homed in on this Australian Logrunner:

This one is male – you can tell by the white chest.  Females have a red chest.  On the way to the falls I’d heard some quick scuffling like something running away but hadn’t seen anything, and I think it might have been one of these birds.  You can see why I had trouble picking it out; that colouring makes for some pretty good camouflage, doesn’t it?

Back in the carpark, there were now two goannas, who didn’t seem to be getting along:

They move fast when they want to, don’t they?

I got a close-up of the winner when he settled back down into the leaves, just because I like their bumpy skin:

Then it was back to Turtle Shell.  I passed this amusing letter box on the way, so I figured I’d get a picture:

It’s hard to see, but the letters are actually stuffed into the helmet.  Pretty funny, huh?