Sunday, 3 June 2018

Brampton Island Walks


After riding out the southerlies at Mackay, we had a great sail on full main and screecher to Brampton Island.  A couple of delicious fish for lunch added to the charm of the island anchorage.

This year we walked the Brampton Peak Track, not for the faint hearted and still covered in weeds, but the orange-footed scrub fowls are working on those.  Lots of butterflies, who also seem to like the snake weed and cobblers peg flowers.  Among them tiger blues, common crows, grass-yellows and monarchs, others could have been jezebels and pearl whites, but there were masses of them. 



Rainbow skinks darted across the track and the melodic call of the local currawongs, so different from the mainland birds, were among the few other visible wildlife along the way. 




The vegetation on the eastern side of the island differs dramatically from the western side: casuarinas and hoop pines with an understorey of ferns, and still more weeds...
The views from the lookout made the effort worthwhile: islands dotted in the sparkling ocean for as far as we could see.  





On the short cut back along the beach the beach stone-curlews seemed reluctant to share their shore, calling and flying up and back to shoo us away. 

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