An unexpected day

The unexpectedness was finding that that an swelling on Tammy's head, which we thought was cured has come up again.  So instead of going to Chillago we headed for a vet in Atherton.  The result of that is that she is booked in for some investigations on Monday.

After that we set out to do some walks around Atherton.  The first was not started as that was canophobic.  The second was up Mt Baldy.  It was dog friendly but not senior friendly, being bloody steep.  It did have some nice views, even though we didn't get to the top.

Back near the bottom our first flowering Poinciana was seen.

 We then headed back towards Mount Garnet and took another walk in some Mabi Forest (a type of rainforest).  This was very pleasant (being almost flat).  The next few images are various aspects of the vegetation we saw.

We inspected some wind farm turbines that were spinning madly in the wind.  We were very close to them.  We would like to have inspected the Tree Kangaroos and Cassowaries of which there were warning but they didn't appear.

There was then a sign to Bromfield Swamp which boded well for birds but no more signs appeared.  So I opened up the map view of eBird and discovered that it was some ponds we had noticed below the road. On driving about 40m further we found the official look out!  59 Brolgas, 7 White-necked Herons and a dozen Straw-necked Ibis were the highlights.

Our final stop was to take a snap of the Archer Creek free camping area.  Basically a dunny with some spare grass.  There is a market there on Sundays - perhaps tomorrow!

The most astonishing event occurred when we got back to Mount Garnet.  I went to the pub to buy a few cans of beer.  There were fallen leaves everywhere and although it was nicely painted etc just 'felt'unused.  Then I found a notice from the "mortgagee in possession"threatening dire effects for trespassers.  It was closed!  On enquiring the nearest beer was 16 km back towards Atherton.  In answer to the question "How does the only pub in a town, on a busy tourist road, go broke?" the young lady I was speaking to said that was a very good question!

It did provide an answer  to Slim Dusty's question "When is more lonesome sorry and drear than a pub with no beer?" The answer is 'a town with no pub.

• Bird of the Day: Blue-winged Kookaburra at Mt Garnet.
• Vegetation of the day:  Poinciana
• Memorable moment: The hordes of vans at Archer Creek.
• Comment of the day:  The vet's description of a wriggling, growling Tammy as "difficult to examine.
• Pie of the day:  A "Brumbys" plain pie in Atherton.  Nice pastry not too much gravy.  Best pie so far in Queensland..  7/10
• Troppo moment of the day.  The traffic in Atherton was definitely suffering from the heat.

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