How to think well of Gungahlin?

Visit Mackay in Queensland!  I will expand on this towards the end of this post.

The morning began with a walk to the beach through the sand dunes.  These attractive fertilised flowers were a highlight.

On the bird front a Rainbow Bee-eater was cooperative.

I had hopes of getting a photo of a Blue Triangle butterfly, but unfortunately a White-breasted Woodswallow had (fulfilled) visions of a snack rather than a snap.  The insect had displayed some interest in these mistletoe flowers before its attention span was terminated.

The mistletoe was growing on this eucalypt.  Nice to see that genus in flower.

Even nicer to see these very colourful and huge Pandanus fruit.

We than had an interlude (from the Latin meaning "between games" I think) after Tammie started trying to dig through the back seat of the car.  It was obviously going to be impossible to travel with that going on, so the car was completely unloaded.  Sure enough, there was Mr Rat in the boot.  Tammy was loaded in, but the rodent got the jump on her and disappeared into the rear footwell.  No trace found, but Tammy was very disturbed for the next several kilometres.

No Bustards were evident as we left Alva but a fair bit later as we crossed the Burdekin Bridge Frances glanced into the huge (mainly dry) River and spotted a Black-necked Stork (which would be called a Jabiru if the South Americans hadn't claimed that name first).  A series of complicated changes of direction followed and some photos taken.

The photos were taken from the pedestrian element of the bridge.  This I think cantilevered out from the roadway and was somewhat below it.  In combination this meant it bounced rather more than desirable.

After a pie-free diversion through bits of Bowen we finally scored some baked goods in Proserpine.  We ate these in a roadside parking lot which was graced by these bottlebrushes,

My pie is covered in the official summary below.  I purchased what I thought was going to be an egg and bacon quiche for Frances.  It turned out to be a steak pie with an egg and bacon covering, plus a whole boiled egg in the middle.  Most unusual.

We then got to Mackay.  It looked a rather industrial town.  After getting to the van park - also rather industrial looking - I went to try to find some rat traps for the car.  The first Bunnings I found was closed.  Que?  So I searched a huge shopping centre and no-one sold rat traps.  The place was full of screaming kids and fat persons!  I eventually found my way to the replacement Bunnings (about 5km outside town, next to the Masters store) and got what I needed.

After returning to the van park we went a walk around the Goose Ponds.  An excellent civic park with many interesting geese and ducks (as well as a lot of feral Muscovies and domestic ducks.

This Muscovy had a nice brood of young.

• Bird of the day: Black-necked Stork an easy winner of the individual comp.  The Woodswallow got a mention for the feeding frenzy.  Flock was the wide variety of fowl at the Goose ponds.
• Vegetation of the day:   Pandanus fruit at Alva Beach
• Memorable moment: Bouncing around on the Burdekin Bridge!
• Comment of the day: "How did you get that allowed?"  Comment on Tammy being allowed into the park.
• Pie of the day:.  Steak and kideney in Proserpeine.  Pretty good but a not a great deal of kidney.  Perhaps 7/10.
• Troppo moment of the day. Finding that a Bunnings store had closed!

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