This is the place (www.portlandroadsbeachshack.com.au) we are looking after. We have the cottage halfway up the hill, and this is where the visitors stay. The Beach Shack accommodates up to 4 people with a double and two single beds. It is self contained with a bathroom and cooking facilities for self-catering. The living area is on [...]
A perfect holiday home on a virtual island surrounded by a nature refuge. You can enjoy complete tranquillity disturbed only by the lapping of the waves, the soughing of the breeze and the calling of the birds. The property of 3720 sq metres is on verdant coastal hillside with splendid views of offshore islands, coastline and the inner Barrier Reef where the fishing is [...]
Continue Reading →Three of Australia’s leading female Indigenous artists have reunited for an exclusive exhibition called REUNION at Vivien Anderson Gallery, 16 May – 9 June. Colloquially known as the founding members of the Lockhart River Art Gang, Samantha Hobson (SH), Rosella Namok (RN) and Fiona Omeenyo (FO) are exhibiting their new works in a joint exhibition [...]
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Watching a sunbird frolicking in the rain. Although I try to avoid anthropomorphism, it was hard to not feel that this little bird was having a great deal of fun.
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Our neighbour on the hill behind us brought down this strange coloured beetle that he’d found. He’s been here for 20 odd years and has never seen one this colour before. If anyone knows what this beetle is let us know. We think it’s a Christmas Beetle (Scarabaeidae Rutelinae) but can’t find these colours anywhere [...]
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Our baby sunbirds left the nest today. I’m assuming both of them left as I only actually saw one go. Both parents were hovering close by the nest, twittering away. The baby cautiously crawled out of the nest, holding on with it’s claws until it’s beak was pointing vertically towards the floor. Then with much [...]
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I was woken at 4am by the noise of hundreds of Dainty Green Tree Frogs (Litoria gracilenta). The noise was enough to wake and the bedroom was over 100 metres from where the frogs were. They are beautiful little frogs (also known as Graceful Tree Frog) only about 40mm – 45mm long. I could only see a [...]
Continue Reading →We’ve had a couple of sunbirds nesting in our verandah at Portland Roads Beach Shack. They build a nest hanging off a piece of string in about 2 weeks, then have the babies. We have been watching them and noticed that they seem to take the babies shit (neatly wrapped in a little white bundle) [...]
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The other night I was met at our back door by a 3.5m python. It was very quiet and relaxed but it too big to have around the house. Earlier in the day some of our little birds had been getting quite agitated and making warning noises, but I couldn’t see anything at the time. [...]
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This little Orange-naped snake (Furina ornata) was hiding next to our outside stairs. In spite of it’s very, very bright orange colouring, it was well camouflaged in the dull brown leaf litter. I presume it was a young one as it was only about 30 cms long – they apparently grow to around 70 cms.
Continue Reading →You can Fly into Cape York and spend some time exploring. There is heaps to see in just one area. Explore the Iron Range National Park, Chili Beach and Lockhart River area from Portland Roads. To encourage people to visit Portland Roads Beach Shack during the wet season, we have negotiated deals with Skytrans and [...]
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This colourful tree snake is very long. At the other end his colour changes to an olive green. He is living under this water tank in our yard.
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We often have interesting guests at Portland Roads. I was just talking to some Lizard people and told them about this little fellow. So just found out that this is a Major Skink. He was in our kitchen and ran under the bench, behind some boxes. This photo was in July 2011, but I also [...]
Continue Reading →There is some quite interesting history in the naming of Portland Roads (Cate will write an a post on this soon). The ‘Roads’ is short for Roadstead which is an old nautical term for shelter. We often have boats, yachts and ships moored in our sheltered bay. Everything from sports-fishing (Nomad Sportfishing), motherships from Seaswift, to [...]
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I’m not sure that we actually have spring here, but the plants and trees are bursting with new life. And we are seeing more and more different animals and insects each day. Of course the humidity keeps rising too. But the winds are lessening and the sea is calming and becoming glass-like in the mornings. [...]
Continue Reading →I’d never heard of nurdles before – it’s a beautiful sounding word but unfortunately has sinister connotations. Nurdles are small plastic resin pellets (usually under 5 mm diameter) used as the main raw product in the manufacture of plastic products. They are one of the main sources of marine debris. Nurdles resemble fish eggs, absorb toxins [...]
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NOTE: We’ve closed the petition as we had to have all communication to DERM by 5pm Jan 5th. Thank you to the people who signed and I’m sure emails direct to the member (Lorinda.Morrissey@derm.qld.gov.au) after the close date can’t hurt. Have your say by 5pm Jan 5 on the proposal for Queensland Parks and [...]
Continue Reading →Here is a link to the Cooktown and Cape York website with road conditions that are updated regularly
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Ophichthus cephalozona, a photo by Ben Naden on Flickr. Here is a better photo of our sea creature, taken on North Sulawesi, Indonesia
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When we first got here and walked at low tide we spotted one of these strange creatures, when I asked around no one had seen anything like it, a sea snake with a frilled neck sounded pretty unlikely. Nothing came up on google and I had no picture to post on the forums. We just [...]
Continue Reading →We have just done a trip up to the tip of Cape York and back so I thought I would share where is good to go. We had friends up from Canberra so it was a good excuse to explore. Bramwell Station was a find, we took a wrong turn on the way to Bramwell [...]
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