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"Portland Roads"
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 [...]
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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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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) [...]
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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
Continue Reading →This is a beautiful video of the Lockhart River Aboriginal Community just near us. It shows the places we visit regularly, Quintel Beach, Chili Beach, and some of the people we know. It was made in 2008. Lockhart River intro to Bush Tucker video
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Portland Roads is the access point for Restoration Island which is just a quick boat ride across the water. Restoration Island is listed in the Wwoofing directory. In February 2010 this Wwooofer called to find out if Dave was taking anyone. He said no since it was the wet season and he was going away, [...]
Continue Reading →I found this wonderful article about a trip to Iron Range National Park. They spotted an incredible amount of wildlife in their 3 days, and have some beautiful photos of many of the species to be found around the Portland Roads area. He says ‘The Iron Range is a special place and really is like [...]
Continue Reading →Well, we have been living on Cape York for 6 months now. Portland Roads is very special, but we haven’t really explored further yet. We have some friends coming up from Canberra soon, so now we are planning our Cape York adventure. We thought we would share our research here as it may be useful [...]
Continue Reading →We often hear birds but don’t always see them, so we are left wondering what they are. I was thrilled to find this site to help identify our local species, especially the night birds. Bird sounds from Australasia and the Pacific is a site where people have submitted their bird recordings, it is also a resource [...]
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We spotted this huge green treefrog yesterday, here at the Portland Roads Beach Shack. He was perched in a tree just near the path to our house. He sat perfectly still while we photographed him. Notice that he has ear patches rather than holes. That is Seamus’ arm behind him holding down the tree branch [...]
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This Matrax ad was filmed at Chili Beach in June 2010. The film crew stayed at Portland Roads Beach Shack which gave them a good base to explore the area and easy access to Chili Beach.
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