Emeralds are green and shine

Grey-cry-crowned Babblers for the babble

The title is a reference to the stone.  The town would, I suspect, regard a description of Green as actionable!  However it does shine, at least as far as its Botanic Gardens should be rated as very shiny.  They were excellent.  The sign at the entrances was also IMHO pretty spiffy:

Today was supposed to be a gentle day, with no movement of the camper and a bit of gentle exploring.  And so it was.  A good proportion was spent looking at birds.

Pheasant coucal

Great Egret - arty-farty reflecting snap 

Pale-headed Rosella

Part of the Gardens

Federation Pillars

 These were a set of stone pillars with paintings reflecting the major developments in the area in each decade since Federation in 1991.  As Frances noted, it was astonishing that they didn't refer to either of the major unpleasantnesses.  Perhaps they had taken Basil Fawlty's advice to not mention the war?

As we moved around we came to a colony of fruit bats.  I am pretty sure these were Little Red Flying Foxes as they had roosted in much denser groups than the bats we have seen in Mallacoota.

 I find the three bridges - rail, foot and car amusing.

 We then went to the Fairbairn Dam.  As we got off the Carnavon Highway there was a train.  Here is the view to the right ....

 .. and Frances got this view to the left.

 The wagons carry coal and according to the specs on them each holds about 85 tonnes when loaded.  My guess was at least 100 wagons in the train so a lot of climate change in this.

Getting to the dam one could see all the way to the mountains outside Spingsure (about 65 kms away).

The dam has a catchment of 6,300 square miles (or 16,000 square kilometres).  This is about 1/8^th the size of England.  We added a few birds to the trip list here including Great Crested Grebe, Caspian Tern and Pied Cormorant.

On getting back to the camp Frances spent time working out the structure of Monkey Puzzle leaves while I went for a 5 km run.

• Bird of the Day: Red-backed Fairy-wren.  Many contenders inc luding Pale-headed Rosella and Pheasant Coucal but the wren wins as being a hard to spot and VERY spiffy species.   Flockof the day was the squillion Rainbow Lorikeets at the gardens
• Vegetation of the day: The Emerald Botinic Gardens..  
• Memorable moment:  A large bunch of folk in saris etc at Fairbairn Dam obviously celebrating Eid-il-Fitr.
• Comment of the day: Heard as we passed someone on a mobile in the Gardens " Its the way to go with an amicable, or nearly amicable separation."  What the heck was that all about?
• Pie of the day:  This was an offering from a bakery in Emerald of " Chunky steak".  Sorry guys there was nothing chunky about it.    Mince meat and a lotta gravy.  Why can't Queensland do good pie?
• Troppo moment of the day.  Nothing obviously springs to mind.  Certainly not the overall weather: while the max of about 25C was as expected, the low of 8C this morning, and use of a quilt over night was a shock.

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