Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

brush-turkeys. But unless you have sharp eyes or the patience to stand silently, your
encounters with birdlife tend to be audio rather than visual. This makes the birds
easier to identify. Does it sound like the crack of a whip? That’s a whipbird. Does it
sound like a mewling cat? That’s a catbird. A rifleshot? That’s a Paradise riflebird.
You get the idea. And if you hear a car alarm or mobile phone, that’ll be an
Albert’s lyrebird, an elusive but accomplished mimic.
an eastern whipbird
“If you hear a car alarm or mobile phone, that’ll be an Albert’s
lyrebird, an elusive but accomplished mimic”
At the junction of the Border Track with the Coomera Falls circuit I take the
Coomera turning, where I meet Rusty and Nev, two park rangers attending to one
of the regular rainy season landslips. ‘Some parts of the trail date back to the
Depression labour of the 1930s and the 1940s, when unemployed men, and war
veterans who found it hard to adapt to civilian life, went into the woods to adjust to
life,’ explains Rusty. ‘They’d fill backpacks with rocks from the creek and carry them
along the trails. It was hard, dangerous work – there were no safety harnesses in
those days.’ Snakes were a hazard too, and it’s a little later that I encounter
Australia’s third-most venomous reptile, a young male tiger snake warming himself