Pine Creek Sewage Farm Holiday

I suppose most of my friends must think I am insane to think of going to a sewage farm settling pond just for a day out but if you have never seen the bird life that tends to accumulate around these isolated and usually very quiet areas then you have missed the point. Sewage ponds are not that stinky, but sometime they are and this last weekend we went to Pine Creek that is about 2 hours drive away from Darwin into the hinterlands of the Gold mining area, there is gold in them thar hills but most people barely make a living and we could see holes recently dug into the hillside around the refuse tip and I think not many people make a living out of it, it is that crazy thought that they may hit the rich seam. We went to the giant opencast mine that was closed in 1976, it was dug 250 meters deep, that is pretty deep and it had a history of opening and closing over the last 100 years, i think the only people who made money were the people selling the mining equipment.

Big Gold Pit



So we arrived into the town of pine creek and went directly to the sewage ponds, it had some very interesting birds there and a few new species for me, the red-kneed dotterel which is as it says has red knees. We then went on to Copperfield Dam, a very nice area again blighted by the gold mining fever that is hitting everyone here, new mines springing up all over the place, pouring Cyanide all over the place, isn't it quite unbelievable that such a toxic poison is being used in this industry and without much control. Anyway that Dam was a very nice relaxing place after the loud mouth canoers had left, they were loading up and shouting instructions to each other, I wouldn't have stayed if they were going to stay, but they left and Myself and my birding partner "Doc" had a great picnic of Gluten free sandwich and salad and fresh strawberries perfect for the late dry season hot weather,it has been around 37C everyday this last week, plus we managed to see the wild cockatiels that are local to this area, another new species for me,

Copperfield Dam



So after the picnic we went to the area of the central town and walked around the industrial open air museum, this place had all sorts of old mining equipment and even the old steam railway locomotive that was built in Manchester UK in 1877, it was all closed down when the big pit shut in 1976.

Industrial Musuem



we saw lots of lots of parrots all over the town as the trees that are in the area were all in flower giving the birds a nice nectar feed, the colours of the birds are quite amazing, Rainbow Lorikeet, just gives you an idea of the colours. We left quite early and decided to go to one more last place in Darwin just as the light was falling, to McMinns Lagoon, a large billabong in amongst some nice houses and it was teeming with birds. As it is late in the dry season the birds are now being concentrated into the remaining water holes and we saw many hundreds of the Magpie Geese and whiskered terns dipping into the water diving after the fish plus the little Pygmy Geese and a whole load of other things, but no Storks which i would have liked to have seen. But it was a magnificent end to the days traveling.

The Lilies of Mcminns Lagoon