The Murray River is Australia’s longest river, and the third longest navigable river in the world (after the Amazon and the Nile). It stretches for just over 2500 kilometres from Kosciusko National Park in New South Wales to the Indian Ocean at Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. The Murray River forms the border between New South Wales and Victoria, and it was here that we were keen to look for the wildlife that depend upon it.
Pelagic Birding
While we have, so far, focused mostly on the birds that are found on Australia’s land areas, this blog would not be complete if we did not tell you about some of our trips out to Australia’s Pelagic zones.
Outback New South Wales
The Outback is synonymous with Australia, but where, and what, is it? Every state in mainland Australia, and the Northern Territory, has an outback, and it refers to the vast open country that is so remote you can travel for several hours, and, in some places, days, without seeing another human being. While the New South Wales Outback is not quite as remote as that of most other states, it is still an enormous area, and is an area that has its own wildlife residents.
Rare Visitor
Just a short drive south of Sydney (well, about 2.5 hours really – but that is short in Australian terms) is a wonderful shorebird area, that often attracts the occasional rare visitor from time to time.
Heading North
We’ve started heading north from Sydney on our way to Brisbane in Queensland. Along the way we managed to stop in at a few places on the New South Wales north coast. Some were very fruitful indeed and others were very picturesque, but lacking in one vital thing – abundant wildlife. At one place in particular, we were absolutely inundated by wildlife, but not the type we were looking for. We were literally savaged by blood-thirsty mosquitoes every time we stopped to take a picture!
Koala Country
We headed to some prime Koala country in the central west of New South Wales. After a stormy night, we set off early in the morning to try and find this famous marsupial which, along with the Kangaroo, is one of Australia’s most iconic animals.
The New South Wales South Coast
Although we did not have a lot of time on this trip, we found a huge variety of awesome wildlife in the 250 km stretch of the New South Wales south coast immediately south of Sydney.
Wombat Cam
A quick trip out to the Blue Mountains (and beyond) rewarded us with a great list of some awesome Australian animals. Some of the more commonly seen species were: Common Wombat, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Euro, Red-necked Wallaby, Squirrel Glider, Lace Monitor and a big list of birds, including: Superb Lyrebird, Torquoise Parrot, Laughing Kookaburra, Eastern Yellow Robin, Double-barred Finch, Crimson Rosella and more honeyeaters than you could point a camera at!