Leg 8 – down the east coast

We made it from Camooweal to Townsville in one day, but ended up arriving in Townsville quite late. I couldn’t call on my Townsville mates at this ungodly hour, so we headed north and camped in Paluma Range National Park. We had a quick look around the campground in the morning, then headed up the range to the small township of Paluma. We wanted to see a golden bowerbird, but dipped out on it. We drove back down the range and headed south towards Mackay. There are four species of leaf-tailed geckos (Phyllurus spp.) around Mackay that I wanted to track down. Over the next two days and nights we trekked up various mountains in search of these lizards. Of the four leaf-tails around Mackay, we put in a serious effort for three and ended up finding just one.

Blue-throated rainbow-skink (Carlia rhomboidalis).

Saw-shelled turtle (Wollumbinia latisternum).

Eastern horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus megaphyllus).

Eastern horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus megaphyllus).

Mount Ossa broad-tailed gecko (Phyllurus ossa), with a decidedly less-than-broad tail.

As we continued south, we called in at another location for another species of leaf-tail. We put up our camp while it was still light, then set out in search of the gecko when night fell. We found one within a few minutes, which is always a great feeling.

Ringed thin-tail gecko (Phyllurus caudiannulatus).

That would mark the last reptick of my trip, and indeed the last reptile we’d see on our epic journey. The next morning we packed up and drove back home to Brisbane.

Over the course of the previous two months, I’d smashed out 34 new repticks. This took my life-list to 291. I had five months to make another nine repticks if I wanted to reach my goal of 300 by the end of this year. Piece of cake, right? We’ll see…

To be continued.

Repticks:
Phyllurus ossa
Phyllurus caudiannulatus