The Woodies Travel

Today we had a very short drive from Atherton to Mareeba, about 35km. The park where we are staying is nowhere near as good as last night. There are lots of semi-permanent dwellers in the park living in rather run down looking vans. After setting up the van we headed out to the Mareeba Wetlands a privately run conservation centre that was established in the mid 1990s to use up excess water previously used to grow tobacco and to provide an area to help prevent the decline of various bird species. They have a breeding programme for Gouldian Finches, at present in a captive situation, but do have a release policy. We decided not to go on their tours as we had gone there at lunchtime and the best tour was late in the day. Instead we had lunch and enjoyed the birds we could see. We then headed to Coffee Works, a business that roasts locally and internationally grown coffee and also produces excellent but extremely expensive chocolate - so we looked but did not buy. Thenit was time for some reading and internet contact.