A new town, a new park and a new bird

Cocoparra National Park, central New South Wales

Our holiday in New South Wales

September 2007

Our destination on day two of our holiday was Lake Cargelligo. The quickest way would have been to go from Hay straight to Rankins Springs, but we had travelled that route several time before. We’d never been to Griffith so we took a slightly longer route. This route also took us past the Cocoparra National Park which we had missed on our previous trips in this area.

We stopped briefly in Griffith to refuel. The size of this large rural centre surprised me. It has a population of over 24,000 and looked interesting enough for a return visit in the future. With the Cocoparra NP only 25km to the NE it would be good to be based there for a few days. After refueling we headed out towards the national park. We had an enforced stop for five minutes at a red stop light in the middle of nowhere. Roadworks can do that to you.

On arrival at the Cocoparra National Park for the very first time we stopped to survey the map at the entrance and then we chose Jack’s Creek picnic ground. Unfortunately we only had time to visit one spot in the park. As we drove into the picnic area we were immediately greeted by a family of White-winged Choughs, a group of noisy Apostlebirds and a Peaceful Dove calling somewhere nearby. The Choughs were feeding young in a nest in the car park. The Apostlebirds objected to our visit and the Striated Pardalotes just kept on their incessant calling in the tree above.

Cocoparra National Park, central New South Wales

We went for a walk along a walking trail for about an hour. This took us through a rocky gully with sandstone rocks being the feature. There were enough plants flowering to keep my wife happy and enough birds singing and flying around to keep me happy. I was delighted to see a Speckled Warbler for the very first time. It is always good to add a new species to my life list (a list of all the birds I’ve ever seen).

After our walk we had afternoon tea and then headed off towards our destination for the night.

Wildflowers at Cocoparra National Park