Get lost with Russ and Margy: Kutini Payamu NP Day 2

Day 2 we spent a few hours wandering around the campsite looking for new birds and fund the rufous fantail, frilled monarch, shining flycatcher, manucode, and heard loads of magnificent riflebirds but couldn’t lay eyes on them. We drove to Lockhart River township and enjoyed being shown around the art centre by Enoch who enthusiastically told us that he was taking 2 artists to Houston Texas shortly for a 3-4 month exhibition. Although we loved a large painting the $13k put us off. We met 3 older artists who were working on their art at the centre. We experienced the self service fuel and the grocery shop and then drove to the Quintels Beach front for lunch. It is beautiful but not cared for – the dirtiest toilets I’ve ever seen. It was raining off and on for most of the rest of the day so we looked for birds at the camp site. We were thrilled to find a common spotted cuscus high in a tree near the river and got loads of photos. How exciting! A guy pulled into Cooks Hut quite late and we had a chat with him. He wants to see a cuscus, a green tree python and a cassowary while on Cape York. As we were having dinner he called out that he’d seen a cuscus and so we rushed over with our torch and camera. It was a smaller cuscus and its body was all grey except for a small white strip down its belly. It seems quite different to the one we saw earlier today which seems a typical common spotted cuscus with mainly white fur and grey limbs and brown spots on its upper body. Worked out that one we saw earlier today was the Common Spotted Cuscus and the one we just saw was the Southern Common Cuscus.

Lockhart River Beach - called Quintells Beach on a very windy day