We had heard of a bush camping site at a place called Watsonville just west of here at the end of the bitumen so we went to investigate.
Watsonville is a tiny town with a mining past and not much present. Its centrepiece is a windmill literally in the centre of the town on the traffic island of the only intersection in the town. It celebrates the finding of underground water which allowed the miners to extract tin from the ore thus making the mining business viable.
The bush camping site was just a couple of tracks by the road so we didn't stay.
On the way back to Atherton, we found Hasties Swamp, a National Park wetland with more waterbirds than we had seen all winter.
Hundreds of Plumed Whistling-ducks and may tens of Magpie Geese together with Hardhead, Great and Intermediate Egret, Sacred and Straw-necked Ibis, Masked Lapwing, Kookaburra, Cockatoo, and a few Australasian Grebe (another new species for me).
We met and talked to a Danish couple who had flown into Darwin, hired a 4WD camper and were travelling to Cairns for their flight back to Europe. They told me that they live on a tiny island in the Baltic, the second most easterly in Denmark and they watch birds on their migrations to and from the Arctic. They were overwhelmed by the profusion of birds in Australia and hoped to come again.
We visited Tinaroo Dam, the local tourist hot spot but decided to move on to a caravan park across the lake which had been recommended as very pretty and comparatively cheap. The powered site was much appreciated when the temperature dropped overnight and we were able to warm ourselves up without resorting to three layers of clothes. We didn't expect it to be so chilly here but it is mid-winter.