During our recent trip (August 2015) we stayed for five nights at the Alligator Creek campsite, in Bowling Green Bay National Park, 20 or so kilometres south of Townsville. This is a well developed campsite with bathroom facilities, but no room for cars with trailers or caravans to stay overnight. When we arrived someone was parked in our pre-booked space, so we had to ask them to move.

Clearly many of the campers just came in for the overnight stay and didn't bother paying the fee. This feels like cheating, to me, with our National Parks and Wildlife services desperately short of funds and resources overstretched!

Townsville is experiencing very dry conditions, and there was probably an unusually high number of bird species around the campsite, possibly attracted by Alligator Creek which was one of the few remaining sources of water. Four of the photos shown below, were of species new to me, the chestnut-breasted cuckoo, the white-faced monarch, the brown-backed honeyeater and the white-throated honeyeater. But I didn't find the yellow-spotted honeyeater, which Joe managed to photograph. it is always a thrill to find new bird species!