Campers Link Walk to the Visitor Information Centre and Gurianawa Track, Warrumbungle National Park, NSW.

Turquoise Parrot

Warrumbungle National Park is famous for the Breadknife and Grand High Tops Walk but while we were camping at Camp Blackman we discovered that the easy walk between the campground and the Visitor Information Centre is an outstanding birding location. In addition, it links to a short easy circuit walk around the Information Centre which is also an outstanding birding location.

Campers Link Track

Views along the Campers Link Track.

Campers Link Walk:

Over the years, we have found Turquoise Parrots to be allusive. Having searched near Wallangarra, NSW without success and infamously coming to the attention of the police who were very suspicious of our camera equipment and of course we didn't have any photos of the Turquoise Parrot to prove what we were up to! We have also searched for them at Sundown National Park were we have since sighted them but hadn't managed to see them before going the the Warrumbungles. A short distance into the walk to the Visitor Information Centre, to our astonishment we saw ten Turquoise Parrots feeding on the ground. We walked a little further and saw eight Turquoise Parrots feeding on the ground. As we walked along, we saw more and more Turquoise Parrots until we gave up counting them.

Turquoise Parrot

The track runs alongside Spirey Creek which was dry when we were there. We saw emus, kangaroos, lizards and a variety of birds. We also saw lots of feral goats. The goats had only been culled two weeks before we went there but they are cleaver and hide out near the campground where they can't be targeted.

Eastern Grey Kangaroos.

Lace Monitor

Molting Dragon

Superb Fairy-wren.

White-winged Chough

Crimson Chat

Eastern Rosella

Feral Goats

Gurianawa Walking Track, Easy Grade, 1 km circuit:

The newly opened Visitor Information Centre

Gurianawa Track

On one of our visits to the Information Centre we were speaking to a national parks ranger about our surprise at the sheer number of Turquoise Parrots and Crimson Chats on the walk from Camp Blackman and around the information Centre. She pointed a couple out to us who had just made inquiries on where to sight Turquoise Parrots and asked if we wouldn't mind speaking to them about where we had sighted the birds. This we readily did and when we introduced ourselves to them we found that they were keen birders from Canada on a birding holiday. They had only been in Australia for three weeks but they had an amazing breadth of knowledge about Australian birds. We took them on a short tour of the Gurianawa Walking Track that circuits the Visitor Information Centre and were able to point out a pair of Turquoise Parrots to them, as well as a number of other birds that they hadn't seen. We all had a great time. They told us that they had been camping in the Warrumbungles for two days without much birding success and had no idea that the circuit walk and link walk was there and had been about to leave when we met them. They were so pleased that they took a photo of us to publish in their birding newsletter back home.

Turquoise Parrot

Jacky Winters.

White-plumed Honeyeaters.

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater.

Masked Woodswallow.

The walk is very scenic and there is plenty of other wildlife to see besides birds. We saw emus, kangaroos and dragons.

Kurrajong Tree

View along the Gurianawa Track

Eastern Grey Kangaroos