It was a twisty, busy road, lined with what looked like mango trees, piles of old fruit under each one. We’d left Ish and LC back in Cairns, with instructions to use the day as they felt best. The conversation with our son had warmed my heart.

“This is a present for your Mum, son. I think LC would get bored, and it’ll be a full day. You sure you don’t mind looking after her?”

“She’s my sister, Dad. What else would I do?”

“What are you planning? Need cash?”

“Something to buy lunch with be good, but I thought we’d do some stuff on those boulders, then hit the lagoon. She’s got her little camera, and I’ve done some reading, and there’s a fruit bat roost she’ll like”

“A what?”

“Internet says it’s by the bus station. Some sort of parrot, lorikeet, big flocks roost there at night, and in the day it’s fruit bats. See what it’s like. May show Mum if it’s any good. I can just imagine her muttering ‘lorikeet’ over and over again”

“Cheeky! Anyway, we’ll call when we’re nearly back. Choice of eatery tonight?”

“I thought we’d see what looked good, Dad. There’s an Italian and a Chinese I’ve seen on the net. Let you know later? “

“No worries, son. We’re off; enjoy your day”

I parked up just off Wharf Street in Port Douglas, Maz looking around at a pretty nondescript collection of shops, before saying, “Ooh! Orange-footed scrubfowl!”

There were a group of them, orange feet and legs curiously oversized, their heads seeming to wear pointed caps. As I opened my door, my wife asked, “Why exactly are we here, darling?”

“Wait and see, love”

“You can be bloody infuriating at times, Mr MBR!”

“I do my best. Hop out and I’ll lock up. Bring your kit”

“Why have we brought my telescope?”

“You’ll see. Anyway, that’s sort of the whole point of a telescope, isn’t it?”

“ARGH!”

“Something you ate? Ah. There he is”

I led her towards a people carrier, another couple already standing by it, as a typically wiry Ocker ambled across from the food market.

“G’day! I’m Sid. Have we got Brett and Stella?”

The other couple waved.

“Mike and Maz?”

I nodded, and Sid grinned.

“Hop in, then, and we’re offski”

Once settled in the Toyota, he looked back from the driver’s seat.

“Just waiting for a mate. Now, have you all got optics? If not, we have spare bins, for yez”

I could see the moment the penny dropped for my beloved.

“Sid?”

“Yes, er, Maz?”

“My sneaky bastard of a husband here hasn’t told me why we’re here. Can I guess this is a birding tour?”

He laughed out loud, as another, larger man settled into the front passenger seat.

“This is Harrry, and yes, you’re right. Perfect Plumage tours. We’re driving round a mix of habitats up on the edge of the Daintree, then the top end of the Atherton tablelands, with a lunch stop for a proper Aussie meal. Harry’s got some tick lists for you, and he’ll be keeping one, so if you spot something I haven’t, let me know. That’s my feedback and sort of selling point. In case you’re wondering, it’s normally around eighty species, but I had some pom bastard a few years ago took it up to ninety-three. Buckle in, please!”

As he drove, he kept up a constant flow of anecdote and humour, including more about his ‘pom bastard’.

“So, we’re nearly back, and he says, ‘Hey, no raptors yet?’, and then in comes a black kite. And a whistling kite. And a square-tailed kite. And so on, right up to a bloody white-bellied sea eagle. Seems there was some carrion in a paddock. Don’t get your hopes up, but keep your eyes open, and I have some surprises for you”

I had been worried the trip would be a little boring, as birding was really something for Maz rather than myself, but it was far from being a drag, as Sid seemed to know every odd little roost, from a sweeping lake with marshy edges where we had magpie geese, cotton geese, pygmy geese, geese geese and so on, through a stand of trees holding some sort of Victorian bird of paradise, to a gravel car park by a school.

“Every year, he’s here, or his son, whatever. See that sort of sideways nest thing?”

Stella almost whispered, “Bower?”

“Yup! If we wait---there he goes”

A sort of grey thrush-thing with a tiny purple flag on its back darted past carrying a round, flat pebble, which it placed carefully at the entrance to its bower before scurrying off again.

“Great bowerbird, Stella. This one likes white decorations. His Dad was into blue. Told you there’d be some surprises, ey?”

Our lunch stop was at a roadside café in the middle of nowhere, with some huge termite mounds scattered among the nearby trees, and as he parked up, Sid pointed at a tree next to the gravel layby.

“Give that tree a scan, ey?”

It seemed there were six different species of honeyeater hopping around in it, and a very happy wife in the van with me.

Lunch itself was a ‘burger with everything’, including beetroot, with chips and a bit of salad, and once we were finished, Harry brought over a plastic box. Sid grinned as he opened it.

“Proper Aussie treat here, mates: Lamingtons!”

Being Proper Aussie Sandgropers, of course, we were very familiar with the coconut-covered treats, but Brett and Stella, being from somewhere called Spokane, had never seen them before. In fact, they’d been a little confused by the beetroot, but never mind. Stella had superb eyes when it came to spotting feathered things, and it turned into a little bit of a competition between her and Maz until we arrived back at the car park, our overall tick list showing an astonishing ninety-one species. I hadn’t thought there were that many types of birds in Australia full stop, never mind that it was possible to see them all in one day.

“Thanks, people! How did you like your day, Brett?”

The man simply grinned, pointing at me.

“I think Mike and I were just along for the ride today, Sid; gifts to our ladies here. But I really enjoyed today. You’ll have to try a real American hamburger some day”

Harry laughed, almost the first thing he had said all day.

“We have, mate: that’s why we serve them our way, and with proper chips. Anyway, we almost broke our record today”

Maz waved towards our car, and the little flock of birds that had returned.

“Want to add those scrub fowl to the list, oh: and what’s that up there?”

Sid lifted his bins to scan the skies, and laughed.

“She has good eyes indeed! That’s a white-bellied sea eagle, first year plumage. Got it, everyone? And… that’s equalled our record! Thanks again, all of you. Please leave us some feedback online, and if you’re ever back up FNQ again, say hello”

Maz was silent for the whole of the drive back to Cairns, except for a stop at somewhere called Rex Lookout, where she insisted we park so that she could kiss me with as much passion as I could ever remember.

“Thank you, my darling. That was wonderful”

“I don’t kiss that badly, then?”

“Oh, stop it! You just leave me feeling guilty, now. This was supposed to be our boy’s birthday trip”

“And we can’t multitask? Anyway; give him a ring, let him know we’re on our way?”

She did the honours, as I pulled out from the parking space and concentrated on not hitting any of the magpies wandering around on the edge of the road. Suddenly, Maz laughed.

“I’ve heard of this, darling, but never seen it”

“What is it?”

“The fallen fruit, Mike. It’s fermenting”

“Oh! You mean?”

“I do indeed! Those birds, how is it you put it? Absolutely bladdered. Pissed as farts!”

A pause.

“How exactly does one piss a fart, darling?”

We were still laughing when I parked up at the apartments.

The boy was in an armchair, laptop on, clearly having a chat with someone, and we all knew who that would be. He looked up as we entered.

“Hang on, Clar. Elsie’s on her bunk, Dad. She’s absolutely shattered”

“What did you get up to?”

“Bit of a climb, then that café over the road has a playground. Afternoon, we walked into town for a swim, and then she wanted to look at the sailing boats. She… tell you later, Dad, okay?”

“Okay, son. Anything to worry about?”

“No, not that sort of thing. Just… how was your day?”

“Ask your mother”

Maz just sighed.

“Ninety-three species of birds, and most of them life ticks, but I managed to bear the ennui”

“You’ve never lied well, Mum!”

She laughed happily.

“Guilty! Anyway, tonight’s meal?”

“Italian looked okay”

“Then we shall be pasta it later. Seriously, is Carlyn okay to walk later?”

“I think so. She’s just had a very busy day”

“Then once you’ve finished chatting to HI CLARA please do us all a pot of tea. I’m going to get your sister up, see how she feels, and if she is fine, your father can book a table for us all”

LC wasn’t just up to the walk when we went out for dinner, but absolutely bouncing. I let Maz and her drift a little in front of us, then nodded to Ish.

“Your sister?”

“Er, yeah. I’d guessed you were doing something with birds for Mum, and told her, and she said Mum used to wish that Elsie and her were birds, so they could fly away from the rattan and the axe. Then she asked about that boat we went on, on that river. There were sailing boats going past the lagoon, so she asked where they were going”

“What did you tell her?”

“That they went wherever the owner wanted. She then said something about if they had had a boat like that, then they wouldn’t need to turn into birds. She wants to go on a boat, Dad, but… Is she ever going to be free?”