It was the end of school third term and I took the holidays off to spend time with the family. My wife Mel works & daughter Sienna goes to daycare respectively 2 days a week so Liam & I dropped the girls off and then headed for the hills!
Our first idea was to look for bats in the Swanview tunnel that can be found in John Forrest National Park. We brought our torches and a packed morning tea. The parking can be found here. See below for the map of the tunnel site. The tunnel opened in 1896 and the track has been preserved as a John Forrest heritage trail.
We headed for the tunnel taking the old railpath which is used by walkers, mountain bikers and lots of mums with prams & bubs! There was some water in the tunnel but the torches kept us of of trouble. Unfortunately no bats were seen.
Once through the tunnel we walked past the site of an old train crash in 1896 – see below pic for the story.
We really enjoyed our snacks after working up quite an appetite.
Food time
We enjoyed some close views of Red-tailed black cockatoos eating gumnuts.
We then headed back through the tunnel once more checking out the water.
After the tunnel we saw a distant rainbow bee-eater harassing a Little eagle!
We had had a lovely morning walk and recommend this walk – lovely for kids and the tunnel is something very different.
View towards from the hills.
Wildlife Watching in Australia 
Hi Ry, thanks for this post. You & Liam had a wonderful time in the tunnel. Very interesting reading on the train crash in 1896. Lovely bird life at the John Forrest National Park. Anne
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Sounds great Ry, would never have thought of looking for bats in a tunnel I must say. How old is Liam now? My grandson is 4 am wondering whether he might like such a walk.
Maureen
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Hi Maureen – Liam is 4.5 – so it would be a perfect place to take your grandson – he was a little tired at the end but the highlight was definitely torches in the tunnel! My bat idea I thought was a good one but there didn’t seem to be any obvious cracks or places for them to roost and plus there is a lot of rowdy traffic going through it! Cheers Ry
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Hello,
Great photos. I would just like to let you know that the ‘Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo’ that you supplied photos of above is in fact a Female Red-tailed Black Cockatoo. The difference is that Red-tails are generally much larger, and have no white cheek patch unlike the Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo. You can tell that the bird in the photo is a Female as it has the spots on it.
Enjoy bird-watching and nature around Perth!
From,
Anonymous
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Thanks for the pickup – Yes I see it now! definitely red-tailed cocky 🙂
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