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.
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.
Wildlife Watching in Australia 
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