Australia Herping Help

[felipemia89]

Hello everyone!

Planning on going to Australia for the month of November (coming from the US) and I'm thinking of going to these general locations for some herping:
Darwin (First week of November), Daintree (Not sure if were going yet), Brisbane, and Adelaide.

Is there some general hotspots or recommendations to see snakes in these areas for that time of year?
I wasn't able to find any tours looking for reptiles or wildlife. Do you recommend any?
We definitely want to see Shinglebacks while were there.

Thank you!

 

[Sdaji]

I'm not aware of any large commercial tours for reptiles. The permits required to do this in Australia would be non trivial.

November is a pretty good time of year to be looking for reptiles in all of those locations. The way to look depends on which species you're wanting to see.

In early November, in most of the southern third of South Australia (the state Adelaide is in), the main challenge in getting a picture of a Shingleback is pushing all the other Shinglebacks out of the way so you can get a clear shot of it. I've literally gone for drives through SA in October and early November and counted well over 100 in a day. If I have a herper passenger they usually want to stop to look at them all and don't understand my reluctance, but after a short while realise why I am not fussed about stopping to see them all (if we do, we're not going to cover much distance for the day, there are just so many of them).

Interestingly, if you go back to those same roads in the hot weather in January and February you may see few or literally none.

You should be able to find Shinglebacks in Adelaide but if you want to see a lot of them you'll be best driving a fair distance out of town.

 

[Mitella]

Hi mate,

https://www.australianwildlifeencounters.com.au/about
https://www.faunagraphic.com.au/
These tours are your best bet!

 

[james2109]

Wild places Brisbane is a good book to get. Give you a few ideas. Usually when we go looking for stuff we dont find but when we go to local reserves and national parks just chilling we see snakes, monitors etc. Pretty dry here right now. No frogs about. Roma Parklands in Brisbane is a great spot to see water dragons in their thousands thriving in a city ecosystem. They are so used of humans you can just about tread on them. Sunshine coast snake catcher does tours only 1.5 hours north of Brisbane around Buderim. You go out on his calls to catch and release snakes. Sunshine coast Snake catcher. I took my son for his birthday and we handled and released 5 coastal carpet pythons. It was an epic tour and he lets you get right in the action, except for venomous snakes of course.
If you are interested in red belly black snakes we go to a place on a boardwalk over an estuary and always see red bellies. We know one guy who saw 18 in one visit. That is the only place we go to where we pretty much always see snakes. That is on the sunshine coast again. I can send you the location if you pass me your email address. Hope all goes well. Its a fab place for herping!