Too hot in the Royal

My brother and his family drove up from Melbourne a few weeks ago for a quick visit on their way up to Queensland for a holiday.

Sadly while they were here the weather was horribly hot and sticky but we did go for a picnic in the Royal National park and then did quite badly at trying to find a beach.

South

Over the Australia day long weekend (it was a long weekend if you took the Monday off) Allan, Gemma, Adelle and I went down to the Ben Boyd national park for a few days followed by a night at Kosciuszko National Park.

The campsite at Ben Boyd was very nice and although it was full the people there were all pretty quiet.



Ben Boyd

Kosciuszko NP on the other hand was possibly a little more scenic but as people had mentioned previously it is utterly devoid of wildlife.


It is the slight bump in the center of the photo.

Birdperving in the heat

On Saturday morning most of us were ready to go at the relatively keen hour of 8:00 am.
First up on the list of places was windsor downs, where looking at the oversized houses provided significantly better entertainment than looking at the birds. Mostly because there were no birds to see, it was also starting to get rather hot.
Next we went to Bushell's lagoon and didn't see the grey plover or wandering whistling ducks. But did see a nice cuckoo and plenty of mud. Sadly there were no snakes about, but maybe it was the wrong time of the day.
After that it was off to pitt town lagoon for another failure and more wandering through long grass hoping not to get bitten by a snake.
Lastly we popped in to scheyville NP where we mostly saw a lot of country folk (euphemism for bogans) disobeying the park rules.

Christmas in NZ

Adelle and I spent Christmas and new years in NZ over the holidays and it was lovely with nice mild temperatures and very little time spent in the city.


Christmas at Nana's.


Raglan's new years parade. It was substantially better than standing amongst the sleazy sweaty throngs of subhumans in Sydney in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the spectacular waste of money that is the fireworks on the harbour bridge.

As usual there was plenty of things happening on the farm to keep one busy.




We were also kept busy horse riding, birdwatching, go karting, site seeing and fishing.











For more photos please see this link.

Leeches

We went for another walk in the royal on the weekend but did not have much time as we had to do some tilling in the bathroom. Therefore we chose to do the forest loop walk, which is at one end of the lady carrington drive. I have done it a few other times and do remember there being a few leeches on previous occasions but not as bad as it was this weekend. Still although I got about 20 on my shoes they were not quick enough to draw blood, although they were successful with my walking companion. On the other hand I did manage to get bitten between the shoulder blades by a bull ant.

Wandering in the Royal

Sunday was hot and I was sporting a headache so we decided to go for a walk along lady Carrington drive. The birds and reptiles were out in abundance and a light coloured goshawk even flew over but did not linger long enough for me to confirm the identity.


Golden Whistler


Variegated Fairy-wren

Long weekend holiday

Adelle and I decided to take an extra two days off over the long weekend and go on a road trip.

On the first day we drove to Willie Retreat in the Macquarie Marshes. It was a nine hour drive which is quite reasonable by Australian standards and leaving Sydney is always a pleasant experience. I had been to willie retreat before but it was in winter so didn't previously get to experience the green tree frogs and geckos.







The next day we went to Gundabooka NP where we met up with Allan and Gemma. Lots of birds were seen with the highlights for me at least being the crimson chat, crested bellbird and the chestnut-breasted quail-thrush.


Gundabooka, it a nice walk from the look out to the top of this and back provided you have a compass and a spare day.


Lots of Shinglebacks about as well as bearded dragons.


Traumatising lizards

Still next time we go I'll make sure I take a few extra days off as 1,950 km in five days is a little bit too far.


Living the dream.

Lots more photos can be found here.

Cycle Sydney

Adelle I and 10,000 or so other punter did the Sydney spring cycle on the weekend.

It went well and despite having a gammy knee seemed easier than previous years. I also cycled home afterwards while Adelle got the train and despite taking it very easy at just over an hour to cycle home I still managed to beet Sydney's public transportation system quite easily.

Cape soleander

Managed to cycle from Marrickville to Cape Soleander and back on Saturday. Did not see any particularly interesting birds unfotunately but it was a reasonable ride none the less at just under 70 km. Which is next to nothing by Tour de France standards where most of the stages are nearly 200km long but it is a start and should help prepare us for the cycle Sydney which takes place on Sunday.

Barren Grounds

I went for a nice walk in the Barren Grounds Nature Reserve on the weekend. The park is very nice and rarely has an over-abundance of annoying tourists.



Also being spring the wild flowers were out.




I did the Griffiths trail and Kangaroo ridge walk which combine for a nice 20 km outing, but with wide grassy tracks where you only need to look down when snakes move from just in front of your feet it was a pleasant day out. That is if you don't count the 4 hours spent driving there and back.



Also to top it off I managed to flush 2 ground parrots (on the kangaroo ridge walk section) and got a photo of one, although it is a pretty poor photo as I lack the power of the bigma.