Another hot day in the 30s on the horizon. The day plan was for us was to drive back to Sydney to prepare for Wednesday open house and then stay to start the garage tidy up. We have a Council clean up organised for next week. That requires some work.
For some reason my wife decided to do an up and back - never mind what my plans were. Makes for a shuffling of ideas. Ride. Walk. Never going to do nothing. Spent the morning doing accounting stuff. Ate lunch early and got on the bike to walk Comerong Island
The river is closed to the sea. The shore is home to something like 90 shorebirds. First photo shows a few - last time I walked there were few
A few of these little guys just off the water - look in bottom left hand corner. More about them later
The cordoned off bits I shared two days ago are where these guys nest - oyster catcher. I now get what my birding friends like - short walk and sit and watch 90 wading birds through a long lens
Found a footpath heading away from the river running initially through a casuarina forest area. No orchids under there
Leptospermum squarrosum with bee action was one of the few flowers open
Now we know what those little birds were - little terns
Took the track down to the beach
Looking north across the river mouth to Gerroa
Dune flowers - only noticed the ant after uploading the picture
Quirky sign full of Aussie humour. It seemed to work as there was no litter
Reached the car park that is accessible by the road from the ferry - Comerong Island Reserve. Started to walk down Coal wharf Road which runs the length of the island. It is littoral rain forest with lots of leaf litter
A mixed palm and eucalyptus and some deciduous trees world
Did find one echidna playing hide me
Hit the fork in the road - guessing the left hand goes down to the beach. Kept going to the right which rises just a little. Better for orchids he hopes
Picked a point to turn without having seen any evidence of orchids about half way down the island
On the high side was helmet orchid leaf
And a bedraggled greenhood rosette
And a little further back a budding greenhood. The leaf shape and timing suggests to me it is a king greenhood - pterostylis baptistii. It has to be orchid of the day. New find on a track never walked before
Tracking back - yellow oxalis style flower on the sub track back
Track follows what would once have been a river channel - now looking more like a slice of grass growing on alluvial soil. What they call in the Caprivi Strip where I come from - an omuramba - an ancient river bed
View across the omuramba to Coolangatta Mountain
Segment of mangroves - not much of that left
Another mountain view
Footprints in the sand - mine for the journey out
Blue tongue lizard in the track on the way back. Did not move when I walked around the front and stopped back to take the photo
Short ride to the river and a big walk to get oriented and to do the nature reserve walk. You can see from the apartment it was hot
Puppy’s mum came over with wine and steaks dor dinner. Was nice to sit outside and chat and cook dinner and entertain the dog.
Turned into a late night promoting an IM offer from a friend and doing stock stuff
Bought: BHP.AX, CVV.V, STND.V, PEN.AX, PDN. AxX. RIO.AX, DOW.AX, UBSG.SW - themes - uranium as close to production as one can get
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