A sniffy post

Today being our last day in Byron Bay we decided to revisit the Northern beach – Belongil.  As Frances commented it sounds like a pidgin word for some that is bad for your health.  Not so: it was very pleasant.  There were few people or dogs on the beach, which a tad surprising: perhaps the howling gale of yesterday had turned people off?

I realise I haven’t commented on dog etiquette.  Tammy can spot a dog shape at (at least) 200m at which point she goes into long-dog mode with everything in a straight horizontal line.  She then moves forward gradually increasing in speed, as determined by how the lead holder is feeling.  (Other dogs, especially those with collie or kelpie in the genome, tend to insert a phase of laying on the ground and pointing at the other dog.  This tends to be followed by a mutual charge.)  In all cases the actual meeting tends to be followed up by sniffing each others noses.  A couple of things can happen next: the investigations can be broken off then if nothing of interest is found; genital sniffing can happen (involving gymnastics if one of the dogs is four times the size of the other); or there may be a move into mutual pouncing.  So far, there has been no aggression amongst the dogs on the beach (other than Tammy giving some one a snap for some reason – and getting a tap on the honker for her trouble).

After walking up and down the exercise area (and spotting a pair of Sacred Kingfishers) we returned home where the drive was being pressure cleaned.  So we fled the noise to Tallow Beach: passing the local chiropractor's office.  I liked this sign.

 Tallow Beach was also fairly deserted.  When I went to look at a bunch of birds on the beach – about 500m outside the dog exercise area – they all turned out to be Crested Terns.  However, an Osprey – probably the same one I saw from the lighthouse - bathing in a swale was a major bonus.  Frances, being a law-abiding person, had stayed back in Stalag Hund and was interested to note Tammy reacting to me (in a different way to other pedestrians) when I was about 400m away.

 I then went to the centre of town for email checking.  There was a slight diversion back to Belongil Beach to get some chopped down bamboo: this may get converted into a wind chime when we return home!  I needed to use a café for email access since the library was fully booked for the next hour.  Some bottled goods were then acquired as liquor stores are not common around Topi.

Amongst the bottled goods were a couple of samples of the work of Messrs Stone and Wood, who also brew in Byron Bay.  The first offering, a lager, was very pleasant indeed.  Much taste and full bodied.  The second sample was a Pacific Ale which had a very fruity taste: I suspect some passionfruit may be involved.  An excellent beer. 

The two beers were used to assist ingestion of a second serve of fish and chips.  Tonight they had sold out of Barramundi so I took two servings of Basa – described as like Dory.   Whatever, it was very tasty.  I looked more closely at the map and found that the reason they had few pins in Australia and New Zealand was that the Styrofoam backing had been totally destroyed by the number of holes stabbed in it!  Given that the same guy had been running the place for many years and presumably put the map up soon after arriving that is perhaps not surprising.

I just realised I have included no images of the house/villa in which we stayed.  So here are the drive (it is a set-up of 19 units, but very quite - the no party rule is strongly enforced); the front and back views.