Handy art work at Red Rocks

Bird of the Day:  Drongo.  A fairly weak field but this gets a tick due to rarity in ACT and S NSW.  Eastern Curlew took a run but is very Easy on S coast of NSW.A flock of 75 Silver Gulls gets the numbers award.

Plant of the Day:   Caladenia catenata: the first orchid of the trip.  Many other contenders with Bossiaea ensata (the leafless Bossiae) getting a rails run for second due to weirdness.

Scene of the Day;  Beach sweeping round from Red Rocks to Woolgoolga

Art of the day; White Ochre handprints on red ochre rocks.  Honourable mention to the mural at the Red Rocks Bowling Club

Typically Australian thing of the day:  Old chubby chap sitting on a petrol can fishing off the beach.

Maximum Temperature 25 Minimum temperature  8

Distance traveled  with camper 0 without camper 15

The sea was flat and the wind calm today.  So other denizens of the caravan park hit the beach to annoy some fish.  Or at least to lose bait.

We had decided that we would revisit Red Rock today, but rather than drive we would walk the 6.5km each way.  The beach was rather devoid of the usual flotsam, although some large kelp was turning up close to the campground.  Finding the back door off a Rav4 was a bit of a surprise, and given that the number plate was neatly cut in half I suspect it wasn't the outcome of an accident.  I wonder where the rest of it is?

A little further along we found a former shark, possibly 1.2m long.  Referring to a NSW DPI guide I suspect this is a Spotted Wobbegong Orectolobus maculatus.

Certainly the'spotted' element fits, and this close up shows that the specimen had the 5 gills typical for sharks.

A shiny silver fish-head suggests a fisherman has got lucky (and a Mullet less lucky)

The dolphins were still cruising along off shore.

They were distinctly laid back with none of the dashing around, surfing down waves or leaping into the air usually displayed.  Presumably there was a good lot of slow moving food.  It was of course very good to see them.

When we got to Red Rock it was situation normal with Beach Stone Curlew.  Absence.  However it was very interesting to find evidence that the kids of a couple of days ago had made their ochre ...

...  and put it to use.

This shows the roof of the bowling club which was not evident  (on the top of the walls - it was quite evident on the ground) when we last visited, on the day after a tornado struck the settlement..

This very colourful mural was on an outbuilding of the bowlo.

We had debated whether to walk back along the beach - the key landscape of the area - or to go back along the road through the heath,  As the beach

• was largely devoid of interesting stuff, 
• had soft sand; and 
• had an unpleasant slope in the middle 2km 

we opted for the road for our return.

Apart from looking good I suspect the sign on the road out contains a message along the lines of "Developers go away.".  We heard tales of huge developments being planned South of Corindi and a new suburb hoped for (by the developer - a miner from Newcastle - and probably no-one else) in the village.  A great shame if the area is stuffed up by the dominant human attribute of thoughtless greed.

The walk was extremely good where it passed through the heathland.  Of course the plants were far more interesting on the side which wasn't National Park, but that may have been coincidence.  We were able to identify most of those photographed!

Leucopogon pimeleoides

Melaleuca salicina

Styphelia viridis

No idea!  That is surprising as it was a very distinctive plant with many of these tubular flowers on the tips of branches.

Then Frances spotted the first colony of orchids.  Our Field Guide called them Caladenia catenata but quite what they are now is anyone's guess.  Probably Somethingelse catenata!

Bossiaea ensata with a vernacular name of "Leafless bossiaea" which is certainly accurate.

This is the same species showing the pretty pink underside of the petals.

Acacia sp.

Billardiera scandens

Ditto.  We have seen this species many times in many areas but never before noticed that the older flowers are pink.  We initially thought they were different species until one vine clearly had both flowers on it.  Our field guide explained that this was normal.  Perhaps it is something special due to being close to Queeensland?

We eventually ran in to hobby farms (so lost shade) and got hills so the last 2 km were a bit of a grunt but we cut off some distance by cutting through bush to the sports fields.

I then decided to do a recce for the following day's activities and ended up in a very pleasant bit of forest.  It was signed as being for sale but at least had a bit of understorey, (unlike the State Forests where Habitat Reduction burns appeared to have totally devastated the environment).  The best plant was Xanthorrhoea latifolia.

Sunset con-trails made a good finish to the day.

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