The (Old) Road to the Coorong

Today we went North from our base at Robe.

Before setting off we went for a stroll to incite some desirable behaviour in the small dog, and saw a couple of interesting birds, so I will start with a small bird thematic section.  The first is a Red-kneed Dotterel: there were two in the area but I couldn't get a twofer.

 A little further a Great Egret posed on a seaweed enhanced rock platform.

Much later in the day, after leaving Kingston SE, we crossed a drain which was full of about 200 Banded Stilts. My 'mobshot' didn't work, but this shows the needed features

There were also a good number of Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and Chestnut Teal  plus a few others.

After our days travels we returned to the area of the morning's photos.  There was a Black-winged Stilt ...

 .. 2 Fairy Terns ...

  ... and 2 Pied Oystercatchers.  (I am endeavouring to find out the story of the flag.)  The good folk from the Bird and Bat Banding Scheme have advised that the bird with the leg flag was banded as a chick on 4/1/2013 at Carpenters Rocks (about 100 kms SE of Robe.  Looking at details in HANZAB that is a reasonably long distance for the species but that entry includes one movement of 470km, so they can fly long distances.

Going back to the timeline, our first stop was at Cape Jaffa Wines, who had got a very high rating for their Epic Drop.  This was close to sold out, but if folk ask for it a few bottles can be made available.  We tasted it, and immediately ordered some.  It is a snorter of a wine.  So were a few others.  The boot is beginning to get full.

Of course Tammy was welcome in the winery and we were taken on a tour.  We'd got there a bit before opening but the charming financial manager showed us around.  On being asked where they got the stone for the building ...

... he explained that they had quarried out the barrel stores, both small ....

... and large ...

... and put the stone to good use.  A great example of their sustainable philosophy.  Chatting with the winemaker (and owner of two pooches who had exchanged sniffs with Tammy) she explained how these eggs worked to make biodynamic wine.

Here are a couple of tourists and their small dog.

We swung into a mega-development of a marina and McMansions and it really looked horrible.  No gardens for the mansions and a pretty boring coastline.  Do we want a floating gin palace in the marina?  No we don't, so on to Kingston SE - the SE is needed to distinguish it from Kingston on Murray.

They had an interesting sculpture Park including the sundial in the background of the seal, which works on the shadow of the visitor rather than a gnomon.

I liked the crab.

Not too keen on the Big Lobster!

I was also not too keen on the prices at the only servo in town, so we only took 20 litres to get us where we needed to go that day.

The old Post Office was quite attractive...

... and the beach interesting with a Caterpillar D6 piling up the seaweed.  If they can sell it fpor mulch they'll make a motza!

Heading North we saw a sign to "The Granites".  If you look at a large version (by clicking on the image) you can see the big rocks in the surf.

By chance this had led us to the Old Coorong Rd which we followed North, looking for birds.  There were few around, but the salt lakes were interesting and attractive.

The dominant flowering plants were Melaleuca sp ...

.. and Clematis sp.

Bird of the Day:  Again several contenders. In the end the huge flock of Banded Stilts got the nod ahead of the Fairy Terns (even though the latter was only my second tick of the species).
Plant of the day: Clematis sp..
Creek name of the day  No contenders..
Oddity of the day:  A very tough call.  The Big Lobster got on the red carpet due to much Bad Taste scoring.  However the oddest thing was a recently deceased Echidna Frances found beside the drain near our camp.  It was definitely n longer with us but didn't seem to be road kill: how it it achieved this status< 
Striking thing of the day:The barrel stores at Cape Jaffa did it for me,  The salt lakes of the Southern Coorong gave it some strong competition.
Pie rating:  Bakery in Kingston.  Again a pepper-steak pie. Ticked all the boxes but had a little too much gravy so slightly behind the real leaders  (For the benefit of any gourmet readers I will note here that Polly's Fish and Chip shop in Robe gets a very high rating, although of course nothing to do with pies.),