A brief visit to Johville

The view this morning was enlivened by the steam (or smoke, I am not sure of the technology) from the Condong Sugar Mill hitting a temperature inversion about 100m up. 

Before getting to the topic of the title I’ll just record that at noon the external temperature recorded in the car at Tweed Heads was 19 degrees and there was not a cloud in the sky.  Then I heard the weather in Canberra: 6 degrees and the rain expected to stop by evening. Yes!!!!!

It was a brief visit to the next State to the North, Oh my goodness, yes, don’t you worry about that!  Just long enough to record 6 species of birds for my Queensland list for 2011.  The drive along Tomewin Rd towards Currumbin was quite interesting, and I could certainly see the attraction of the road for the weekend warriors on 2 wheels.  If I felt like working I think I’d open a stall selling new foot-pegs for motorbikes at one end of the road, and franchise someone to do the same at the other. 

Fortunately for the sake of the Subaru I had a passenger who doesn’t like being chucked around (I must get the full race seat belts fitted sometime and throw these pussy inertia-reel jobbies away).  There is also the potential for Chunderpooch to revisit us which is another reason to take it gently on steep and winding roads.  At one point we noted a sign to ‘Bains Rd: formerly Rainforest Glen’.  Obviously Mr Bain had fixed up that naughty rainforest!  Shortly after this we saw a cyclist getting in shape on a 10% grade.  Then we hit the 14% grade he’d already conquered !

So after getting to Currumbin we didn’t go and get Lorikeet guano all over us but hit the Pacific Highway and headed for Tweed Heads, back in NSW and the 21^st Century (CE - I’m not sure about other cultures’ timetables). 

We started with a couple of walks recommended in the Tweed birders pamphlet.  The first was along part of the estuary system covering a boardwalk and a dirt road.  The highlight of this was an Osprey – my first for some time.  We next went to an area off Vintage Drive.  As we went in the names of the streets – all types of wine – seemed familiar and then daylight dawned: we had been to this spot in 2008 on our way back from Brisbane.  Still good as we added a couple of simple birds (Black Swan and Coot) to the trip list.

We then decided to find our way to an Aldi store in South Tweed Heads.  The main problem was that one of our maps only showed about half the roads (and some of the names were out of date) while the other one only showed half the area.  This meant we took a fair tour of the area, but eventually got where we needed to go. However we got there.   Coming back a surprise right lane turn caught me out and we spent some time touring the largest and most confusing set of roadworks in creation.  I think this must be some sort of test to keep undesirables from migrating from Queensland: it was much better signed to get to Brisbane than anywhere else.

Eventually we made it to the road to Fingals Head where we took a signed track to the beach.  This was the perfect beach: wide, gently sloping clean sand, beautiful surf rolling in and about 6 other folk on the 5km of sand!  Dogs allowed!  Just before we got to the turn-round point (ie close to a couple of other folk and about 1.5km from where we hit the beach) we saw some dolphins surfing.  One of them did a complete aerial off the top of a wave!

Frances had noticed a lighthouse on top of a headland so we decided to visit it.  It was a great spot- dogs welcome on leads on a great walk though a bit of forest (picking up Bar-shouldered Dove en route). 

 Several folk were on the headland watching the Humpback Whales disporting themselves as they migrate to Hervey Bay.  We saw quite a few spouts, several tailfins and a reasonable collection of breaches.  As we headed back to the car we saw more dolphins. 

As well as this the area was signed to the Giants Causeway: not quite as spectacular as (I am led to believe) the place in Ireland (apparently the Scottish end of that formation is part of Fingal's Cave: thanks Rob for the correction) but the guy fishing off the top was going to have trouble getting off as his escape route had waves breaking over it. 

Other fishermen were not as daft.

On getting home I gathered some material to light my fire (in the slow combustion stove) when I spotted someone in the valley doing a better job.  To my surprise it had died down in about 15 minutes (and no one else lit up after dark, drat it).

Many types of fings wiv wings

The day started with a few showers and continued strong wind.  This makes me pleased we had decided not to go whale watching here: the seas are rather bumpy and we haven’t seen a whale within 10 kms.

The first business of the day was to go to the Byron Bay Farmers Market.  As it didn’t seem to be on any of the schedules we wondered if it still existed but as it was only 2km away it wasn’t that much grief if it didn’t.  In fact it was there, active and popular with the punters.  My guess is that it was about 4 times the size of the Murwillumbah equivalent.  Frances got a few bits and pieces.

 The litter skips were an interesting design!

While Frances was shopping I walked around the nearby reserve with Tammie and found a fruit bat colony.  The bats given mention around here are Grey-headed flying foxes and reference to "Australian Bats" by Sue Churchill confirms that..  Looking at them closely, and comparing the head shape with that on a small dog and it isn’t hard to see where the name ‘flying fox’ came from!

 We then went for a walk along Tallow Beach in the gale.  There were not many people around (and only a small number of dogs).

One brave soul was doing something in the water- possibly body surfing.

 Just was we were coming off the beach I looked to the South and 4 kite surfers hove into view.  I was never able to get all 4 in shot at once but some images clearly show the riders.

 After this trek it was time to have a snooze.  Having recuperated I left Frances with Tammy and set off to ascend the Tallow Ridge trail to the lighthouse.  It was a very pleasant walk through brushbox and banksia (with a few palms and cycads for variety). 

Near the top a hang glider was being prepared for action and as I got out of the bush they took off (it was a tandem job – presumably for a fee).  The ride lasted about 20 minutes and should have been really exciting for the passenger as they seemed to just sit still in the air quite high above the ridge.  They eventually landed down on the beach.

 As they took off I was distracted by the sight of an Osprey in serious discussion with a Sea-eagle nearly at water level.  At one point the Sea-eagle became seriously annoyed and rolled on to its back, showing the Osprey its talons.  Sensibly the Osprey found it was scheduled for a meeting with some mullet at another venue.  Shortly thereafter the sea-eagle was up near the hang glider, but from a conversation I had with some other pilots these birds don’t attack gliders (unlike wedgetails, which do hit the gliders).  I just got a good view of Tallow Beach

and the lighthouse.

A second local paper was delivered this evening.  Again much coverage of the reduction of dog exercise areas.  There was also a story quoting the local fuehrer of the NPWS with the reasons why they have to exclude dogs.  She must be a media person: never have I read so much regurgitated corporate diktat.  I also had a conversation with some other locals (mature and very well spoken people – much like me) this evening and they said it was symptomatic of Byron Bay, with an elite concerned to maintain power and control and a very subversive majority fighting them tooth and nail.  Go for it people.

The end is nigh

As usual we took Tammie for a walk this morning.  Excitement began at the gate with a pair of Brown Cuckoo-doves sitting in a tree above my head.  As usual with this species they refused to pose for a snap!

The first canine action was the appearance of the white fluff ball along Topi Rd.  This involved some barking, as a precursor to a full sniff routine.  The sound FX attracted the attention of the Staffie which came trotting down the road to see us, despite loud calls for it to return home (which is how we identified the residence in question).  Tammie was elevated, for the previously stated reasons, and the Staffie wuffled along behind us for a while, wagging its tail.   Eventually we left it, looking forlorn and went on.  

Just before the turn round point Tammie flushed a couple of Brown Quail from the roadside grass.  Now, I have just read the phrase “like pointers to quail” in “Fish Tales” by Athel D’Ombrain (mainly about angling based on Newcastle).  Tam did a good job of pointing, but unfortunately to where the quail had been rather than where they were!  I worked out wheer they were for myself, got a good look and proceeded to the turn round position.  Just before we got back to the Staffie place another dog spotted Tam and started barking.  To our surprise that did not invoke the Staffie again.

We had decided that we would go back to Seal Rocks today to see if the whales were still around.  The walk through the Banksia avenue

towards the lighthouse was really impressive. The final bit of the walk just about define 'up'

The whales certainly were around when we scaled the path to the light: perhaps a little less active than the previous visit but still clearly visible just offshore.  My count this time was four pods of 5, 2, 2 and about 6.  The last of these was in the vicinity of a sailing boat which was a lot less than 500m away from the whales (mainly because the whales seemed to ignore both the rule and the boat).

While watching the whales I noticed – finally – a couple of albatrosses skimming along between the (significant) waves.  Suddenly the local Sea-eagle swung into view and knocked one of the albatrosses down into the water.  I can’t imagine that the eagle was pirating food from the albatross so perhaps it fancied some seabird in its diet?  Later, I concluded that these birds were Yellow-nosed albatrosses.

The swells were a lot more significant than on our first visit (one wonders about a large earthquake yesterday between NZ and Tonga).

This made the beach look really good, and gave some spectacular breaks over the rocks below the lighthouse.  The swells were also popular with a surf-school.  One of the riders – perhaps the instructor - got a good ride in to shore.

 On the way home after lunch from the Seal Rocks PO - noticing for the first time the great art on the end of the building

we swung in to part of Myall Lakes NP and wrote down about 20 commonish birds in short order and headed back for home.   

 

On Topi Rd I got a major surprise with a Pheasant Coucal flying into a she-oak: I didn’t think they came this far South.   I did get a reasonable, albeit it brief, view of the bird in the tree, which enabled me to realise they are quite colourful.  Usually all I see is something like a mobile serrated tussock shuffling into long grass, most commonly in a ditch.