Onwards to Mullaway

On waking I went to take Tammy for a walk.  Drat: the sky doth micturate (isn’t it interesting that micturate is OK but a word meaning the same, but beginning with ‘p’is rude?).  What is it about short words?

Breakfast (definitely in the gourmet category) was enlivened by conversation with Laraine and Colin (our hosts) and another two guests.  Much amusement was generated by trying to sort out what would happen if Tammy and the other two guest-dogs (a Ridgeback and a Wiener-dog) got together.  The answer was going to be “apocalyptic devastation” so separation was enforced.  A great start to the day. 

The rain continued until we got almost to Kempsey where we refuelled: again over 33mpg!  Interestingly we were told where the discount petrol stations were by a cop who gave me an RBT (I passed, as I would hope to after only 1 glass of red last night – and none for breakfast today).  The other intriguing factor about the Kempsey area was the number of Cattle Egrets around the paddocks in the flood plain (a bit of foreshadowing there in the use of the word ‘flood’): possibly because this was the first area where we had been able to see paddocks rather than bush!

The driving was quite easy apart from the activities of a caravan-towing driver who drove at 10kph below the limit on 2 lane and 10kph over the limit on overtaking lanes.  Ban the van – or allow RPG launchers on other vehicles!  The only mentally ugly roadworks (physically/visually there is no other form of roadworks) were from Sapphire to Woolgoolga where we were limited to 80kph for (a) 10kms and (b) no apparent reason.  Obviously as it was a Saturday no-one was working.

As we drove along we heard a weather forecast.  It was talking about a flood warning for the North Coast.  Oops: we are not heading South!  The forecaster then said something along the lines of “This forecast is probably conservative” and mentioned 40 –70mm Sunday and 30-40mm each for Monday and Tuesday.  Oh poop.  (Watching TV in the evening the weatherperson singled out Coffs Harbour for mention of thunderstorms! But we are about 15km North of Coffs so perhaps it won’t affect us?)

We found the letting agent and the house and got into it.  The back yard is basically dog fenced but I suspect Tam could find her way out.  The place seems great and the surroundings just what I wanted with a nice dog-allowed beach and some nice heathland to check out.  Some of the Melaleucas are very photogenic as were the Pandanus tectorius (Screw pine) fruits

and the banksias.

We will now have a commercial break.  We were lent, by a naturalist friend, a copy of “Noosa’s Native Plants” by Stephanie Haslam.  Although we are a fair few km South of Noosa we were told this was going to be very helpful and such has proven to be the case.   We also have with us “Ocean Shores to Desert Dunes” by David Keith which covers the native vegetation formations of NSW and the ACT.  As well as describing the vegetation and the soils and situations in which they are found it also gives typical species.  So I am hopeful that by melding these two sources of information we’ll know a bit more about what we are looking at.  A future post on my main blog may cover more on this topic.

After traversing the beach – no signs about banning dogs (Great Lakes Shire please note) – the walk took us on a good bitumen path around a headland.  The only other folk we saw at this stage were three young blokes rock fishing below the cliff.  This may correlate with the memorial sign to “a great dad” at the top of the cliff.  As we came back (since rain seemed imminent) we met the three young persons, each carrying two or three fish, described as “only tailor”.  Since we had seen the remains of a tuna (ie a metre long fish, missing the fillets)

on the beach I could understand the inclusion of ‘only’.   Shortly thereafter we saw, and heard a member of the local intelligentsia doing burnouts with a ute.  The first mild negative for the area!

Getting back to the beach we saw a young woman with two big dogs there. Tammy was hot to go and discuss issues with them, but it didn’t happen: given the relative size of footprints that was probably a good thing!

Several birds were added to the trip list (now at 32) including Torresian Crows and Australian Gannet.  These and 9 other species also did some good for my year list.  A very pleasant evening ensued watching the huge plasma TV with Austar access.

Hand me down that Camphorwood

It seemed to rain on and off most of the night.  Certainly there was much precipitation going on when we awoke in the morning. 

After some fiddling around unpacking stuff and other small chores the downpour seemed to have abated so we headed off for a walk. This time we went basically South, discovering that the land fronting the sea is Coffs Regional Park.  We walked along a couple of headlands and an excellent rainforest gully.  The banksias here were attracting a lot of White-cheeked honeyeaters: always a good bird.  The sighting of the day (at least thus far) was a Figbird sitting on powerlines next to an Olive-backed Oriole.

On the beach Frances found many treasures to be drawn including a very large cowrie shell.  Given the hours we spent searching for these in Tanzania this was a major victory.

Shortly after our return the downpour started again.  There is a reason that the streets in Mullaway have large drains!

To foreshadow what is to come, that drain was overflowing at times in the next few days.

I used the time to fire up the car and head for beautiful downtown Woolgoolga.  We had stayed there in the past but the nice caravan park is not pet friendly so they dipped this time.  The pub provided what I wanted (ie a slab of beer) and also some information about local culture.  It appears that Australia’s top rap band (I’m reasonably sure there are several oxymorons embedded in those four words) are doing their stuff at the Coffs Showgrounds in the afternoon and the rain.  2,500 punters have handed over cash for this, so are likely to turn up.  We are very glad it is no closer to Mullaway!

I decided that the rain had paused for a while so I would go for a short walk on my own.  I added about 6 species of birds to the trip list and found a nice patch of what is normally heath.  In the current alleged climate it is more like ‘bog’.   This is some nearby Melaleucas (paperbarks), both showing the swamp and a detail.

My shoes and socks were thoroughly soaked by the time I returned.  When I took the right sock off I found that invertebrate wars had started, with the leech team scoring an early goal. 

As is usually the case with holiday houses there are a range of notes posted here and there identifying quirks of the building.  My favourite for this place is a suggestion that the laundry door and windows are kept shut when the lawn is being mown or else the smoke alarm will react to the fumes!   If anyone tries mowing the lawn in this weather they had better employ the technology I saw in Lao for underwater chainsaws!

Somewhat later in the trip I checked the Bureau of Meteorology site for rainfall recorded at Woolgoolga.  Today’s offering ‘was 28.4 mm.

The weather yesterday was OK

Perhaps that should be ‘relatively OK’?  Overnight the sound of a howling wind made for a restless night for both of us: the small dog simply coiled a little tighter.  At 7am it is still howling and the rain is bucketing down as hard as I have ever seen it.  The weather forecast has just announced a flood warning for a couple of rivers in this area (including the Nambucca, which is not very far South of Coffs Harbour).  The small dog was happy to head for the back door for a toilet break, stuck her nose on the flyscreen and headed back to her blanket.

The drain at the back of the house has given up completely while there is a 2m wide torrent running down the road (in addition to what is going down the 25cm deep drain beside the road).  The block opposite (part of the Regional Park) is completely underwater.  Unfortunately as a result of the Unpleasantness At London Bridge I am not keen on taking my new (yes, it was an expensive UALB) camera out in the rain so the pix are not great.

An addition to the joys of the day is thunder.  Not continual, but occasional celestial rumbles.  Perchance this is why the lights flicker occasionally?  I am assuming it also explains why Austar put up a message about service being resumed when the bad weather goes away.

As there was a small break in the weather I took Tammie for a walk: primarily to get her bowels going since we might be leaving her home for a while today.  Everywhere is flooded and a few trees (or parts thereof) have assumed a prostrate growth form (although they aren’t going to be doing a lot growing from here on).  These two issues came together with the position of our neighbour’s garbage bins. 

It was a nice touch that the guy who mows the lawns etc swung by to check that there was no wind damage around our place.

The surf was definitely up,

but while there were black clouds and thunder rumbles to the South there was blue sky to the North.  Unfortunately our weather is currently coming from the South!

We were starting to get a tad low on a few things so went to the IGA in Woolgoolga- a small town we have stayed at in the past, just South of Mullaway.  The creek there was definitely in flood. 

After the shopping we swung out to the headland to see if there were any whales visible.  The only ones seen were those on the town water supply!

 I am intrigued about the Sikh influence in Woolgoolga.  There is a great new (opened in 1970) temple on the South end of the town 

and what looks like a decrepit old one by the main roundabout going into the CBD.  

In fact the rather decrepid one was a commercial enterprise, and not a Temple at all.From a guide to the town (by that famous author A N Other) it appears that the Sikhs came here for the banana industry.  More detail is given in the excellent book “Woolgoolga Past and Present” by Neil Yeates.  The story appears to be of Indians coming to the area for work on the banana farms (as employees not indentured folk – the first arrival was in ‘about 1939’) and then buying their own farms.  As is often the case with migrant groups, as they became successful other members of the community came to the area, both from India and elsewhere in Australia.  Woolgoolga seems to have been the last area where suitable land could be acquired.  From other comments in this book it appears that the banana industry was a classic ‘boom and bust’ scenario with the bust largely caused by monocultural over-exploitation (how unusual!).  Yeates comments that at the time of writing there were 172 banana farms in the area, of which 93 were operated by Indian families.

I have googled this book and there doesn't seem to be a secondhand copy of it on the market anywhere.  It is well out of print and as Mr Yeates is deceased no-one seems keen on reprinting it.

Shortly after getting home the sun came out so we went for a bit of a rock-comb.  This resulted in us finding several cowrie shells.   There were many other shells

and the pebbles were very shiny.  Although the odd big wave was still coming in the main trace of the awesome storm of this morning was big piles of foam.   

(After about 90 minutes the rain started again, just to keep us on our toes!  But it didn’t last long.)  During this expedition I added four species to the trip list (now 56) including Scaly-breasted Lorikeet.

For contrast here is a Rainbow Lorikeet.

I think I commented about it raining a bit today.  The total was 250.6mm: this is so far more than I have ever seen in a day it is not funny.  In old money it is close to 10 inches and round about 1/3^rd of Canberra’s annual average.