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.

A Dog’s breakfast

Given the pleasant weather yesterday evening I suggested to Frances that we might drive to Woolgoolga lookout (a fantastic view) and stroll along the beach there.  So that is what we did. 

I knew from a run on our previous stay in this metropolis that there was a path and several steps down to the South beach and was pretty certain it was dog –OK.   The only problem with the proposal was that I got to the bottom of the steps etc and became unsure if I had looked the car.

So, despite the comments from another dog walker that it wouldn’t matter, it was back up to the car for a click.

As we walked along the beach I commented to Frances that it was a bit surprising there were no sea or shore birds around.  That all changed when we got to the estuary (? Mouth) of a small creek with a rocky islet off shore.  Four species of wader, two terns and the ubiquitous Silver Gull.  We didn’t feel like wading so imitated Mayor Whittington. 

As we walked back we spotted a fisher person with a very large dog about ¾ of the way back.  When we were about 200m away the large dog – by this time identifiable as a long haired German Shepherd – spotted Tammie and charged to investigate.  It seemed totally inoffensive, but I am always unsure how Tammie will react so scooped her up while about 40kgs of Shepherd danced around me.  The big boy headed off back to his owner who by this time had parked his rod and was dragging a large fish around.  On getting closer he apologised profusely for the behaviour of his dog and got it back interested in the large fish: the dog’s breakfast!

We trawled around Woolgoolga a bit and eventually found the library with 30 minutes free internet access for visitors.  Another excellent service from this very good Shire.  There was an interesting ‘alternative script’ in the library – and various other places around the village.  Daylight dawned: it was the script used by the Sikhs!

After returning home for lunch I went to investigate a house with a sign saying “Ding repairs” thinking this might be a good way of getting the dent in our car (from a roo incident about 14 months ago) fixed.  Unfortunately, as the young, tanned and tattooed resident politely explained, the dings he fixed were in surfboards rather than Subarus.  Bugger.   We went for a wander around the heath and along the beach.  The latter was very interesting for the things making tracks in the sand. 

As the surf was a lot tamer today there were a few folk out taking waves (and not, apparently, requiring ding repairs). 

An interesting sidelight was that all the surfers were initially male.  A young woman paddled her (new style) board out but stayed about 50m right of the mob.  To my mind this meant she was getting some fair breaks but was also very close to the rocks.  Was she just being polite or were the blokes a bunch of sexist sphincters (that is a 10 letter polite word: a 9 letter one beginning with ‘a’ would be less polite – but possibly more appropriate)?

I then went for my second run of the trip.  This was around the Headland walk which we have done several times.  The elapsed time suggested my guess of 6km was pretty reasonable.

We have just had a knock on the door.  It was a bloke whose wife had just seen “a small white dog running down the road” and didn’t know of other small dogs in the area.  We thanked him profusely, but it wasn’t Tammie.  This is the second time folk have dropped in to check we (or in this case Tammie) are OK.  What a nice bunch of folk round here.