Looping the Shoalhaven Part 2

This post ends with quite a few posts of birds in it, which possibly justifies it being part of a nature-blogging portfolio.  This is despite our having the small dog with us, reflecting the sensible policy of Shoalhaven City Council in having "dogs on leads" as a default rule with 'off leash' and 'dogs banned' as exceptions.  So much more sensible than councils such as Byron Bay who have been brainwashed into banning dogs from most everywhere by the canophobes of the NPWS.

Enough with the rants.  We left Nowra through South Nowra (which is possibly about to change its name to Strip Mall City) and arrived at Sussex Inlet on St Georges Basin.  The war memorial was found easily  out the front of the RSL Club.

 We took a stroll along the watercourse looking at the holiday houses on one side (still well occupied despite the kiddies having gone back to school) and the waterbirds on the other.  This is a Little Pied Cormorant.

 Pelicans decorated the wall of the boat hire place.

Rainbow Lorikeets came in to a feeder: the house occupant was cleaning a BBQ about 1m from the edge of the shot, so the birds could be considered habituated!

 This is a simple Pied Cormorant that was finding it necessary to scratch its neck.  Possibly the gymnastica subspecies?

 Pelicans also decorated this jetty.

 A pair of Chestnut Teal demonstrate sexual dimorphism.

We then moved on along the Princes Highway.  I think it was in this phase that we drove through the evidence of one of the largest recent bushfires which had incinerated both sides of the road.  Depending on the circumstances (ie how quickly it got to the area) that has potential to cause a very high loss of life if the road wasn't closed.  We next turned off to Conjola Beach where there were rumored to be a  lot of shorebirds.  Before going to look for them I took this image of a typically crowded Australian beach.  No doubt it would have been a lot more crowded 2 weeks ago.

The next two images are of Bar-tailed Godwits.  The area I took the image was forbidden to dogs as some waders (not Godwits) nest there.  Not an issue - the beach pictured above was off-leash from 4pm to 8am.

 Little Terns also nest in the area.  About 20 of them were sitting on the beach near the Godwis.

 On the way back to the highway (which runs a few km inland) we go a photograph of the gum blossom,  which seemed o be the only vegetation in flower.

Our next own was Milton, which seemed to be prospering rather well.  The Memorial was on the edge of he more historic part of the town.

This  is one of the many pleasant old (and well maintained buildings) along the main street.  This is also the Princes Highway which is one of the major routes between Sydney and Melbourne.

Milton also has a series of mosaics in the pavement.  I was puzzled by the black and white section at the top until I identified the nature of the pink section below it!

 Milton is often regarded as half of a twin town of Milton-Ulladulla.  We got into the second half as our next stop.  Here they had he biggest clone of the lone pine I have seen (unlike the specimen in Shoalhaven Heads which was just about dead).  Note how it has been pruned on the left side to clear the power lines.

The main memorial was in front of the Visitors Centre about 300m down the road.

 This was opposite the harbour where several of the fishing boats were in. This one was out getting fixed and displaying the surprising amount under the surface when it is in the water.

The Corellas were making a ruckus nearby.   To my surprise one of them at least as a Long-billed Corella while the rest were the more normal Little Corellas.

I was then a matter of heading off towards home which was a quite relaxed 200km putter.  Our final crossing of the Shoalhaven was at the Warri Bridge abou 20 km West of Braidwood.  It was not good to see how extensive the main fire East of Bungendore had been, but the grass appeared to be well sprouting again now in the paddocks burnt less than two weeks ago.