Global warming focuses on Nowra

We had deferred a trip to Nowra (and replaced it with one to Bermagui) as the area had disappeared under a flooding Shoalhaven River.  As the area has dried out we tried again.  The forecast suggested warmth - around 34oC.  In fact it got warmer than that which made it a bit challenging.

We aimed to stay at the Shoalhaven Caravan village on the outskirts of Nowra.  To make sure they were open after the floods I rang from home and got no answer.  So we decided to call in when we got here, on the expectation that if they were submerged we'd find somewhere else.  The day started with a nice view of an Echidna in our drive.
 The drive  to Nowra including the new Oallen Ford Bridge was fine apart from some refugee from a 4WD campout at Willow Glen driving at 20km below the speed limit.
 Sluicing for gold was still the deal beside the Shoalhaven.
The Princes Highway at Nowra was the usual car park.
So we got to the caravan village and the office was empty and ringing the contact number got voice mail.  As it was hot we headed off towards the Coast and found a nice helpful van park in the Anglers Rest at Greenwell Point.  We took their site.  About 90 minutes later the people at Shoalhaven returned my call: they didn't seem disappointed to have lost my business, which is why they won't be getting any more of it.  Losers.

The lady at Anglers Rest felt that the two fish and chip shops would be closing a bit early but D Js would be later.  Being desirous of a fish tea I went to ask when they could be closing and was told 6pm.  Going forward a bit I swung in at 5:45 to find they had closed as they had to go home at 6pm.  I asked if they could spell "customer service" and told them they were pathetic  That was being kind - do not go to this place: the pub does good blackfish and chips!

We walked around the town.  There were some good gardens.

 It is a working town with a fishing fleet ..
.. and a lot of oyster beds.
 A view through the mangroves.
 We then went to Culburra Beach where we found  new War Memorial.
 The beach was very crowded for a Monday, even a Public Holiday.  Had we gone to the French Riviera by mistake?  (One speculates with terror what this area is like in January.)
The ultimate bogan: chooses her bathers to match her tatts (or vice versa - I am not sure which is worse).
 Some good rocks ...

... occasionally inundated.  Frances noted that all the fisherpersons who headed this way were wearing life jackets!
Some carved poles near the lighthouse.
 Tea tree growing behind the beach.
 The obligatory Pelican snap.
 Waders on the rock behind the lighthouse.

 A Pacific Golden Plover in pretty close to breeding plumage.
 A red-necked Stint ibid.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A tour of the West (part 1)

Image
A friend from my time in the UN sent me some photos of her family trip along Route 66.  They did this is a large camperwagon rather than a Chevy Corvette (apparently the kids jacked up about being offered a trip in the trunk).  It seems to have been a very good trip for them and most interesting to see their photos.  It was also educational for me, as I found out the German for rocking chair (schaukelstuhl, since you ask). They did 7200 miles in 30 days - a pretty serious bit of distance. This made me think of the trips we did in 1981 when living in Denver.  Frances initiated that idea by getting a book about the National Parks of the West  and marking interesting places.  I then worked out a route on a Rand-McNally Road Atlas (GPS was unknown then  - as were iPhones, personal computers and the internet).  From memory, taking nearly the whole Summer school holidays we covered about 10,000 miles in 70 days.  Here, approximately,  are our routes: That map comes from Google Maps (G
Read more

Insects from pine trees

Image
This afternoon (13/1/2015) we were looking out of our sunroom and noticed a strange bit of mist.  On getting my binoculars on the case I found it to be a cloud of tens of thousand of insects.  They appeared with naked eye to be flying away, but with binoculars I thought they were circling. Here are some images In the second one it may be possible to see there are two streams coming from the top of each tree. There was a loud buzzing noise but that could just be several thousand wings. Earlier in the day Frances had been to some nearby willows and they were infested with many little black soft bodied insects.  Perhaps they shifted to the pines and were swarming? Help!! Any information welcome. A colleague, from Wamboin, had noticed a similat phenomenon, but involvng eucalypts rather than pines!  Here are the photos he took with his phone. I have consulted some expert friends.   Their responses were: I would have gone for chironomids. I recall years ago driving al
Read more

Maslins beach rules

Image
Anyone who was in Adelaide in the 1970s will be having a good nudge nudge at that title.  However the beach is really nice even though it is the haunt (in Summer ) of naked people.  (As an aside one of the 'van park staff was talking to some other guests and commented that the sights on the beach in Summer were not at all exciting.)  In April it is the haunt of seniors, many of them exercising their dogs, and thus a far more attractive place. Getting to the beach was a walk of about 1km along roads, from our van.  The second half of this went past a rather daggy looking paddock with many formed ridges in it, as though it was irrigated, although a water sources wasn't evident.  The paddock got interesting towards the end as some green parrots appeared.  Thanks to Frances eye for detail we have subsequently identified these as Elegant Parrots: my first lifer for 2014.    The locale is indicated by the red lines in this mudmap: Here are the birds: The view from the top of
Read more