Happy Advanced Economy Day

Today is the Anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, officially celebrated as Australia Day.  It is also known as Invasion Day to some proportion of the community and apparently as D**khead Day by the proprietors of a cafe in Bermagui. All of those seem a bit value ridden, whereas I think it is not possible to argue against per capita real economic output being rather higher in 2016 than it was on 25 January 1788.

Whether that is a Good Thing is not a question I am going to debate.

Whatever.  Let me begin with an update on an Australian icon, in the shape of the Teddy Bear or Koala.  Late last evening I could not spot the portly person covered in yesterday's post so assumed he'd climbed down and gone elsewhere.  However after we went to bed we could hear him roaring from the same tree, so assume he was just hidden by foliage.  Then this afternoon as we were driving home from the town we spotted a rather small Koala scrambling up a bank at Shady Guully - the first time we have seen one in that area.

The day began with a picturesque sunrise.

The rest of this post is going to move about a bit in terms of timing to cover the more interesting things early.  In the afternoon I went for an explore to Sandy Point, a few km up the Inlet, accessed from Genoa Rd,  A quite interesting area with densish forest.

It is the property of fairly large Goanna, apparently called 'Harry'.  His defence mechanism is to flatten himself out and stay still.  I'm not sure how well that works against entities who like munching on Goannas.

 I am rather chuffed with this snap showing his nicely forked tongue.

 I posted a while ago about animals pf many hues, and was cautioned against getting obsessive on this.  Not, me, no sir!  But I have circled some areas of colour on this chap to show blue, yellow and orange elements.

Back in the garden the reptiles are much smaller.  They are also a topic of much interest to a small dog.  I dread to think what would happen if she spotted a Goanna,

Down at the entrance to the Inlet there are warning signs about keeping dogs away from this chap.  A kind lady held Tammy while I took this photo.  I think it is an Australian Fur Seal, but it might be a New Zealander.

Earlier in the day we had walked on Quarry Beach.  The first point of interest was that the sand was at least 1m higher, allowing us to get around our usual rock barrier and into the next bay North.  The rocks there were interesting!

Here is the view looking South.

The beach was more crowded than it looked with a couple having a picnic; 2 young people going for a swim; and a family of 3 fishing.  Plus us, all jammed into about a kilometre of beach.  They'll soon have to start selling passes.

Some of the wrack (a vernacular name for Fucus seaweeds) had what appeared to be red fruits - or whatever the reproductive organs of algae are called.

The kelp was washed up in a big heap at the South end of the beach.

It stank as badly as the bat roost.  Which is probably what attracted the gulls.

At the spot (Captain Macpherson's Lookout, at the end of the campground) where the seal had hauled out I wielded my telescope to check the seabird situation.  I could clearly see individual birds in the area inside the rectangle and distinguish terns from gulls etc.

This generated bird of the day, in the form of Eastern Curlew.  Beating off a Rufous Fantail seen on our dog walk and 10 White-throated Needletails (aka swifts) seen at Quarry Beach.

Early in the day we found 5 Royal Spoonbills ...

.. and a very poorly photographed Littel Egret

Insects have been few and far between.  I think this Tiger Moth is the first invertebrate I have photographed on the trip.