A day on both banks of the Yarra

 Our first full day in Melbourne on this trip we went to the Kew-Abbotsford area bracketing the Mighty Yarra.  We had four aims for this trip.

  1. Meet up with Ed Williams, a friend from Bird-A -Day;
  2. Be guided by Ed to a site in Yarra Bend NP where a Red-backed Kingfisher has been hanging out, and twitch same;
  3. Go to the Abbotsford Covent to view an Ikebana Exhibition.  As the Convent is now a Community Art Centre there was limited likelihood of ticking a Penguin; and
  4. Visit Dights Falls to look at some geology 

There was a small amount of confusion with point 1.  This arose as I had been told where to park by a friend from Pakenham who had already twitched the Kingfisher.  That is in front of a gate at point 1.

Denizens of Kew, such as Ed, know that the better gate is point 2 so he was parked there.  Fortunately we had swapped mobile numbers so were able to sort things out fairly quickly.  We then took off to the area of interest:  as this is Ed's home patch he was able to pass on lots of information about the local birds as we walked above the riverbank.  It didn't take long to get to THE site marked as A.
Unfortunately there was no sign of the Kingfisher there, so we went to the Falls lookout with a similar result.  (Point C reflects a comment on an eBird list seen later which noted that the bird had flown across the Yarra earlier in the day.) However we did see a woman with a dog (and more importantly, what looked like a large camera bag) who advised that if we were looking for the Kingfisher it was up a track a little.  "A lot of birders are there.".  Right on - about 8 folk-mit-grossenlens at point B.    And 1 Red-backed Kingfisher.
Some folk would say the next image is the type specimen for Crap Bird Photography, but IMO as it shows the red-back so well who cares if it is a tad fuzzy?
When we eventually crossed the Yarra we saw a Willie Wagtail.  It is arrowed in this image.  The reason for the fuss is that it is a vert common species but in one year of Bird a Day Ed was unable to dig one up in Kew, which is an ongoing joke in BAD.
Meanwhile back on the timeline.  After twitching the Kingfisher we headed across Studley Park Rd towards the Abbotsford Convent.  Here is a map of all our explorations on this day.
I have made comments, following Jake Blues (aka John Belushi) about seeing a Penguin at that site, but the nuns are long gone.  Evil developers (excuse the tautology) had planned to purchase and wreck it, but the community blocked this and it is now a Community multi arts precinct.  We went there to check out an Ikebana exhibition.  The first bit of this we found was a container room - I think items for sale.
We then found the floral items.  Most of them were quite interesting to look at.  Here are some samples.


The concept of someone arranging flowers as a spectator sport was a bit hard to grapple with.....
.. but the sample on display was pretty impressive.
I did say "most of the items on display" were interesting.  That suggests there were exceptions: this was the main offender.
This shows the room as a whole.  It was the "Linen Room" presumably some function within the activity of the Convent in its time as a religious institution.
Here is a view of the main building.
We had a pie (me, very good, rating 9/10) and a slice of pita with haloumi (Frances, also good, but no official rating scale) for lunch.  As we noted at the Nandos near 505 unattended food is gobbled by rats with wings.  A modest-sized person was doing battle.
Another building had interesting designs on the windows.  This is clearly a Wedge-tailed Eagle.
The female dunny doors were also enhanced (photo by Frances).
After leaving the Convent we went down to the banks of the mighty Yarra - which isn't much mightier in this area than the Torrens West of the weir.  A view of the Studley Park Rd bridge from underneath.
There is an astonishing amount of graffiti around Melbourne, much of it quite skilfully executed.  This sample was under the bridge.
Dights Falls - or at least the weir over the Falls.
Geology at the Falls.
The wires are supporting gates for canoe slalom: to my mind they indicate that the river is a lot below maximum height.


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