The House(s) of Fran_mart

We found a need to go to Merimbula on 3 July.  En route we called in to the Haycock Rd component of Ben Boyd National Park to explore a couple of walking tracks.  Basically excellent. The first walkwas to the Pinnacles.  A 1km loop track. The track begins in woodland and then comes out into heath where there was a fair bit of flowering going on.  The first seen was Hakea decurrens . Acacia - possibly A. suavolens . Persoonia levis . A view of a distant island over the heath. The Pinnacles. A Pelican on the Pinnacles. Towards the end of the loop efforts had been made to fell the pine trees.  Presumably the piles will be ignited at some point. The start of the walk was not exactly wheelchair friendly.  Actually, judging by the way my legs feel this morning it wasn't old-fart friendly either. Looking down on to Barmouth Beach from where the walk began. Myoporum insulare (Common Boobialla) The berries of the above. The woodland was quite quiet but when wwe em...

As will become evident the flaw we detected in Eden was not the presence of an apple tree but a deficiency!  It became apparent in the area where the track marked in this snip from eBird ends (the open circle).  We had gone to Eden to buy stuff we can't get easily in Mallacoota and decided to do a lap of Lake Curalo as a walk. The first problemo was that after setting off anticlockwise we found that some jobsworth had locked a gate into the caravan park. So a back track of about 400 m and off clockwise.  Here is a view of the Lake, which turns out from Google Maps to be an anabranch of Palestine Creek,  A good bunch of Swans and Little Pied Cormorants. The track was very pleasant with a good surface and nice vegetation. There were some invasive weeds - this passionfruit was definitely, and unfortunately, prospering - .. and the Banksia integrifolia was flowering well Now we get to the interesting bit.  After about 3.5 km on the nice path it seemed to run out an...

We spent a bit of Sunday 3 February visiting our house and deciding where we were going to put things.  This would - or at least should make the work of the removalists on Monday 4th efficient. We noted that inside the house was quite cool - at least compared to any part of Mallacoota not fully exposed to the ocean.  It was 34 o C for most of the day. On Monday we had time to do our usual walk from the big fishing jetty into the centre of the town.  A highlight of this was seeing our Swamp Rat again. He scampered off as usual when he saw us but paused at his smeuse.  This  is an English dialect noun for “the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal” vide  this article  by Robert MacFarlane following on from his book on the language of Landscapes. Towards the end of the walk I liked this White-faced Heron, preening and showing off its breeding plumage.  Also preening were a Great Egret and two Little Pied...

I'm sure all the readers of this post will recognise the "g'day" to Stella Gibbons in this title. Unlike Aunt Ada Doom I didn't see something nasty in the woodshed but in the heap of wood on outside of my toolshed.  (In the past I have found hibernating bats in woodheaps.) This was clearly a rats nest.  As was wearing gloves - which might avert a nip if the resident was home - exposed the nest.  Our local rat operative was indoors, asleep in front of the fire so not available if a target appeared. To my surprise behind the grass and oak leaves (sounds like a low-grade Wermacht medal) were a bunch of gardening gloves.  They had been given some serious tooth.  I dread to think what ingesting these glove parts must have done to the rodent's digestion and overall health.  Frances had asked me recently what had been done with the gloves she had left on the table on the deck and I had confessed to having no idea.  Now I have.  The gloves wer...

Dawn on May Day was suitably red! Once the sun was above the horizon the redness declined.  However the sun still had to climb above the hills in Nadgee to become visible.  It is pretty much spot on where I positioned the red arrow in yesterday's post . A pair of Rainbow Lorikeets enjoyed the warmth of the sun, in contrast to the cool 7.5 o C of the air. As we got to the end of the Lagoon boardwalk on our first walk of the day Frances pointed down and there was the Swamp Rat.  Rather bolting, as usual, it sat and posed for photographs. Here is a detailed image of its front paw.  Possibly a manicure is in order. What is rapidly becoming an old friend, the Lyrebird near Shady Gully was scratching around in the litter.  It too hung around for quite a while ignoring us, about 5m away, and passing cars. Our second walk of the day was the Casuarina Walk which runs from opposite the Health Centre to Betka Rd, opposite the start of the Heathland ...