Marti, Garry or Gregory expected soon

Many years ago I used to wear a kepi on long runs in Summer.  This caused some of my acquaintances to wonder which manifestation of Beau Geste I was channelling: Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck or most likely, Marti Feldmann.  (This once caused a problem when I rang one of the friends and spoke with his mother.  She apparently became a bit worried and reported to her son "Someone rang you and seemed a bit confused.  They didn't know their own name but said they were Marty, Gary or Gregory.".

This came to me when trudging across the sandy waste of Bastion Point.  The mouth of the Inlet is still blocked and with a very low tide the seaward side of the dune seemed even higher than on our last two visits.  On the inland side the amount of exposed sand was more extensive. 

This morning we walked from the house into town.  Going past the bat camp it was obvious that the numbers had dropped dramatically.  They were still audible and smellable but not too many visible.

Moving along to the lagoon boardwalk the flock of Royal Spoonbills was evident and showing good reflections.

The Swamp Rat seemed to have moved from its location at the far end of this boardwalk, although I might have seen it (or another one) about 400m further on.  There were no other major excitements until our return journey where some unwell jellyfish were spotted on the tideline.  The nature of the tendrils was clearly visible.

A good collection of shells had also washed up here.  As far as we could seen none of them were inhabited by Hermit crabs.

 After a pause to recover from the longer walk we decided to capitalise on the forecast low tide at mid-day and walk along the seaward side of Bastion Point.  Our first change to normal was to investigate the rocks to the West of the access steps.  There were lots of shells there and some birds exploring the exposed areas.  First up a White-faced Heron ...

 ... and then Sooty Oystercatchers.

This species is relatively unusual here, in contrast to Australian Pied Oystercatchers, of which I counted 19 on the sandbanks inside the Inlet.  After trudging about 1.5km along the beach I went to exp[lore the bush on the Nadgee side.  I think this is what the early explorers called a 'brush': almost impenetrable scrub.

 Looking back across the Inlet with  the town laid out on its hill.

 This crab had moved up to a McMansion equivalent.  Unfortunately, despite being very large it was far from well.

 In the evening I experimented with some noon shts.