The birds have it!

 I keep thinking I must take a video with sound on my camera, and put it on the blog because all the birdsong is just lovely.  Our kookaburra friend still comes to visit each day, and several of them greet the morning at around 6am with lots of laughter.  One of them was sitting on an electrical pole today, where the vans connect their cords.  We said hello and he promptly turned his back - he does that a lot.

 There is also a pair of Tawny Frogmouths in a tree nearby and they have been there all camp.  They move around a little bit but not much.  You can hear them at night.

There are also a lot of fruit bats (also called flying foxes) in the trees, and their squeaks and sounds can be heard a lot at night because they are nocturnal.

Yesterday (Monday) one lot of our friends went home.  We took this group photo before they left.  From left to right it is Marilyn, her husband Rick behind, then moi  with Nathan beside me and Peter hidden behind Nathan, then Leona and Ian.  Leona is holding Pebbles, who is the dearest little dog - so placid and friendly.

After Leona and Ian (and Pebbles) left, Marilyn and I sat in the sun and I did a fair bit of stitching while she read.  After lunch we all came into our caravan and had a huge discussion about our Tasmanian trip. We've decided we'll try and book to leave on 2nd February from Melbourne and return on April 30th.  The list of places we want to see is growing minute by minute so both couples will do more research, consult another pair of friends who know heaps about Tassie (Laraine grew up there and they return frequently to visit her mother) and we'll gradually refine our itinerary.  Which will remain flexible anyway, apart from needing to be back in time to catch the ferry back to Melbourne at the end.  We've already decided that we'll probably have to go back another time because we'll not be there in time to see the wonderful lavender farms in December or the wildflowers in October.

Today we went to Scotts Head, which again is close by.  The headland is fringed by several beaches.  We stopped to have a look at Scotts Head beach and as we walked towards it we saw these lovely murals on the public toilets and showers at the top of the beach.  They have been there for 12 years and still look pristine.

This was the largest one, being about 8 ft long by 5 or 6 ft tall.  What do you see in the main figure?  A wave? A nautilus shell? A whale? A seal? A lizard? Or.......

These next ones were about 4 ft long by 3ft high, I think - we've had some discussion about measurements so I wouldn't swear in court about them :)

 And I think that this last one was about a metre on each side.

 The beach is a long one but again showed signs that it had suffered in the torrential rain last week.  It looked as though some of it had been washed away and there was debris on it.

Marilyn and I walked to the end (the opposite end to that shown in the photo above) and there was a lot of debris caught up against the rocks at that end.  Being me, I couldn't help taking my usual type of photos as I went:  I love shells, always take photos of shells and seagulls when we're at the beach (it's a signature of my scrapbooking pages)

 And I love taking photos of odd things - bits of driftwood like this

Or some of the flotsam that was caught up  like this section of quite a large fishing net that was mostly firmly buried in the sand

 In amongst the timber and other flotsam was this Old Man Banksia cone

 When I'm scrapbooking I often print out this sort of photo, crop it and use them as accent points on the page.  I like to sometimes have a frame border with a series of squares cut out and place such pictures in it.

We walked up onto a park above the beach and there was this unusual table, with even more mosaic work.  Note the 'tail' and the front 'fins' on the table that form the legs.

 Each of the seats had a different design

 And the design on the table was really attractive.  I had to take it in 3 sections and I don't know how to stitch photos together yet.

And of course now I can't get them to line up across the page either - and even if I did they wouldn't do so when I publish the page anyway!  So I hope it gives an idea of what it is like.

After I took lots of photos of the waves crashing on the rocks below at the edge of the headland, we walked up some quite steep steps to a lookout.  Apparently (we learned later) it is a great spot to watch dolphins.  Nathan didn't want to walk up the steep track to the top of the headland - fair enough, he would have needed a lot of support.  Peter walked up to the top then I did too, and took a photo of some of the tiny native violets snuggled in amongst the other growth.  They are only little but I really love them - I've bought a heap of them from the nursery and am trying hard to get them growing around my jacaranda tree at home but they are having a hard time because our grandchildren trample all over them when they climb the tree.  Here are some that were growing in areas with enough light to photograph them today.

And here are some that Peter picked for me to press for my scrapbook page (it isn't a National Park so it should have been okay to pick them - I hope!)

At the top of the headland, we looked out over Little Beach on the other side.  Again, damage from the rain was evident.  Some of the sand had just given away above the beach and the seating that had been there was upturned on the beach.

Returning to the car, we found a nice restaurant and had a delicious lunch: A stack with kumara, pumpkin, capsicum, baby spinach, tomato, beetroot, carrot and reduced balsamic dressing.  Yum-meee! Followed by freshly squeezed juice: beetroot, orange, celery, apple, carrot and ginger, served over ice.  Very tasty - I'm going to try and reproduce it at home.

In the carpark I had to take another of my 'texture' photos.  This time it was of a paperbark tree.  You can see why it is called a paperbark.  The bark consists of fine, almost translucent layers.  I held the camera up to the hole and took photos into it to see if anything was living in there but no-one was home at the time.

 Driving back into Macksville we did some shopping then on the way back to the caravan park we stopped to take a photo of this Queenslander house.

It's quite low-set as Queenslanders go, but a nice example of one nevertheless.  If you've read my blogs a bit you'll know that I have a fondness for this type of architecture, found in north New South Wales and as the name suggests, in Queensland.

Traditionally they are set high, to allow air to circulate underneath for coolness.  Today, with the widespread use of air conditioners, many are closed in downstairs to double the living space.  Previously they provided a cool place below, a place to dry the washing in the wet tropical weather, and somewhere for the children to play plus a myriad of other functions.

The wide verandahs - often as much as 12 feet- provided shade from the harsh tropical sun and a cool place to sit or to sleep at night.  Typically a hallway goes from the front door straight through to the back door to allow a through breeze, with rooms going off each side.  These rooms often have french doors allowing access to the verandahs.

All in all this style of architecture is not only practical but attractive.  And one day I will make one of these houses in miniature.  Quarter scale of course.

Tomorrow is our last day.  I might just try and capture that bird song to cheer me when I'm back in the bustle of the traffic outside our house.
Blessings
Sandie