petesmedia

The crimson rosella are always interested in what you’ve got to feed them. These were taken down the South Coast at the caravan. We were just sitting around getting a fire going reading some Ralph mags and this bird came up so see what was happening. He hung around long enough to fire off a few close up shots but we didn’t have anything to feed him.

This pic really shows the power of my new Pentax K-X with low light and high ISO settings. It was taken at 7pm with ISO3200 handheld at 1/20th second, whilst there is a little grain I think it’s still a decent shot.

Sunday

We headed off around 6:30pm for another beach week, this time the destination was 4hrs south of Sydney. As my iPod’s hard drive has died, we hooked up the netbook for music. We had a quick stop in Bowral for LPG just as the servo was closing then onto Kangaroo Valley. Aside from getting stuck behind a few slow people and a truck doing 20km/h it was pretty smooth sailing until we were behind a diesel Patrol blowing black fumes our way. I saw him swerve for something and by the time I saw it, it had moved another 30cm and it was too late. It was an echidna walking slowly across the road. My right tyres gave it a double whack. Bugger. There was no damage to the car, just a dent in Australian wildlife. We did joke about whether I got spikes in my tyres but a quick check in Nowra showed no carnage.

In Nowra we experienced appalling service from Oporto. Attached is our rant.

We passed through Ulladulla and not much was happening until we came around a corner and spotted a possum on the road. Yet again, I wasn’t going to swerve and thought he’d move. He didn’t. We clipped his tail. Upon arriving at Durras I started to think that the likelihood of hitting a kangaroo next was pretty high so we took it easy through the bush. There were plenty of rabbits about and the amount of bugs we had already taken out would be in the vicinity of 500.

Noor and Ross were knackered after working so we called it a night early. Around 11pm.

Monday

We started the day off with a look at the beach only to find it was completely flat. No waves at all. We decided to make the first swim of the trip over at Cookies Beach hoping that there would be some more waves. It turned out to be pretty much the same, just with some more seaweed. The water temperature was surprisingly warm considering we were about 8hrs south from our last swim at Seal Rocks which was freezing. So as we frolicked in calm conditions there were some little schools of fish swimming around and the occasional wave that could be body surfed. Ross was feeling exhausted from a small bout of the sickness so he went to lay down for a bit, trying to reduce the spinning waves and clouds.

We headed into Batemans Bay for some lunch. Fish & Chips at Innes Boatshed was on the menu. Delicious fish as we sat out the back and overlooked the Clyde River with the usual flock of seagulls and pelicans awaiting for a dropped chip. We did the big woollies shop and got some essentials for dinner. Just as we were leaving Noor came up with a great idea to get some lilo’s. (Inflatable mattresses to relax on the water). Unfortunately we could only find one. The lady laughed at us.

The afternoon swim was at Durras Beach just across the road from the caravan. The beach was still flat but we took the boards over and attempted some surfing. Although we suck, Ross and I were able to get up a few times. We figure that by the end of the week we should be able to “surf”. We went for a walk to the lakes boat ramp and were surprised how full of water it is. The depth gauge was almost underwater indicating about 1m difference from when I was last down here. It doesn’t seem to be open to the ocean at the moment but we’ll go for a walk and suss that out later.

Back at the van we got a fire BBQ started and cooked up some thick cut steaks with pepper seasoning to perfection.

Tuesday

We woke up a little later than we had anticipated we would today. The usually scorching heat making it impossible to sleep in later than 9am didn’t arrive until nearly 10. After a home cooked meal of bacon, eggs combined into a bacon and egg “Mc Yummy” on toasted English muffins, we cruised over to check out the beach for an early morning surf. Conditions proved to be inadequate with the ocean accurately reflecting a washing machine during its wash cycle, or “choppy” for those of you needing more mediocre and simple analogies because of your inapt creativity.

Instead Noor and Pete went for a float in the lake on the lilo and surfboard to waste away part of the morning while I hung on the shore chilling to music. My logic was if there were no waves to surf, what was the point in floating in dirty water doing nothing?

Anyway, its the heat of the day at lunch time now. We’re about to go on another road trip into Batemans and pick up some Bait for our fishing adventure tonight. Will get back to you shortly…

Chicken stirfry, forgot the chicken. Trip into Batemans Bay.

Wednesday

Woke up at 8am, Pete & Ross went body boarding in huge surf.

Noor and Peter went for another float in the lake. This time we took sunnies and did it in more style.

As part of the local scenic attractions at Durras is the caves on the beach located North of Durras Lake. The cave is pretty awesome in that to get inside you have to do a commando style army crawl for about 10m until it opens up into a cavity that you can actually stand up in. Noor had his little torch to light the way for us. Once inside it became apparent that we weren’t the only ones inside the cave. A high pitch noise and flapping was the sound of a bat telling us to leave his domain. So we did, crawled out of the top of the cave and sat down for a scenic view of the beach and cracked open some ginger beers.

Fishing on sunset on Durras Lake.

Ross: 1x 43cm Flathead 2x  Small Bream

Noor: 1x Small Flathead

Peter: 1x 38cm Flathead 2x Small Bream

Another fire BBQ cookup.

Thursday

Fishing off the beach sucked. Went to Emily Miller Beach, tried fishing off the rocks but got hooked on rocks and lost hooks. Peter got talking to a local dude and he gave us 2 fresh lobsters.

Went swimming at Durras beach. Had some decent waves. Ross was dominating the ocean on his surfboard and Peter had a crack at a few on the body board. We were later amused by the amount of fish swimming around the rocks and Pete thought it was a great time to test out his snorkel.

Seafood cookup for dinner. Everyone fell asleep with the telly still on.

Friday

Went for a swim in the morning but the surf was pretty spastic. Waves were going everywhere.

We left around 1:30 eager to be at Kangaroo Valley Bakehouse before closing time (4:00pm).

Fish Chips & Seagulls, originally uploaded by UltimaRB.

After a morning swim we headed into Batemans Bay for some lunch.