A visit to Boyd's Tower

 We have recently adopted a practice of visiting spots to our North when we go to Eden and/or Merimbula for other purposes (or vice versa).  On 28/8 we needed a few items in Eden so went to check out Boyd's Tower in Beowa National Park, never having been to that site.

As is now well known the name of the National Park has been changed to Beowa because it was felt inappropriate to honour Ben Boyd in that way, primarily due to his involvement in Blackbirding.  From having read about his history there seem also to be other reasons to disqualify him!  

Nice view to the South

And to the West, looking in to Twofold Bay.

Attractive geology is available.

I did mean to focus on the folded rock, rather than the Acacia longifolia!

A large mammal was slapping its fins around about a kilometre offshore.

I hope the punters on the Cat Balou got to see it.  Our attention was first caught by a full breach about 200m behind the boat.  (I have emailed the boat owners asking for confirmation of it being a Humpback.

A view of the tower from the ocean side.

In case you wonder who built it!  Reminded us of the activities of the mango Mussolini.

A close up of the stone work, which has survived very well given the exposure of the site.

A pair of Australasian Gannets were over the ocean.

About 1km away and flying quickly in the wind.

Getting back to Edrom Rd gives a closeup view of the piles of logs awaiting chipping.

Another view of the chip mill from Cocora Beach.  The previous image was taken about where the ridge dips down.

And here is a view of the Tower from Cocora Beach 

An outing to Eden

 We  went to Eden this morning to get a little work done on the Mazda.  While that was happening we went to Lake Curallo and Aslings Beach.

2 Musk Ducks were a nice tick!

I was very surprised by the size comparison of a Little Egret and a Silver Gull.

The relativity with Black Swan was more in line with received wisdom.

A rather young Caspian Tern.

A Royal Spoonbill.

Aslings Beach was as crowded as usual (although I suspect it would be rather different in January),

The folded rocks at the end of the beach were impressive,

This potter wasp was entertaining and I was very impressed with the quality of image obtained by my 400mm lens at about 6m range,

Scenes of the Mouth and Ocean

The first three photographs were taken at Captain Stevenson's Point on 28 September and show the extent of sand exposed at low tide.

The next image is 29 September, also at low tide, taken from the steps at Bastion Point.  There is not much depth of water there!

We went to search the rocks for interesting things.  Lots of seaweed of various colours (Frances has read that the red, brown and green weeds are actually different phyla) and mussels.  Not much else.

The first clump of Sea Hare eggs we have seen in quite a while.

A Black-faced Cormorant setting on one of the light poles,

The rest of the photos are a series I took of a bold parasailer out in the ocean.  When first spotted he was quite a distance out from shore and several kilometres down the beach.  He'd got closer by the first image.

Oops.

The red arrows show this was not crying wolf!

The accumulated views on iNaturalist (ie everyone except me) reckon this is a Tiger Snake rather than an Eastern Brown Snake.  I have asked them why this is so.

And I got a very detailed and helpful answer:

"Tigers have a more robust , wide head and overall stockier build than EBs, EBs have a smaller finer head that narrows towards the nose and overall look more rope-like. As for the colour, both Tigers and EBs are very variable, but this one has an olive tinge with a contrasting underside of yellow-olive that's Tiger. Also the scales appear a little larger and more 'coarse' than in EBs"

A Wingan Adventure

 As the weather was pleasant and we felt like exploring a nearby area which we hadn't previously visited we decided to go to Wingan Inlet on 17 September.  Here is the route we took.  According to Google maps this is 85.6 km and should take 1:39, depending on traffic.  We felt it unlikely there would be any traffic issues once we turned off the Princes Highway

The road from the Highway to the campground was 35 km, with occasional distances painted on the trunks of trees.  The road was in quite good condition so I trundled along at about 80kph.  I noticed a marker for the Wingan Link Track and thought that if it was open it would cut off quite a bit of distance.

This water trough was a nice touch at the campground.  Presumably it is gravity fed from a creek somewhere.  A sign did say not potable.

We decided to take a walk to the beach (and once we got there, along the beach).  The walk was rather good, with omly a few bits of timber across it to be inconvenient.

As we walked along close to the water we were surprised to see a bloke fishing in the Inlet.  He seemed surprised to see us as well!  At the end of the track we had a good view out to the Skerries.

They were well endowed with seals!

Also a few Black-faced Cormorants - arrowed.  (Later I noticed a lot of Silver Gulls and Cormorants roosting on the rocks, but didn't take a photo.)

While looking out the fisherman came past us.  He chatted for a while - probably hadn't had anyone to talk to for a few days!  He had been working in the ski fields. but that job had run out so he was off to his next work, in Melbourne.  He was headed to the mouth of the Inlet where he had caught some Salmon on the Saturday.

This is Rame Head.  The walking track goes over the ridge on the inland side.  It was named by Cook as it resembled a feature on Plymouth Harbour.  From Google Earth it appears to be 71m high - but looks a fair bit more than that.

Some of the rocks at the end of the beach.

There were a lot of empty shells washed up at the end of the beach and some live shells on the rocks.  The arrow points to a large, live, Triton just in the water.  The iNaturalist system has identified the shell as Charonia lampas (Knobbed Triton Snail).

There were a lot of Oysters and Sea Anemones on the rocks visible as low(ish) tide.

A cache of washed up, and largely broken, shells.

A selection of shells laid out below a notice.  This would probably piss-off Parks as the shells had been moved from where the ocean had dumped them.

I have submitted this to iNaturalist which as frequently happens proposed an African species.  It is some form of everlasting but I can't sort out which!  The iNaturalist system has confirmed Coronidium elatum White paper daisy.

This puzzled us as the flowers were the colour of Indigophora but appeared to be growing on a vine rather than a shrub.  There I unravelled the vine a little and there were Indigphora leaves.

Back at the picnic area I spoke to some people about the Wingan Link Track.  They assured me it was open and the crossing of the river was on a big concrete bridge!  Here is the view from the middle of the Bridge, looking upstream.

The blue line in this shows the route back along the Link Track.  The red dashes show roughly the way we came.  The green dashes are the Link Track itself.  It took 22 minutes for that section.  According t Google Maps the way back was 81.6km (so saved 4km) but would take 1:36 (adding 7 minutes).  It was certainly slower driving on the track: 40-50kph as it was rather narrow with lots of blind corners: also a lot of fallen branches which made loud bangs on the underside of the car.  West Wingan Rd is the go when we return!