A Big Weekend in Mallacoota

 As is traditional with Big Weekends, this one starts on Thursday.  That is mainly because it was ANZAC Day: given the Victorian Governments love of adding Public Holidays at the drop of a Union endorsement, I am surprised that 26 April wasn't so declared.  Surely Flathead Capture Day would be worth celebrating?  At least as good as Melbourne Cup Day or -for 💩's sake - Grand Final Eve!

The Mallacoota Pony Club is filling the void left by the RSL running out of members by arranging a ride to the Bunker Museum.  I think they had 22 riders of various ages and sexes on equines of various sizes.  Very well done that Pony Club!

Thelwell eat your heart out!

A fair squad of folks (and dogs) walked behind the hosses from Betka.

While a bunch of others had driven to the Bunker.

The next day I was returning from Bastion Point and had to swerve on Betka Rd to avoid an unruly, and somewhat portly, pedestrian.  She - I think - was very obliging in posing.

Eventually she declared that tree inadequate, and headed off across Bastion Point Rd showing a fair turn of speed ....

... and then headed for the hills.

The sea harvest event is on this weekend so lanterns have been positioned in Coulls Inlet.  They will be illuminated for the next few nights.

Here are the lanterns by night!

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"

Pigeon racing

 This is very influenced by the weather!  Herewith my pictures from the liberation at 0800hrs on 12 August.  Starting with some of the earliest birds ignoring worms and heading upwards!

A close-up.

Sundry shots of the later - within a few seconds - departures.

This is one of the flocks gathering before heading off.

This is my favourite shot of today's swirl.

This is a second accretion that seemed to form after the first lot had headed off.  

My impression was that today they headed more directly North, towards Mt Imlay, that last week when they seemed to go more towards Cape Howe.

There is always one reluctant soul!