Common brushtail possums are the Australian marsupials most often seen by city dwellers, as they can thrive in a wide range of natural and human-modified environments. They are inventive and determined foragers with a liking for kitchen raids, fruit trees, and vegetable gardens, as our Wollongong friends well know!
This baby was in the temporary care of our wildlife rescuer friend when we stayed with her the other night. Pretty darn cute.
We made it to Sydney! We paid a late afternoon visit to Bradleys Head, a headland protruding from the north shore of beautiful Sydney Harbour. It’s part of the local national park. I sketched while K took photos, then we headed to Eastwood to spend the night with friends.
We planned to climb Didthul, but the access road was closed. So we opted for the (easier) hike further north — Drawing Room Rocks. Spectacular!
A pair of curious superb fairywrens kept me company at Bingi Bingi Point.
The superb fairywren was named ‘Australian Bird of the Year’ for 2021, after a survey conducted by Birdlife Australia saw the species narrowly defeat the tawny frogmouth.
A couple of sea lions were relaxing on the river banks while the humans wandered amongst the stalls of Moruya Country Market on Saturday morning.
The south coast of New South Wales, and its hinterland, are spectacular. Beaches, rivers, lakes, mountains and forests, many undeveloped. We see beauty everywhere we look.
We’ve made it to the coast, after some dirt-roading through Burra, a visit to Snowy Hydro Discovery Center in Cooma, and a bit of a cruise around Bega. There are lots of motels in Merimbula, but we thought it fun to test our memories and find the one we’d stayed in seven years ago. Back then, there was Tagetes lemmonii growing outside the rooms, which reminded us of home.
It’s good to be back by the ocean; we’ll be wending our way up the coast to Sydney over the next several days.
It’s been a lovely week with the Canberra crew, but now it’s time for more friends and family!
Australia is famed for its colourful birds, but the little monochrome ones can be just as fascinating. Grey Fantails live across most of Australia. Hyperactive, agile and graceful, they perform rapid aerial acrobatics, constantly splaying out their tail feathers into a fan. They feed on flying insects which they chase out from the edge of shrubs and bushes and snap up mid-air. Cute!
While waiting for our friends to arrive, I sketched the pretty galls on the gum tree by the gate.
hashiworks 