Newcastle Beach

We live across the road from Newcastle Beach, one of the prettiest beaches I’ve seen.  Since we spend so much time there I thought I’d share a few photos of this beautiful place.

Hang gliders launch from the hill at the end of the beach.  Some days they sail right past our 8^th floor balcony.

Newcastle Beach also has its own baths – a saltwater swimming pool.

Besides octopi, we have met a few other sea creatures while on the beach.

Zebra snail

Anemone

Crab hiding in the rocks

The views from the beach are always beautiful.

Blackbutt Reserve - Native Animals

Living on the beach, we’re not close to much native bush and we’ve only seen a few animals in the wild so far.  The ones we have seen, though, were pretty outstanding:

Corella, a type of parrot

A huge Lace Monitor, about 2 metres long (6 feet), also called a Goanna. 

Bush Turkey

Eastern Water Dragon

Lucky for us, Australia has many reserves and animal parks, big and small.  We visited a favorite, Blackbutt Reserve, last week.  For those of you who are either snickering or wondering why a park would be called “blackbutt,” sorry to disappoint but it’s not named after a body part.  A blackbutt is a kind of tree, the predominant eucalypt in this coastal region. Blackbutts are koala trees (koalas are very picky about what kind of eucalypt they will eat) and a popular hardwood for flooring and furniture.  The name comes from the rough, dark bark at the butt (base) of the tree, a sharp contrast to the smooth white bark above it.

Blackbutt Reserve is pretty special.  It’s right in the middle of town (the mall is literally 2 kilometres away) but full of unique features, including significant remnant vegetation and a lowland rainforest. The only reason it exists is because the Depression put an end to a proposed housing subdivision and then locals lobbied hard to save the land.  Today there are great hiking trails and native animals to enjoy.

Lace Monitor – Here’s what they look like 

close up.  Those claws are huge and sharp!

Peacock chick – though not native, the chicks 

were really cute so I had to take a photo

Glossy Black Ibis

Koalas are actually quite challenging to photograph.  They sleep about 22 hours a day and even when they wake for brief moments to reposition themselves, they seldom open their eyes.

The Tawny Frogmouth is a dull beige and brown and blends in incredibly well in the bush, often looking like the broken stub of a tree branch.  This photo is black and white because the birds are nocturnal and their enclosure is very dark.

Gouldian Finches live in far northern tropical Australia

Common Wombat

Kingfisher

Octopus Encounter

From previous trips we know that Australia is home to the most colorful, fascinating, and just plain cool animals, but nothing quite prepared us for an octopus encounter yesterday at Newcastle Beach.  

Dave and I were standing in shallow water exploring rock pools at low tide when I felt a strange sort of sucking sensation on my foot.  I looked down and there was an octopus arm reaching out from under a rock exploring my foot!

Though I pulled my foot back, the octopus’s touch was gentle and not at all scary, just a little surprising. As we continued to watch, the curious critter stretched an arm up along the rocks and out of the water.

 And then I felt another strange sucking sensation – it was a second octopus under the next rock!   

We watched both octopi for a long time and Dave bravely offered up his own foot for further octopus exploration.  Again, the touch was gentle, and though Dave could easily withdraw his foot, he said the suckers really held on tight.

A dead crab floated by on the water and we decided to see what would happen if we put it next to the octopi. 

Sure enough, one of them quickly grabbed ahold of the crab and pulled it back towards its mantle. It sucked it well into its body but then suddenly ejected it.  Apparently octopi prefer fresh crab.

Then the second octopus, which seemed a bit more curious and bold than the other one, came all the way out of his hidey-hole and started to swim away.

It’s hard to put into words how marvelous this experience was for Dave and me.  We observed the octopi for at least 45 minutes and the whole thing was absolutely fascinating.  We were thrilled and amazed to have this rare opportunity to interact with such unique and almost otherworldly wild animals. 

Australia Day 2019

Australia Day in Sydney is a sight to behold.  Color, pageantry, drama, and the lovely people of Australia celebrating together this lucky country.  We were privileged to be part of the festivities on 26 January, two days after we arrived in Australia.

The best place to be on Australia Day is in Sydney Harbour and so we were, together with our friends Peter and Janette and Paul and Cindy – out on a boat, enjoying a seafood buffet and watching all the action on the water.

All decked out in festive regalia

I don't eat oysters very often but when I do, 

I do it on a boat in the middle of Sydney Harbour

A little champagne helps the oyster go down

There is so much going on across the Harbour and it’s great fun to be right in the middle of it.

Many private boats are decked out to celebrate

The fireboat uses it's water canons to clear the center of the 

harbour so that the ferry boats can race

A Qantas A380 flies over the harbour 

Arthurs Pass – Part 2, The Bealey Valley Track

The Bealey Valley Track starts with a rough climb up through tree roots and boulders.

The track then crosses the Bealey Chasm, a narrow chute of huge white boulders with turquoise water cascading through them.

The steep path continues through a thick beech forest before suddenly opening up onto a boggy snow grass meadow surrounded by mountains.

Those are snow grass tussocks in the foreground

  

The alpine meadow has many unusual plants and is quite beautiful.

This bright red sundew, a carnivorous plant is tiny, about the size of a pencil eraser 

White Gentian 

On our way back down the track I was able to get a shot of a tiny bird, 13 cm (5 inches) tall.

 Ngirungiru - South Island Tomtit

A relatively flat part of the track

In the last blog, Arthurs Pass - Part 1, I wrote about the challenges of building the Otira Railway Tunnel.  We discovered that there also is a massive 440 meter (1440 feet) long vehicle overpass called the Otira Viaduct in the pass, spanning a deep and seismically unstable canyon.  It was opened in 1999 to replace a narrow winding road, called the Zig-Zag. 

In 1929 an earthquake caused a section of the Zig-Zag to slip into the canyon and in 1943 there was further erosion of the road, all of which convinced the government that the viaduct must be built.   Rock falls and water damage continue to be risks, even today, so protection was included when the viaduct was built.

Rock avalanche protection – You can see the rock fall protection structure 

on the left and a giant “downspout” carrying water over the road on the right