Postcards from Australasia #9

Leaving behind Queensland we were saddened to hear that the Binna Burra Lodge had burned down and that O'Reilly's had been evacuated.  Clearly a lot of water stress and fire risk after such an extreme and prolonged drought.

We headed to our first stop in New South Wales in Bellingen, visiting the Urunga Bordwalk on the coast, the day before it closed for extensive refurbishment:

From there we headed to Gloucester, it should be as lush as Bellingen but the area was brown and the intensive cattle rearing led a lot of the landscape to be picked clean of vegetation, i think they will have land quality issues when the rains do return.

Anyway we headed up to the hills, particularly Copeland and Barrington Tops, looking for various bird species.   One walk we did, the Hidden Treasure trail featured lots of rusting equipment and capped mine shafts from gold rush days:

From Gloucester we headed quite a lot further South for another holiday from our holiday, this time staying in Lovedale in the Hunter Valley.  We drove via Seal Point in Myall Lakes National Park and the lighthouse there:  

The area is less rain stressed as you can tell from this Eastern Grey Kangaroo contentedly munching grass:

Call me a heretic but we went on a wine tour and tried various wines, we didn't really rate a single one, except a fortified wine we tried, the beer however was outstanding.   Hmmmm.

After our long break in The Hunter Valley and having watched heavy rain finally arrive and sweep inland we drove up to a mountain hideaway retreat in the Capertee Valley, an area famous for birding though also still very drought affected.

The farmers and landowners we met were all delighted with the heavy rain, though getting to our cabin late afternoon in a downpour down a dirt track on a ridge, it being 6c with no electricity other than solar and heating from a log fire alone it was somewhat bittersweet.

The rain did eventually clear giving us a chance to explore the Capertee:

We saw a good number of bird species, although some of the more sensitive species were absent, a pattern we're finding repeated throughout this trip.   We did get close however to a Mistletoe Bird:

From Capertee it was time to head to Sydney, breaking our journey in the Blue Mountains.   We stopped first at the Botanic Garden, arriving as a nother shower petered out, leaving the spring plants covered in a rain 'dew':

The gardens has many birds, mostly New Holland Honeyeaters, these Eastern Spinebills:

And Red Wattlebirds, this one feeding from a Protea there:

We were staying close to the iconic Blue Mountains View, the three sisters:

We explored the area, nervously taking in some of the vertiginous landscapes, including Govett's Leap as another shower cleared:

We used our National Trust card from the UK to access some gardens, seeing this Red-Capped Robin:

Another morning saw us walking various trails looking for the localised species.   The Blue Mountains are composed of various rock layers, a lot of it sedimentary, with various sections being exposed like this one in Birdwood gully:

We've enjoyed the first part of our NSW visit, the rains have freshened everything up and now the sun is shining again as we head on in to Sydney.