Holidays

 As we usually do about this time of year, my family decided to escape the Tasmanian winter for a week and holiday somewhere a little bit warmer. This time we explored the area around Forster Tuncurry on the NSW coast, based in a tiny town (mostly just holiday houses) called Elizabeth Beach on the edge of the Booti Booti National Park. This area of NSW is quite picturesque, having the ocean, forests, and lakes right next door to each other. Most of the things to do in the area are walks, scenic drives, and cruises. Our bungalow for the week was very comfortable and the weather wasn't too bad so we had quite a nice week away.

One of the things I particularly wanted to do during our week in the area, was to go to Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse at Seal Rocks, partly because I like lighthouses, but mostly because it seemed like a great place to watch the ocean and spot whales.

 Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse

 Seal Rocks

 New Holland Honeyeater keeping us company at the Lighthouse

  Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse

Whale Tail! (and Marine Park Authority boat)

 Humpback whale breaching

It took a while of watching an empty ocean to finally see the whale (about when I was ready to give up), but finally (when I had entirely the wrong lens on my camera and had to do a quick switch) Mum spotted the whale blowing. It was quite a long way off the coast, but it obliged us with a very active display of tail slapping, head lunging, pec slapping, and breaching so I was quite content. That was probably my favourite part of the entire holiday.

Here are a few scenery shots from some of our other explorations:

 Santa Barbara Beach

  Santa Barbara Beach

  Santa Barbara Beach

Sunrise at the resort (which I was only accidentally awake for)

 Regular visitors to our balcony at the resort. They were accompanied by 2 magpies, 2 noisy miners, and a brush turkey.

One of the lakes (can't remember which one)

By general agreement, we decided to take a relaxed cruise from Forster up Wallis lake. This takes you past a lot of commercial oyster farms, but there is also a lot of natural scenery to keep you occupied and plenty of birdlife.

By far the most exciting bird watching was actually the pelicans, though. I've always liked pelicans, but there are hundreds of them in the area so you wouldn't expect me to get so excited about seeing some more on the lake. What I have never seen before, though, is a pelican breeding colony or a baby pelican. I've seen photos of baby pelicans before (which look a bit like a raw plucked chicken with a large beak), but I had never seen one in the flesh.The cruise took us past Pelican Island, a small sandbar island where the pelicans breed and we were lucky enough to spot a glimpse of a very young, very naked, ugly, baby pelican.
Unfortunately, for the 2 seconds the baby was visible before its parent hid it from view by settling over it to incubate it, I had entirely the wrong lens on my camera (always the way) so I only got this entirely underwhelming photo of it, but it is there.

Pelican Island (with baby chick)

And this is atrocious quality because I've zoomed in so far, but that little blob of pink I've circled is the second best highlight of my week (after the whale spotting).

To finish off our cruise, just before we got back to the dock, we were joined by a pod of young dolphins. A day with dolphins in it can never be a bad day if you ask me.

So, there you have it, my week in pictures. I had a very nice holiday, as did the rest of my family (I think) and now I'm back in the Tassie winter ready to try and sort out what I want to do about the unemployment situation.