New Years in Coffs

Frangipani flower outside our Airbnb stay.

We took a short trip to the coast over New Years, back to our usual haunts around Coffs Harbour. We had two cooler, cloudy days with passing showers, so we climbed Muttonbird Island and went to the botanical gardens, caught the new Star Wars movie and watched fireworks on the beach on New Years Eve. We finally got our beach holiday as New Years Day was bright, sunny, and beautiful, the most perfect day for swimming.

I have been meaning to post these photos for the past two weeks but have been lacking a bit in motivation. It didn't help that we had an electrical storm pass through a week and a half ago which put my mobile service tower out of service. I had no phone service for a week in Uralla, and even now I don't have internet at home. :/ It is a little inconvenient, but I have regular service when I drive to work in Armidale so it hasn't been too much trouble.

Cloudy day on Muttonbird Island

Where you would find muttonbirds/short-tailed shearwaters (in season)

A blue-tongued lizard on the path on Muttonbird Island.

New Years Day was a really beautiful day at the beach! The conditions were perfect and it was a high high tide. There were a lot of swimmers and a few surfers, probably one of the most crowded days we've ever seen at the beach and along the river--which is still to say, not very crowded.

A little island off the beach

Muttonbird Island in the distance

When the tide is low you can walk out to the island just off the beach; but this was the first time we've been that I ever noticed the waves coming in such perfect criss-cross patterns. It was really neat. It may have been that the tides were just right: it was a full moon and a very high tide, one of the roads by the river in town was completely flooded. I took a video of the waves coming in but unfortunately, accidentally deleted it off my phone before saving it to my computer.

Unfortunately our holiday had to come to an end, but it is always a lovely drive through Bellingen Shire. We stopped in Bellingen for gelato of course, which was a good way to end the weekend.

Green pastures of Bellingen Shire

A good end to a long weekend.

Grafton Jacarandas and Woolgoolga Whale-watching Weekend

We decided to get out of town for the weekend and because it's the right time of year for it, so we headed north to the Grafton for the first day of the annual Jacaranda Festival and for some leisurely flower-viewing. It was a hot weekend all over NSW and it was a sunny day in Grafton, perfect to walk under the shade of the jacarandas and to enjoy some ice cream at the local parlor.

Another thing I love about Grafton is all the enormous fig trees.

This ficus virens was planted circa 1880.

Bottle trees

After enjoying the electric violet hues of the jacaranda trees we drove southeast to the coast to the city of Woolgoolga. After we checked into the caravan park on the beach we walked up the hill to the headland for whale watching (also the perfect time of year for it, as the southern migration is best viewed September through November.)

As far as whale watching goes, we were not disappointed. We saw several the first afternoon and the following morning saw a lot of splashing and activity out on the water (although it was difficult to see exactly what.) It was a bit of a surprise to look at the photos after the fact to see tails above the water and even several captures of the whales breaching. We also watched a Brahminy Kite (also known as a red-backed sea eagle) fishing, although we didn't see it catch anything.

Reid's stack

Brahminy Kite

Seagulls loitering in the parking lot at the headland

Beach south of the headland

The fishermen had a good view of the whales!

Breaching

Sandy Beach

Sunday morning we headed south along the coast to Sandy Beach, a small community not far from Woolgoolga. There are two headlands on either side of the beach and we walked out on the southern one, lucky enough to see a whale passing by as we did. The view there is gorgeous, the rocky cliffs and the bare bluff of the headland really striking and of course the calming azure waves rolling in. We saw black cockatoos in the coastal banksia and there were rainbow bee-eaters flitting between the trees of the nature reserve and the powerlines of the nearby vacation houses. (We have never seen rainbow bee-eaters before, so I was very excited to spot a new bird.)

Scrubby and verdant coastal heath

Sandy Beach headland

Looking out to one of the Solitary Islands in the distance, the whale passing
between it and the shore.

Rainbow Bee-eater