Delias aganippe (red spotted Jezebel)

 

I had the good fortune of seeing this beautiful butterfly floating around the plum blossoms over the weekend, when I was free and able to take the camera and try to catch a couple good snaps. We don't often see many butterflies, so it was a treat to watch it flit about (and a challenge to try to capture it.) It was a beautiful day! Clear blue skies and a warm wind. It's full on spring in New England.

Minnie Water

After our half day in Grafton we headed to the coast to the small town of Minnie Water, about a half-hour's drive away.

Maybe because we haven't been to the beach in a long time (the last trip for me out of New England was Japan via Brisbane) or maybe just the novelty of a place we haven't been before (as opposed to going to the coast at Coffs where we've been a few times now) but I really liked Minnie Water. I liked the beach, I liked the caravan park at which we stayed, and I loved walking along the coast. The swimming was really good too! So despite being a pretty quick trip overall it was really quite splendid.

For whatever reason the beach at Minnie Water collects a lot of seaweed and we were at just the right time of the tide. We collected some caulerpa, which we had known in Okinawa as umi budou - “sea grapes” and were delicious. These maybe not so much, but it was fun to learn about foraging seaweed (in NSW you can privately harvest up to 20 kilos a day! For those who aren't adding it to their diets it seems to be a popular mulching medium and garden compost additive.)

Seaweed and sponges.  There were more sponges on this beach than I've ever seen before.

 

The following day we took a walk along the coast: first north up the beach and out on the headland, later we drove into town and walked along some of the Yuraygir coastal walk which passes through this area. The Yuraygir trail is a 65km long walking trail that extends from the town of Iluka (South of Byron Bay) to just almost Coffs Harbour. What we walked was really neat, a really beautiful stretch of coastline. We're keen to come back and walk the entire trail someday.

Sunday morning the surfers were out

Walking up the beach to the (small) headland

Coastal heath

Looking for whales, maybe a little late in the season

Coastal heathland flowers

Really amazing coastal eucalyptus

This tree was a work of art.

Walking along the Yuraygir coastal trail.

Quiet rocky beach.

We're in prime butterfly season right now. These giant blue and black
butterflies don't make it inland to New England

Eagles fishing, surrounded by seagulls.

We finished our trip with the requisite fish and chips and headed back home. A quick weekend trip but a very enjoyable one.

Back on the winding road, green for now.

Bugs and slugs

Being here for almost two years now, we've seen a fair number of creeping and crawling things.  It seems like this summer we've spotted a few more bugs than ever before (but perhaps fewer spiders, thank goodness.)

Starting in November we were finally able to find one of the noisy bugs we hear all summer (think cicada-level noise level, only lower pitched; and less of a buzz but more of a drumming sound), we saw a big preying mantis on the roof, and of course other beetles and butterflies. I also saw a very large slug when taking out our recycling.

These green bugs blend in perfectly with the summer leaves

The only way we spotted him was by honing in on his sound.

This preying mantis was at least twice as big as the one I saw
last year. It was huge!

Our 20c pieces are about the same size as a quarter.

He was hiding under the recycling bin but was pretty quick
to retreat to the shade. He looked even bigger when on the move!

Assassin beetle

A huge buzzing beetle we saw in the Blue Mountains

Not the actual insect, but a rather impressive exoskeleton left
on a tree.  It was a big one!