Barunah Plains

Barunah Plains was the venue for the family wedding, and it was lovely - the wedding, time with family, chatting to people and the venue! I'm not posting photos of people, but here are some of the homestead.

Portland

I've had a Family Parks voucher for a free night in my wallet since I renewed our membership last time we stayed at Cotton Tree almost two years ago. A few weeks ago I decided I needed to make an effort to work out where I could use it, so checked the website and discovered there are not very many member parks anymore, but there is one in Portland. We were planning to stay in the Portland area for a couple of days before a family wedding south of Ballarat, so that worked out well. The park itself wasn't very flash, and there wasn't much of a beach to walk along, but the view from above the rock wall was lovely.

Whimbrel

Black-faced Cormorant

Little Wattlebird

Last time we were in Portland we didn't walk along the beach or around the port, so I was keen to explore that area a bit. The beach was quite pretty, and the water was very clear.

There was a great view of the port from the breakwater. We had seen the pilot and tugs go out to this ship the previous afternoon to bring it in to port and it was being loaded with logs.

Even though we had seen the gannets last time we were here we wanted to go back so Dazz could take photos with his new camera and bird lens. We were both really disappointed, though, as there was a bit of haze rising from the vegetation, which made everything blurry, through both the binoculars and the telephoto lens. This was as good as it got...

There was another guy hanging around the lookout who started chatting to us and he suggested we would need to get closer, but we knew the view from the fence was not as good because it was too low, even though it was closer. He asked if we were going to be around at 5:30pm because that was when the volunteer opened the gate and took people into the area, but we didn't want to hang around that long. After a few more comments and a rattling of keys we realised he was the volunteer! He had been waiting for some friends and they hadn't shown up, so he offered to take us in. 

He was a wealth of knowledge and also pointed out a single Cape Gannet (the one in the centre of this photo with the more pronounced blue eye and black "mascara") among the rest of the Australasian Gannets. Its call was also quite different.

The rest of the colony lives out on the island.

The volunteer also told us that their local elephant seal was on the next beach around at the moment, so we stopped there on our way home. Unfortunately he was sleeping soundly and didn't stir at all while we were there.

South Australian Valleys, Murray River and The Coorong

Once we headed east from Port Pirie the landscape changed significantly. We were clearly back in good agricultural country.

We stayed in Auburn a couple of days and caught up on washing and had a pleasant afternoon drive around the Clare Valley.

Eastern Blue Tongue

Silo art in Kapunda on our way through to the Barossa Valley.

We camped on the Murray River at Wall Flat. We were hoping to put the kayaks in but there was a very cool breeze blowing, so we decided against it.

I was struck by the different construction eras in this view from the van window.

Superb Fairy-wren

Our lunch stop at Tailem Bend.

The pink lake north of Meningie.

We stayed the night at 42 Mile Crossing Campground in the Coorong. It was a nice grassy area that was protected from the strong southerly winds. There was a walk of about 3km return through the dunes to the beach. We didn't get far before we were side-tracked by birds.

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater

A bit further along the path a couple of emus strutted out in front of us.

There were quite a few of these interesting tracks around the dunes, which we think must have been shingle-back lizards. We did see a pair of them but they scurried in under the vegetation before Dazz could get a shot of them.

The wind was howling on top of the dunes and whipping up sand, so we didn't go down to the beach.

The next day we stopped for lunch at The Granites, just north of Kinston SE. While I was making lunch Dazz saw this lizard.

After lunch we went for a short walk and he noticed this one as it ran off the path and tried to hide. It's a Painted Dragon, as is the previous one, but just not so painted!

Lake Leake was our last stop in SA for this trip. It's a donation camp west of Mount Gambier and was very pretty.

Masked Lapwing

Eastern Great Egret and Pacific Black Ducks