We foolishly made friends with a local kookaburra recently. Even though he stole our lunch two days running.
He's named 'Spider', for complex reasons. And he was back today, eyeing off our birthday cake, no less.
And would you believe it, birthday girl actually gave him a piece!
Grab it while you can
He went thataway!
It's 60km of largely beach walking, with scenic headlands, little bits of rainforest, and the odd street section. We walked it from north to south, Red Rock to Sawtell, over three days, basing ourselves in Coffs Harbour.
It's named for the string of lonely looking islands just off the coast. The scenery is great, specially if you like beaches. Or wildlife. We saw lots of whales, dolphins, eagles, kites, ospreys. Plus kangaroos and surfers galore.
We used a minibus taxi based in Woolgoolga to assist with our start from Red Rock.
Then it's off along our first beach: Red Rock Beach.
Other beaches today: Corindi, Arrawarra, Ocean View, Mullaway, Cabins, Darkum, Safety, and Woolgoolga.
A pair of White-bellied sea eagles
Remains of a shipwreck here. The Buster sank in 1893, and unexpectedly re-emerged out of the beach a few months ago.
It's time once again for the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year competition. This year the finalists turned up at the Australian Museum. Once again they were all rather magnificent.
I particularly liked the runner-up in the animal habitat section, an out-of-focus picture of a bushfire with black kites flying around in it.
