Week Ten Day Sixty Four

John's thong, held together by string.


Making our way over the petrified coral.

A small view of the town lagoon.

The crocodile trap.

Textile Cone shell.

Well in the last post, we mentioned that we were in for an exciting time!!!!!! Remind us not to say that out loud again. yes we had excitement but not in the way we expected.

Firstly we had to contend with the wind and rain created by Cyclone Paul. For the first few days it hung around and Bom.gov showed that we were in the cyclone area. It got to the stage where the whole garden was cleared and all movable objects were stored.

This though caused issues, for instance casting into the sea was not possible because of the wind, therefore fishing was out..........

John and Francois (Wendy's brother) managed to get to the yacht, to retrieve a 60 metre chain. however in the "tinny" (tender) on the way back was almost into the water because of the weight. This caused both John and Francois to get soaked.

The next thing to happen, Adam caught scarlet fever. Great!!!!! Poor child, not nice for a 5 year old. Anyway he missed 3 days of school. He was a lot better after being on antibiotics, and so far no one else has caught it.

On Wednesday we went to the Town lagoon, this is a fresh water lagoon that runs between the town and sea. In some places it is only separated from the sea by 20 meters of sand dune. However because of the wet season, most of the track was under water. Being home to salt water crocodiles we did not venture into these areas. However we did take a look at the crocodile trap on the waters edge, with the bait, a fish hanging there. We also went to the bird hide to see what birds we could see. This is home to 200 bird species. We did catch sight of a blue kingfisher and lorikeets.

Afterwards we went to East Woody Beach to see if the tide was low enough to walk to the island. Unfortunately it wasn't, so we will have to time it a bit better next time. However Leila, enjoyed the romp in the waves.

This afternoon we took a walk along another beach, towards Rainbow Cliffs. We started off at Buffalo Creek, walked around the mangroves, looking for some mud skippers, (tiny fish that hop across the water when disturbed). Found some as well as some footprints, not sure if they belonged to a crocodile, so we hightailed it to the beach. We crossed the creek and started along the beach. It was great fun as we encountered clay flats, and bauxite rock pools. There was loads of hermit crabs, washed up clam shells and we also discovered a textile cone shell (they use a venomous barb to disable their prey, however this can be fatal to humans) we of course did not touch this.

At one time we had to clamber over a petrified coral outcrop, John broke his shoe and Hope grazed her leg. John fixed his shoe with some rope Hanna found, and Wendy bandaged Hope's leg with her bandanna. Problem fixed!

We continued on our journey, with the girls helping hermit crabs back to the sea. Leila, the dog, chased sticks into the sea, and the adults enjoyed the scenery. Eventually we had to turn back as it was getting late. The tide was almost at its lowest so we walked round the petrified coral outcrop, getting a bit wet in the process, better that, than cutting ourselves, like Hope did (poor child).

"Red sky at night, Shepard's delight". So the weather looks promising for our sailing trip tomorrow.

Hope's Blog............. It was great fun playing with the clay and looking to see what we could find in the rock pools. It was not nice when I slipped and cut my leg. daddy washed it with my drinking water, but it was still bleeding. Mommy then took her bandanna out of her hair and wrapped it around my leg. Hanna and I also had fun looking at a wreck of a car that was on the beach.