Christmas Roadtrip

Our early departure from Canberra on Friday meant we missed the majority of the traffic, exiting for the coast. After a shortstop at Surf Beach to drop the Christmas goodies into the family's freezer for safe keeping we headed down to Tuross. The plan being 2 nights camping before taking up a holiday house at Tomakin with friends and some of the kids.

After a sleepless night I decided to ride over the the chemist for some pain killers, this was going to be the only way I would be able to get back in the kayak any time soon. The holiday making hoardes are yet to arrive and we have had he place pretty much to ourselves, no paddling for the next few days. On to Narooma and as the fish are not biting I walked over to the great little fish shop at the bridge for the makings of the seafood paella.

Sunday morning and back up to Broulee to collect the house key, this is the second visit to this beach house for Christmas. It is a great spot, right on the beach with amazing views down the coast. No road trips this week as Dusty has been converted into an extra bedroom. The days quickly meld into one another, swimming, eating, paddling, walking, cycling and drinking. Not necessarily in that order. 

While we have been idling away in a quiet little backwater, the south coast's population has quadrupled. We have headed back down the coast to Corunna Lake and Bermagui for the last few days, of our holiday. Last night we went to sleep watching the prawner's lamps twinkling around the edge of the lake. It was a full house this morning with 7 campervans lined up along the foreshore.

Days end - Mystery Bay

Tuross is terrific!

That was the sales pitch used by real estate agents in the 60's and Tuross Heads is still a gem of a spot and our destination for the 2nd road trip of Summer. A later start from Canberra saw us at the Rustic Pizza again for our pickup at 6:50pm.

There are camps that are just too good to share, some of you may be able to guess the location of this one.

Great overnight camp

The reason why we were up so early.

Perfect paddling conditions

Tuross Lake is the breeding site of several endangered bird species. Before the king tides and heavy swells of the last 2 days there were 70  Fairy Terns and Little Terns nests on the  sand spit at the lake entrance. By Sunday morning these were reduced significantly. Hopefully it is still early enough in the season for these birds to lay more eggs.

Another endangered species Sooty Oystercatcher

 Both Sooty and Pied Oystercatchers were observed either with chicks or sitting on eggs.

These Sanderlings breed in the Arctic and make the long distance flight to Tuross to escape the Northern Winter. Another species at risk.

These Hooded Plovers put on a great decoy display, that involved Mrs Plover running around pretending to have a broken leg. Thankfully she finally settled down and went back to nest sitting all under Mr Plover's watchful eye.

Frank (20months) and his dad out collecting drift oysters, love the raft! 

This is a popular spot for kayaking, the locals have cleverly dredged a channel from the beach the deeper part of the lake, all under the guise of digging for oysters.