Wednesday, March 21
5:20 am Ballina, NSW, Australia
19 C forecast high 26 C with some showers
4:00 PM Life
Another full day with friends. We drove to Lismore early this morning and then sat back while Allan & Fran took us north past Nimbin to a place called Crams' Farm which provided facilities for picnics as well as many historic buildings. It also provided us with an opportunity to do some bird watching. We had a lovely picnic lunch and were then driven to Uki where we had a nice cappuccino (our first on this trip to Australia). The roads in the Northern Rivers area are essentially narrow paved roads that were once cow paths or dirt tracks connecting remote farms. The terrain is very hilly and the roads very windy, so the drive is quite fascinating. Nimbin appeared to be thriving.
Roadside mailbox
Butter churn at Uki
Grevillea 'Sandra Gordon'
When we returned to Ballina we stopped at the Ballina Fair shopping mall, which had a Coles grocery store, and bought a few basics such as fruit, cheese and meusli. Then I went to bottle shop near our unit where I bought some wine and beer.
5:00 PM Geocaching
I then made a quick trip to look for a geocache as I needed a "find" for this date. My first attempt turned out to be a failure. I was unable to find it, and did notice that it was last found on January 31. I will monitor this site while we are here to see if there is any further information on it.
I then drove a short distance to another cache and this time I was successful. I also retrieved another TB which I will drop off once I return home.
6:00 PM Birding
Here is a list of the birds we saw today:
- Crested Tern (first for 2012)
- Galah (first for 2012)
- Little Corella (first for 2012)
- Australian White Ibis
- Cattle Egret
- Dusky Moorhen (first for 2012)
- Pacific Black Duck (first for 2012)
- Comb-crested Jacana (first for 2012)
- Crested Pigeon (first for 2012)
- Laughing Kookaburra (first for 2012)
- Pied Butcherbird (first for 2012)
- Noisy Miner (first for 2012)
- Masked Lapwing
- Welcome Swallow (first for 2012)
- Glossy Black Cockatoo (LIFER)
- Australian Magpie
- Currawong
- Spotted Turtle-Dove (LIFER)
Pacific Black Duck
Noisy Miner
Laughing Kookaburra
At this point we have identified 22 different birds on this trip, 3 of which are lifers. This brings our total number of distinct Australian birds that we have identified to 198.