Then we drove up to the Yarravel Nature Reserve. We had a nice walk through the dry upland forest here, but the birds were all high in the trees and not showing themselves.
Back to the coast and South Rocks we found a new habitat, mangroves. We had lunch in the rain here.
From there we headed to Arikoon National Park where a local vintage car club was having a gathering.
An Australian Ranchero
And my personal favorite
The Zephyr
There was another rowdier gathering going on as well. They were teasing Leo for photographing birds and shouted, why don't you take a picture of us, we're rare birds! So he did.
Arakoon is the site of a now abandoned internment camp for the 1st world war. We took a trail through proper rainforest
Connie blending in in tropical camo
and up into the headland with a view of the gaol.
Here we found a very rare phenomenon in Australian National parks, the informational plaquard, so we were able to learn a little about Australian plantlife.
Our last stop was at Crescent Head which turned out to be a surfing hotspot.
Surfers at Crescent Head
We hiked up the head from the beach past the really steep municipal golfcourse (how do they get the golf ball up there in the constant high winds?) , and then on to Noddy Head lookout.
Thanks to Arikoon NP's informative plaquards, I knew that the strawflowers we in North America plant in seed packages are actually native to Australia.
We walked back to our car through a residential neighbourhood. The houses here had beautiful gardens planted with tropical flowering shrubs so there were lots of birds around.
After supper back at the camp we headed north to Point Plomer and found another jam-packed campground. There had been a wildfire here, and the burnt forest was full of these flowering bottlebrushes,
very popular with little Friarbirds and other birds as
well.
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