Winter

Snow has arrived in the Brindabellas

Queen's Birthday Long Weekend

The last long weekend before spring coming right at the beginning of winter is, to my mind, the single most important beach weekend of the year.  Particularly if the weather turns it on - which happens surprisingly often.  Bring on the exhibits:

Marble Arch

The forests around the Shoalhaven River are great for autumn walks - particularly after the rain we've had.

Plenty of trees and mushrooms of all kinds

And a cave with marble and stalactites 

And a walk back in the late afternoon sunshine before a wade through the Shoalhaven back to the car - don't drink the water (Oliver)

And It Has Kept On Raining

Looking back at my last post in February, the colours were bleached and summery - products of a hot and very dry few months.  Since then we have had a fair bit of rain - not an extraordinary amount, but not a bad amount at all - and pretty regularly.  The countryside is showing it.  As our walk around the northern border region of Canberra shows.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't know my Australian Eucalypts very well, but I think that on the top of the hills here these are snow gums interspersed with a few yellow box.

The bird spotting was great: whistling kites, black falcons, yellow-rumped thornbills, white-eared honeyeaters and mistletoebirds to name a few. They are hard to photograph though, as were all the frogs we could hear but not see.  One bit of the wildlife hung around long enough for a photo.

Having survived our close encounter with the local fauna we enjoyed the floral emblem of Canberra and the ACT (and the trees).

Sunday Walk

After the first rain for ages