Sleepy afternoon!

A different kind of day for us today. Having carried a quantity of art materials to Australia I finally got around to doing some sketching. The view of the Crookhaven Estuary as you drive into Orient Point is simply stunning and I decided to park at the top of the hill on the roadside verge and try and capture something of the view. I'm not sure why I find it so difficult to settle down to drawing in Australia but I always seem to.

With art in mind we decided to visit the art gallery in Nowra in the afternoon. We found a small gallery, recently refurbished that also housed other artistic and creative industries. The exhibition of new acquisitions interested me. The `surf' photographs from the early 70's and the new and upcoming art from the collection of two men who had donated part of their collection to the gallery.

This sleepy Rainbow Lorikeet was perched about half a metre of the ground snoozing in this bush as we approached the car-park across from the gallery.


Lake Woollomalloo was our final stop of the afternoon. A lagoon separated from the beach by only a thin strip of sand is an important site for nesting birds, including Little Terns that have made the hazardous journey from Northern Europe. When we were there the wind was whipping up the sand and building the dunes. Kite-surfers and dog walkers were also using the area - I wonder if the dog-walkers knew that dogs were forbidden on this part of the beach and that poison had been put down to try and control the fox population.

Late afternoon is not the time to visit a site of this kind and expect to see birds - though we did see a small group of Red Capped Plover flitting and scurrying around the small sandbanks on the edge of the lake.