Just as we were leaving the Brunswick River, I rescued a poor little froggy who was hiding under the wheels of the caravan. I popped it onto the car bonnet to keep it from being crushed and to get a photo. I have since realised that it was our first cane toad. Fortunately, I have not come out in a rash or had weird dreams from touching him.
I am sure rescuing cane toads is on par with getting involved with foreign wars, so I expect to face the full force of the law on my return,
We are travelling north again and have reached Toowoomba in Queensland. The weather has cooled down again as Toowoomba is quite high from sea level.
The drive from Brunswick Heads was uneventful after an inauspicious departure. We left in periodic rain showers, and of course its Dad’s job to be packing up the outside! However, once you are wet, you can only get dry again by packing everything away and getting into a car with the heater on.
A dry dog in the car is more important than a dry Dad, so he was coddled while I got wet!
We were joined at Brunswick Heads (just north of Byron Bay) by Clare, my niece. She was interested in checking out Byron Bay and also catching up. The third day she was with us was beautiful and sunny, so we took the canoe onto the Brunswick River.
With the tide turning, we were able to mosey along the riverbank, annoying many birds, fish and rays. The pelican was the most relaxed, watching our approach without disturbing his grooming.
Past the island, the environment changed from mangroves and mudflats, to forest and sandy beaches. We sneaked up on an eagle having a bath.
Further upstream we found a few cormorants to sneak up on a threesome of cormorants or herons – I can’t really tell the difference. They really weren’t bothered by us so we got almost underneath them.
When we found on why, I began paddling quickly. Can anyone see what is to the right of my paddle-head?
Here is the cause of my anxiety. We got to within 5 metres of her before I clued up to the interesting diamond pattern in the tree.
She was about two metres long and did not move. Still, I believe Python’s should be admired behind a nice glass wall with a near label assuring me that it is not deadly. Clare insisted we go back for a better selfie, but if the snake joined us in the boat, no amount of restatement of the word “harmless” was going to stop us from swimming back to camp!
Today we find ourself in Brunswick Heads, so drove down to Byron Bay to find out what all the fuss was about. Unfortunately we had a drizzly day, so while the others visited the shops, the dog and I walked around. Most of the beaches were closed to dogs, so we found ourselves walking along the streets and then up to the lighthouse on the headland. Annoyingly, after a forty minute walk to the lighthouse, we found that the park it was in was in a National Park (no dogs), so we had to walk back without seeing it.
The dog was interested in the number of bush turkeys wandering around the coastal parks, but was annoyed that he wasn’t allow to go after any. I was delighted to catch sight of a sea eagle visiting its nest.
Moonee Beach is a bit north of Coffs Harbour. As noted in the previous post, we were very lucky to get into it, arriving just after six; most caravan park receptions close at five, this one at six and they answered the after hours number. We stumbled well! It is a beautiful location on the Solitary Islands Walk 
with a tidal creek (Moonee Creek) running past the camp ground. It is home of the Sooty Oyster Catcher, which did not let us approach within smarty phone photo range with our hairy mutt. There were a number of herons, cranes, ducks, plovers and a lot of fish.
We had three great days there doing walks and going for a canoe. The Dog as usual had the most fun. The Solitary Islands Walk went through beaches, headlands and rainforest. He loved the canoeing – both in the canoe, and swimming behind when not in the canoe.
