Illawarra Basin Falls, (Central Coast NSW)

The Illawarra rivers meet a relatively narrow coastal plain after plunging down the coastal escarpment. While most do not run in dry times, they can put on a spectacular display after heavy rain.

The features of the area were early studied by an impressive group of early European settlers and visitors (eg Rev Clarke and the United States Exploring Expedition in the Pacific under Commander Charles Wilkes, with the famous mineralogist, James Dwight Dana). Some of the waterfalls seen by the travelers have been submerged in dams.

Sacred Kingfisher

Sacred Kingfisher

A pair of Sacred Kingfishers nest in a nearby paddock in a dead willow tree and is obliging me with acrobatics and flying displays.

Rainbow Fall

Clover Hill Road provides access to the Falls Walking Track in the Macquarie Pass National Park. There are small cascades along the Road, and the Track gives high views of the Macquarie Rivulet until it meets the creek at Rainbow Falls. Upstream there are a series of other waterfalls.

Rocks near the fall are slippery and some are fragile. Exercise extreme care.

Majors Creek Falls

Majors Creek Falls can be found in the Majors Creek State Conservation Area.

This area is not signposted and should be approached with a great deal of care.

The Majors Creek fall is a short walk from the town of Majors Creek. It races down a precipitous drop into the Araluen Valley. In total the creek's falls dance 240 m (790 feet) to the valley floor below. Only 15-20 meters of the main race from a chute fall is visible from adjoining cliff edges. Above the fall are a series of pretty pools and cascades.

While this fall was once well known (and is still well loved by the locals), the lookout for the fall is in ruins and the area is quietly fading back into the wilderness.

Majors Creek Falls

Govetts Leap

Four views of this system, using different lenses, in rain.

Sassafras mobs

Once a busy rest stop for the bullock teams pulling wool from inland farms over the coastal mountains to the southern ports, the inns and shanties have fallen back into the bush, leaving mobs of emus and kangaroos.

Yandyguinula: Small mountain cascades and races

The small creek on my farm is full of small waterfalls, cascades and races. The creek runs at about 0.5Ml per day, so these are always active - but they develop bright white tips when the creek swells with water. After it rains the creek can swell to ten times its normal volume and run very fast with lots of foam.

Canberra in Autumn

(Anti)cyclone

It has been threatening rain for a couple of days now. 

Local creeks have all flooded so I am staying put for a day or so.

Overnight a low off the east coast of Australia produced a local but intense winds (travelling in a clockwise direction) overnight, dropping 120mm on the farm over a couple of hours. 

In the Northern hemisphere intense wind systems around a low travel anticlockwise - and are called cyclones. In the Southern the winds travel clockwise around a low. A long time ago, a local practice arose of referring to the deep lows that brings hard wet weather from the coast as anti-cyclones - because they behaved differently to those in the Northern Hemisphere. These days the name is reserved by weather forecasters and scientists for cyclones that arise around a High.

Our weather forecasters ignore these for the sensible reason that they hit almost uninhabited land, like my farm. I watch them carefully because they bring twisters, savage lightning, including fire balls and lots of rain.

 The weather phenomena is very local - and seems to hit here with little warning every couple of years.  It is very localized - outside of a couple of kilometers there was only a fraction of the rain - although they got strong winds.

Near to the track to the outside world, a clockwise whirlpool has developed, a mirror of the weather system that created it.

Swallowtail Butterfly (?)

An uncommon visitor, not seen for 15 years.

Snowy River Estuary - Bass Strait - Gippsland

Corrigans Beach

This sandy beach stretches 30 km (20 miles) back to Lakes Entrance.  A pristine beach sometimes frequented by white pointer sharks.

A lovely deserted place - accessible from Orbost (a long dirt road) and a short walk from a car park.

Wild: Female Nankeen Kestral - Windhover

The Kestral - known to farmers as a Windhover or Sparrowhawk - live throughout semi cleared land - often found on fence posts or telegraph poles - often seen hovering above a likely source of food.

The female lacks the distinct black facial stripes of the male.