Waterfalls, Reptiles & other

Ok, so where to begin? Not to dwell on the bad stuff, but to keep you all in the know, Peter is doing superbly. Over the past few weeks, we have been getting back into the swing of things. Long walks, lots of exercise, lots of relaxing, and I’ve been brushing the dust off my trusty camera. These are a few photos I’ve taken while exploring mum’s lovely hometown, Port Macquarie.

It seems like a lifetime ago that we did some work on the caravan. You may recall we replaced the battery and the battery monitoring system.  Replaced the radio aerial, (the old one is probably still dangling off a tree somewhere 😊) and replaced the water monitoring sensors and monitoring system. Two weeks ago, we finally had the opportunity to test our new equipment.

We booked six nights in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park at the Tia Falls campground. It rained the first few days and was overcast for all but one day; ideal conditions to test the batteries. I’m not as technical as Peter, so I’ll be brief. The batteries and monitoring system are absolutely fabulous. The lights and fridge were on all night, we charged laptops and camera batteries and I got to use my hair dryer using the 240v inverter, Peter even left the outside light on one night, and we never dropped below 92% charge.

We want to give a big shout out to Terry and the team at Battery World Port Macquarie, who did such a great job for us. If you need any work done and you are in the area, call in and see Terry. If you want more detailed information about the batteries, leave a comment and I’m sure Peter will oblige. You’ll be pleased to know that we can listen to the radio again, and the water sensors and monitor give us a much better reading than the ones supplied originally.

This next series of photos were taken at Tia and Apsley Falls, and some of the critters we met.

Our next bit of news is super exciting! Well, it was for us anyway. We were sitting around the Oz Pig at Tia Falls, enjoying a peaceful evening when Peter saw something moving very quickly through the trees. It took us a while to figure out what it was, guess what? It was a Sugar Glider. I know, I’ve never seen one before either. Oh my gosh, it was tiny and flitted through the trees like Spiderman before doing a death-defying leap off the top of a dead tree branch. We were entertained by these little critters, a family of four as it turned out, for three nights in a row.

Sadly I don’t have the equipment for night photography, and my best lens for maximising light is a wide angle, which pushes the subject further away from you, but if you make the video full screen, then look at the bottom right horizontal branch, you will pick up some movement and will be able to follow the Sugar Glider through to its last leap.

The last night we saw them, I had set up my camera and tripod with my 400mm zoom, manually focusing on the branch for the final launch while the sun was still up, then I pulled up a chair and waited until dark, clutching my auto shutter release button. These next photos are some of the worst quality I have ever taken, but I am ever so chuffed to have gotten them. Saying that, if you want to see some real photos of these little cuties, follow this link. https://www.wilderness.org.au/sugar-gliders

It couldn’t get much better than that right? Wrong! We were pointed to an off-the-grid overnight spot, twenty minutes south of Walcha. We parked on the banks of a little river, lit a fire and sat down with a glass of wine to enjoy the sunset. When what should slowly surface, silently from the water, OMG a Platypus. I kid you not, in fact there were two of them! We sat mesmerised watching them then you guessed it, I grabbed my camera, and this time there was enough light for some decent photos. Enjoy.

See you out there somewhere

On tow and on the go!