{"id":6532,"date":"2014-11-05T08:40:43","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T08:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/soundslikewish.wordpress.com\/?p=6532"},"modified":"2014-11-05T08:40:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T08:40:43","slug":"one-trip-every-month-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/?p=6532","title":{"rendered":"One trip EVERY month: November"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month I spent a weekend at Barlings Beach on the south coast of New South Wales, named after the Barling family who have been in the area since 1852.\u00a0 That’s a long time in Australia’s books.<\/p>\n

On the way I saw an ex-church which has been here almost as long;\u00a0 the sign high above the door says 1855.\u00a0 The church now appears to be inhabited by free spirits.\u00a0 I was bold and brave and took photos of it, though I’m not sure I would have knocked on the door to ask for directions.\"Ex-church<\/p>\n

I don’t know if anyone was inside peering out, but as I wandered down the street and looked in the left hand window, something was looking back at me.<\/p>\n

\"ex-church<\/p>\n

At Barlings Beach the air was dry and hot, and it felt good to be hotter than I’ve been since last summer.\u00a0 But this was no paradise, the sky overcast with dark blue clouds, the water green and waveless.\u00a0 Strange, but last time I was at this beach there was surf.\u00a0\u00a0 And here and there, a few dead birds lay half-buried in the sand.\u00a0 I’ve read that they are short-tailed shearwaters, a type of muttonbird, that fly thousands of kilometres from the Arctic to arrive on the east coast of Australia at the start of summer.\u00a0 The long trek is too much for many of them.<\/p>\n

\"Barlings<\/p>\n

Only one man was swimming.\u00a0 My husband.\u00a0 (No photo.)\u00a0 Another man was fishing, wetting his line really, while the women, who had been fishing from their esky seats, declared it a waste of time and settled down for a chat.<\/p>\n

\"women<\/p>\n

Another woman seemed to be wondering why the water was so flat.\u00a0 Was there something in the green murk that she couldn’t see?\u00a0 Only a few days before, a surfer had been bitten by a shark in waist-deep water at another beach up the coast.\u00a0 Knee-deep was a safe depth.<\/p>\n

\"what's<\/p>\n

The rainless windstorm came and the temperature plummeted by 15 degrees.\u00a0 The wind blew itself out and the waves rolled in again.\u00a0 Later in the afternoon as I walked on the shore, I couldn’t believe it was the same beach as a few hours before.<\/p>\n

\"Barlings<\/p>\n

Next morning, paradise had returned, and I walked to the rock platform that goes out to Barlings Island.\u00a0 When the tide’s low it’s possible to walk over to it on the rocks.\u00a0 The island is a significant Aboriginal heritage area associated with traditional laws and customs.\u00a0 It’s excellent for snorkelling, to see fish swimming through a giant underwater kelp forest.<\/p>\n

\"Barlings<\/p>\n

On the way home, at a small beach called Mosquito Bay, I was standing on the boat ramp wondering how boats would survive a launching over the rocky bottom, when something moved around and over the ramp base.\u00a0 See the black part above the water?<\/p>\n

\"Smooth<\/p>\n

It was a stingray, a Smooth Ray, according to the notice at the top of the ramp warning us not to harm them.\u00a0 I frequently walk in the edge-water, sometimes up to my knees, but this time I’d stayed on dry land.\u00a0 Wasn’t I happy about that!\u00a0 The blown-up photo in the header of this post shows the ray’s long sting, almost as scary as a flying celluloid doll in a church window.<\/p>\n

\"Smooth<\/p>\n

It was another good trip away, another weekend of nature-watching.\u00a0 And, even better, people-watching.<\/p>\n

Thanks again Marianne for the suggestion to take one trip EVERY month<\/a>.\u00a0 Only one 2014 month to go, one 2014 trip to take.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month I spent a weekend at Barlings Beach on the south coast of New South Wales, named after the Barling family who have been in the area since 1852.\u00a0 That’s a long time in Australia’s books. On the way I saw an ex-church which has been here almost as long;\u00a0 the sign high above … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “One trip EVERY month: November”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[673,674,6,675,676,41,7,8,568,677,23],"class_list":["post-6532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-photos","tag-barlings-beach","tag-barlings-island","tag-black-white","tag-mosquito-bay","tag-one-trip-every-month-november","tag-photo","tag-photography","tag-photos-2","tag-postaday-2014","tag-stingray","tag-unusual"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soundslikewish.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}