Sunday Serenity at McMeekins Landing, the Tambo River

A picture perfect day.... no words needed

Yes, more swan pics... but this Swan Mum deserves a medal. Another medal goes to Maa - she's living with a deadly snake in her roof!!!

We went for a stroll along the North Arm in Lakes Entrance, Victoria, during the week.

Suddenly, a swan's head popped up out of a heap of dried grass right in front of us.
It  gave us a bit of a start - weren't expecting anything like that.
Even more startling, we realised she was on a nest, and in the most unlikeliest of spots.

She'd made her nest not far from a busy street.  

Just the short time we were there, many cars drove past.  She simply ignored them all. 

I can see now, why swans have an aggressive nature when approached.  Their nests are obviously close by!  

This is the swan's water view. 

Shops, cars, houses, flats and a caravan park behind her, and ....

.... noisy neighbours in front. 

She'd nodded off again, undeterred by it all!

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One of my blogfriends is Maa, who lives in New South Wales. She's patiently living with a  deadly eastern brown snake IN HER ROOF!   

A lot of you also follow Maa's blog, however, if you haven't had this pleasure, may I suggest you pop over and catch up with what's happening at the moment.  Maa, in her typical capable style is keeping herself busy today with some cooking  - until the SNAKE HANDLER CAN FIND TIME TO COME! Link: Life Goes On

This has been her situation for the past month and I'm just knocked out at her calmness.

Maa's situation,  puts me in mind of a story I've loved since way back when I was a schoolgirl. "The Drover's Wife" by Henry Lawson. I'm sure most Aussies will be familiar with this, but, for my overseas blogfriends,  it's a stirring yarn and one which typifies the brave pioneering outback women.

Good on you Maa - you're one heck of a woman :D)

Sogginess and then Surprises at Shaving Point !

It was a very rainy, grey day on Thursday. It'd been raining for a few days and the whole Gippsland area was very soggy.  I'd just brought in the dripping washing from outside,  gave it a spin dry and found spots inside for it to dry.

MD suggested a drive - lovely idea... even if it's a miserable day, we're always up for a drive!

Passing the Bruthen Flats, the water is
lapping very near the road 

Looking back over towards Bruthen,
there's suddenly a lake

Those are hay bales floating away...
we felt so sorry for the farmers.

We continued on to Metung which is another lovely village on our list of places we visit. It's tucked away in a peaceful corner of the Gippsland Lakes system.  Through the main street and out on to Shaving Point.
The rain had eased so we got out to enjoy the calm stillness of this lovely little spot.

Some swans... ok, I'm a sucker for swan shots....

Hang on, go back to the swan photo and have a close look .... there's a long sort of ripple way over in the background....

An excited call from MD ..... "Look - over there"

DOLPHINS !!!!!

A pod of 30 to 40 dolphins were swimming and frolicking over a large area of the lake.  We were beside ourselves - what a sight!

Their babies were sticking close to them.

It'd started raining quite heavily but we didn't care... we walked along the sand and were enthralled.  Some purposely came in close.

I can't convey with my photos just how many there were.  They all took turns at appearing and disappearing, flopping on their backs, showing off.
I'd point the camera every which way trying to anticipate where one would pop up next.
It was so exhilarating to have such beautiful creatures seemingly having fun with us.

.... lol, even the swans were included in the delightful playful dolphins' fun.

The village of Metung
The arrow is where we saw the dolphins at Shaving Point

We spoke to some locals and were told that this pod had been visiting regularly for quite a while.
The name 'Shaving Point' is because the land quickly shaves off into 30 metre deep water, which the dolphins like.
(I sort of envisioned it was where old sailors would go and sit, have a shave and swap yarns .... ha ha,  a lot of free-range presumption goes on in 'Susan-land' sometimes ;-))

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It's now Saturday and the rain has eased over here in East Gippsland. The water is receding.  

Come on, fancy a bit of a wander? Noooo, we're not trespassing - true dinks.

Ha ha, I'm just teasing... the sign belongs to the property further
up the road - trust me ;-)

See!  The gate to our property is   w   i  d  e   open...
practically begging for a visit.

Gorgeous view up the track
The coast is clear

.... and over to the right is this lovely old house.

Doesn't look like anyone's been home for many a decade.

Wooden shingles under there .... better have a closer look!

What a lot of stories this house could tell.

That was fun... thanks for coming along.

Which Way?

dear little wrens
always have too much to do
decisions, decisions

where is she... over there?

perhaps there?

I'll just do a bit of a flutter ....  she won't be able to resist

Highway Art

On the road to Sale, Victoria, we saw this:

A dead tree !  That's right, but take a closer look:

We only realised, after downloading the photo, that there are also
initials and a date carved into the tree
"RS" and either '1945' or  '1995'
We'll just have to go back for a better look. 

The tree is full of holes and home to a few Sulphur Crested Cockatoos who screamed abuse at us and flew off... obviously sick of their home being photographed.

It was nice seeing this piece of highway art.

Mary Jane, Heavy Metal, Poo, Biccies, Bicarb n more stuff!

This post was re-published to include a photo showing the location of the AC/DC tribute.

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NOTICE OF INTENT

To the owners of Mary Jane. 

Please be advised that, if the vessel,  Mary Jane,  is not moved from her mooring and used for her intended purpose i.e., drifting down the river, providing unlimited pleasure to those on board, within the next seven (7) days, then we, the undersigned, will gladly do so on your behalf.

Signed:   MD and I

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This one's especially for our Son ;-)

The Acca Dacca 'sign' is on an abandoned,  closed-off,  footbridge 

over the Mitchell River.

Photo taken from under the Mitchell River Bridge, Princes Highway,

 which is on the Eastern perimeter of Bairnsdale, Victoria

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The Common Heath is Victoria's floral 

emblem and comes in a variety of colours, 

scarlet, crimson, rose pink and white.

I love how this white variety was claiming its 

spot in the bush.

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Something a little different (hope you're not eating while scrolling down this post)

Got to pay for class I guess ;-)

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Things I have recently learnt:

1.  Don't rely on one particular USB - they can decide to malfunction without any warning. 

2.  When typing in the "Comments" section, before clicking on Publish, do a  Control A (it selects all), then right click and select Copy ..... that way if Blogger mucks up and the comment doesn't publish, at least it can be Pasted back in - much better than trying to remember what I've just typed.

3. Toothpaste makes a great emergency cleaner (I was in the bathroom, heard MD greeting unexpected visitors at the door - eek, the vanity basin desperately needed a spruce up).

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Taking a stroll down into our little rainforest, things looked a bit lot overgrown:

... clearing and pruning creepers out of the way revealed some beautiful fungi on a dead protea.  I received a lovely surprise.

Not to be deterred, the creeper had kept on growing through the fungi:

Here's an overhead shot of the same spot:

We left the dead protea in place and now nature is taking over in her inimitable way!

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We wanted biccies ... I was on strike.... yay, MD whipped these
Anzacs up while I did my couch potato act.
Decidedly Tastylicious

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Good old bicarbonate of soda - cleans tea stains from 
my best china so gently.

....as well as my enamel casserole.  I use this often, on the stovetop 
and in the oven.  For years I shied away from
enamel-ware because everything seemed to stick to it.
Hooray!  I discovered, by sheer accident, just HOW GOOD
bicarb is to clean it with.  

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Thoughts of a long-distance treadmiller:

800 metres - come on keep going !!

a Thanks for your visit. 
Relax and enjoy the weekend c