Pause for Effect

I have just checked and it has been over a month since the last post!  That is not a very good track record for a blogger. I must say though I have been a bit busy with my position here at Port Jackson.

The last couple of weeks have been flat out here with major earthworks happening. Firstly to fill in the holes at the end of Muriwai Camp and create a safer slope.

		Earthworks in Muriwai Camp VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Then Dan and Zowie moved through to between Spinifex and Barrier Camp to replace the existing culvert with a larger one and extend it out to the beachfront.

		Spinifex/Barrier culvert VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After a high tide and severe winds, it looks like that one will have to be cleaned regularly.

Once that was completed they moved up to the day parking area to replace the culvert there was not working well. We discovered that what was planned was not going to work once we put the levels into place and so revisions were made and instead of moving the culvert we scraped the grass off and lifted the ground level to get the water to run the right way and into the culvert. We lengthened the culvert pipe again out to the beachfront and built a retaining wall to protect the pipe.

		Day Park area VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

While this was all happening, I have had visitors…..

An interesting assortment, the ducks congregating on the shore and a single shag trying to hide (badly)….

The Caspian terns are still here, but are difficult to get a good shot of…

I have around 3 pairs of NZ Dotterels in their mating plumage up at the north end of the beach….

You can see why it is so easy to run them over or step on the nest. Very well camouflaged. 

Also have a pair of oystercatchers…noisy folks…

The gannets have been busy for days…

and the dolphins have been in a couple of times…

So it has been a very busy time here at Port Jackson Conservation Campground, I have mown the lawns 5 times now, it takes around 9 hours to mow the entire campground.

I have been getting a steady flow of campers (averaging 2 vehicles a night) mostly for a single night but some pop in for two or three. An interesting mix of foreign tourists and NZ’ers having a few days off. There are cars, people movers, vans, caravans, motorhomes and house trucks. I cannot seem to predict when people will or will not turn up, weekends are not the busy time and surprisingly Wednesday seems to be a busy night.

I have a post about the Muriwai walk on the way and I might do a reprint of my story in the NZ Motorcaravanner magazine.

Safe travels everyone….