Cheryl's Travels: Exploring more of Narooma and Wagonga Inlet

Sunday brunch was the first order of business for today --- how's this for the view from my table! Pretty impressive I think - and the food was excellent too!!

While we were eating I noticed that the sand appeared to be moving. It was, sort of, although it wasn't really the sand it was millions of soldier crabs that had just come out. They spend most of their time buried in the sand, but emerge to the surface a few hours before low tide. Adults grow to about 25 mm across, they are white with blue on their backs, and hold their claws vertically. They feed on detritus in the sand, leaving rounded pellets of discarded sand behind them. The males may form into large "armies" which traverse the beach at low tide, before the crabs dig into the sand to wait for the next low tide. It was amazing to watch them, and in places the 'army' was so thick you really did think they were simply the ground.

The red building is where I had breakfast - at a restaurant called the Quarterdeck. I would highly recommend it if anyone reading this ever happens to be in Narooma.

After brunch I decided I needed a bit of a walk so I spent the next couple of hours walking around the town. I started off by going back to the town wharf as I remembered I didn't really have a good photo of the boat I had gone out to Montague Island on yesterday. It was called "the Sheriff" and its crew, Andy and Nathan, are lifelong fishermen.

Isn't this just a lovely golf course, looking out over the ocean and north towards some of the houses in Narooma. And the best part about this photo? I'm standing on the Narooma Primary School property to take it!! Can you just imagine being a teacher at this school ... not a bad view!!

And although I did have to move a little bit - this is from nearly the same location but this time looking south along the coast.

I finally wound my way down off the cliffs to the Narooma Surf Beach, for those who want a little more wave action than swimming in the inlet gives.

I spent the afternoon exploring Wagonga Inlet aboard the Wagonga Princess. The Wagonga Princess was built in Sydney in 1905. Made of Huon Pine, she was originally designed to be a ferry for a guesthouse in Victoria. The captain, Charlie, is a true Aussie character; a third generation Narooma-ite he certainly has many 'wonderful' stories to tell as well as an extensive knowledge base about the local area, the inlet, fishing, flora, fauna... in fact anything and everything to do with Narooma.

There are a number of oyster farms located in the Inlet - the oyster baskets are underneath the shade cloth you can see here, so they don't get too hot. In the background you can see Gulaga.

Included in the Inlet cruise was a short, but interesting, walk through some rainforest area that is growing around the Inlet. These photos obviously aren't taken in the rainforest, but I just loved the view looking down into the Inlet as we were walking up.