family days......

we had a little jaunt to Shoalwater Marine Park 

this afternoon, which is about a one hour

drive south of where we live, near the city of Rockingham......

Evie did her sea kayaking adventure here a few weeks ago

with the emergency service cadets from school, so I thought

we could go and have a little gander at where she had been....

the photo below was taken from the beach looking out towards Penguin Island.....

you can catch a ferry from the jetty over to the island but

we just stayed on the beach today as we didn't arrive until mid afternoon

and the ferries stop running fairly early.....

I wasn't up for getting stranded on the island for the night.....

Isaac decided to stay on the beach but Evie {as always} wanted to venture into

the water with her snorkel and mask and see if she could see

any interesting creatures in the sea grass

{that's what all the dark patches are that you can see in the water}.....

on the far right of the photo below is Seal Island

which was also part of Evie's kayaking adventure but which

you are not allowed to land on.....

apparently she saw a ton of seals there on the day she visited.....

Brian joined Evie for the expedition to the sea grasses

to see what they could see....

I, as always, took the photos and paddled.....

{the water was actually pretty warm as it is in a sheltered bay area}

we're off tomorrow on a holiday-away-from-home to the south coast of WA

and are looking forward to exploring that part of the state a little bit......

hopefully there will be lots of photos to share when we return.....

starling watch......

we happen to live in an extremely beautiful 

part of the UK......

we have Bristol and Bath a few miles north of us......

and Glastonbury and the Somerset levels to the south......

and we are always looking for new places to go and new

things to see.....

this week was no exception.....

we had been informed by a friend-of-a-friend that watching

the starlings come in to roost on the levels in the evening

was a sight not to be missed and that the best place to

see the 'murmurations' literally lies just a few miles away

from where we live........

well, we needed no more of an invitation than that, 

we headed off the following evening to see this 

great big nature show - and we weren't disappointed.....

it started with the most enormous flock {or murmuration} of starlings 

arriving to find a place to roost for the night among the reeds.....

{there can be between one and one and a half MILLION

starlings here in the evening....}

they swoop and shift and make amazing patterns in the air 

{which are made even more interesting when a bird of prey 

flies right through them and interrupts their bedtime routine.....}

 

and just when you think that the show is over.....

another huge murmuration arrives to join in......

 

nature at its best.....

I've been a bit quiet lately.....

sorry about that.....

we've just been mosey-ing along, 

doing our usual stuff, 

nothing tooooo exciting.....

we did take a day trip to a local gorge a couple of weeks ago 

that goes by the name of Lerderderg Gorge.....

funny name I thought, so I decided to call it Lah-dee-dah Gorge..... 

much nicer sounding.....

this place is only about 45 mins from where we live 

and we took our little portable stove, 

a frying pan,

 some bacon and the camping kettle..... 

thought we'd make a day of it with bacon butties for lunch.....

we decided to do some exploring up the gorge to start with 

and came across some incredible bugs..... 

{sorry to those of you who don't like bugs much.... 

Isaac doesn't either and was quite 'grossed out' at me taking photos of them}.....

I have no idea what sort of spider or beetle these are

 but we thought they were worthy of having their photo taken....

our little jaunt up the gorge was blessed with the most beautiful weather, 

which made the water sparkle and the sky looked a very stunning shade of blue....

we did our best at taking a famiily photo so that we could 

update the one on the blog {which was three years old}.....

 it took ages to get one that we were happy with.... 

the kids kept pulling silly faces..... 

maybe I should've put one of those on the blog header?......

we then toddled back downstream....

taking time to do some skimming along the way......

warning..... there's a photo of a BIG bug in this post.....

just thought I would issue a little warning just incase...... 

some people {including my own dear son}

 hate bugs and it may be a little shocking to be confronted 

with such a beast if you are not forewarned....

Evie love, love, LOVES the garden..... 

rain, sun, winter, summer, 

she doesn't care what it's like, 

she just loves to be out there exploring, finding, imagining, creating.....

she came in the other day with a rather amazing bug for her nature box....

{it was dead before she got to it by the way}.....

 I am always amazed at the way the wings are formed..... 

stunning......

and then, a little while later, she called me out to see the fairy feast 

that she had made with a few acorn tops for bowls and some other 

bits and bobs found around the garden.....

'savouries' on one side......

'sweets' on the other......

and a special pebble seat for the queen fairy to sit on.......