We woke this morning to Finches and Wrens at the camp site. I will admit to bribing them with a bowl of fresh clean water. We had a great view of the white winged blue wren, but after thinking about the one I saw at Cleaverville, I got on the net to find out more about these wrens. The one at camp was very very dark and it was hard to see the blue colour, apparently there is another variation which is black and white winged and they are on Barrow Island which is not far off shore from us. There is another independent group on shore around here. So I am keen to have another look at the one we saw this morning.
We managed to find a protected site overlooking the beach. There are a lot of campsites here, but, it seems most caravans are happy to sit on the point which is totally exposed. After driving to the northern end of the bay, we found that the camps up there do not have much beach access and right at the top there were a lot of sandflies.
This seems to be the favourite camping spot. Currently there re 11 vans up there.
This is out front of our camp site. You have sand (coarse) and a rock ledge, followed by more sand (coarse) at low tide. This rock is just like a marine Mt Vesuvius. There must have been a beautiful coral reef totally buried under lava.
Sturt Desert Peas growing on the beach. These are hard to grow, but then, they are also very hardy. They only get 200mm of water annually here, so they like arid conditions and obviously do not mind salt.
I found these growing on the beach also. They are very paper like.
It was up at the point where I saw large coral of many varieties in a reef like set up, which had been covered by lava and then exposed by the elements. It looks like it was a really nice reef way back when….
On the northern end of the bay, there are several dunes before the beach which are covered in grasses and wildflowers.
More of the rock shelf is exposed on the point. Lots of oysters for the taking.
This rock shelf goes inland for quite a way, as we find ourselves driving over it on some of the tracks. 40 Mile Beach does not have the coral we saw at Cleaverville. We are taking the kayak out tomorrow for a fish and explore around the rocks. There is a lagoon which is very shallow at low tide and there are numerous rocky outcrops which would make boating difficult. We had a laze about in the shallow lagoon today. Saw a stingray, so are even more mindful of where we step in the shallows. My rib is healing slowly, and improving but not there yet. Having some no drive days is helping the healing. The great thing about a double kayak is that I can paddle as much as I can manage. At this stage, I think Cleaverville is the better beach site having the reef, even though it was very basic one. We plan to spend another night here and then head south to Ashburton River to camp.
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