Wednesday is playgroup day. I cooked us up a sustaining breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon after which we drove round to Pearl Beach to drop off Ollie and Tash at his playgroup. Di then took the car on to Woy Woy where she did her 90 minute yoga class but today I had a treat. Instead of beating myself up at the gym, I stayed at Pearl and indulged myself in a couple of hours of beach combing. I walked along the sand finding lots of little ctenophores or "sea gooseberries", tiny little jellyfish. I photographed some of them for today I was fully equipped with a Nikon D300 fitted with a 50 mm macro lens and ring flash. By the way,yesterday's bluebottles are none other than the famous "Portuguese man o' War! I have never seen a real one before and I have always imagined them to be far bigger.
I then headed for the rocks where I began to photograph some of the Gastropoda there. There was one that looked much like our topshells, with a black and white striped shell. This I later identified as a Zebra topshell, Austrocochlea porcata. There were lots of these and they showed a kind of discontinuous variation having either wide stripes or very narrow ones. Next I turned my attention to a very common black shell with a flattened spire. At home I would be tempted to say Littorina obtusata, but this one was on the upper shore whereas ours is always found on the lower middle shore. The jury's still out on this one, until I can find an Aussi field guide. I saw some very large chitons and lots of limpets which I will concentrate on another day. A family passed me by as I worked and the father said (or so I thought),"is that a tiger shell", I replied that it might well be as it has a tiger stripe pattern but he cut me short and said, "no sorry, I said is that a Tiger's shirt". Ahhh! "Yes it is", I replied, realising that he was referring to my Cotton Traders Leicester Tigers rugby shirt. He was from England and was also a supporter of The Leicester Tigers. His wife explained that they were from England originally but now lived in Sydney. Like so many other "Sydney-siders", they like to come to Pearl Beach for holidays to get away from the city. She said that a lot of people buy holiday homes here as the prices are still very attractive to those used to Sydney property prices which are among the most expensive in the world at the moment.
Next an 'old-mate" (as Will likes to call Senior Citizens), asked me about what I was photographing. He had an accent which I correctly identified as Canadian. (It's the funny vowel sounds. If in doubt, ask a suspected Canadian to say,"out"; it's a dead giveaway!) He was also ex Sydney but now lived here in Pearl Beach. He was donning a wetsuit as he talked to me and as he descended the ladder into the pool I spotted a large nudibranch on the wall below the water line. He gently lifted it off and handed it to me - a fine "sea-hare" Aplysia punctata about the length of my hand. I could also see some large encrusting organisms at the bottom of the ladder, possibly large barnacles, which I resolved to check out next time we came here. I will have to bring my under-water camera and a mask.
Next I took a long walk along the base of the cliffs which are sandstone and which have a broad platform at their base, worn smooth by the relentless waves. As I rounded the headland, I could see that the beach went on, uninterrupted, and that you could walk to Patonga if you wanted. However, the tide was not in my favour and I actually had no idea what stage of the cycle we were at, so I retraced my steps back to the Pearl Beach cafe stopping for a brief chat with my Leicester family who had camped down on the sand, and then falling in, accidentally, with a very attractive young Mum who was pulling a pushchair backwards through the sand. She refused my offers of a helping hand saying that it was really good exercise and was good for her. She asked me about my camera and what I had been photographing and was I over on holiday (I don't try and disguise my English accent). She said she was on holiday from Sydney. Aren't they all!
Back at the cafe we all met up for coffee which turned into lunch. I had the sea-food plate again. We returned home in the mid afternoon and Ollie had his nap whilst I made him one of the wooden dinosaurs which are available with the Australian Daily Telegraph at the moment. Will came home early and barbecued some sausages for us. The baby? Don't ask! Still ne'er a sign.
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