2008 Road Trip: Unexpected Christmas visitors
Blue Tongue Lizard
On our 2008 Road Trip to Sydney our main objective was to reach Sydney in time for Christmas. This was so we could spend Christmas and New year with our son and daughter in law who live in Artarmon, just a few train stops north of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This time our daughter came along too, so it was also a family reunion.
We had a great Christmas lunch and were joined by our daughter in law’s relatives; it was good to see all of them again too. L’s parents only live a half hour drive from us, but we rarely get to see them, so it was good that they could fly over from Adelaide for the festivities. As usual I ate too much for lunch. And dinner.
In the afternoon we were relaxing out on the back lawn. The more energetic ones played a few games; the rest of us chatted and snoozed during the balmy afternoon.
During our post lunch siesta we were visited by a beautiful butterfly. It was a Dainty Swallowtail Papilio anactus and is shown in the photo below. They are quite common in the Sydney area.
Most people drifted indoors late in the afternoon, but my son and I stayed outside chatting. We, too, rarely get together these days, except on the phone. When everything was quiet the resident Blue Tongue Lizard came out to see what all the fuss had been about.
Dainty Swallowtail Papilio anactus
2008 Road Trip to Sydney
Hay Plains, New South Wales
We are off on another road trip – this time to Sydney for Christmas. The photo above was taken on our trip last year; this year we are driving our daughter’s car, but we didn’t stop to take a photo of the Hay Plains this trip.
We left on the Monday before Christmas so this article has taken a few days to appear. Over the coming few weeks I will be adding many more articles about what we did and what we saw. I will also be adding heaps of photos.
On the first day we left home in Murray Bridge soon after breakfast. We stopped at Underbool in Victoria for a very hot lunch. We had been travelling just ahead of a cool change sweeping across the countryside. We had afternoon tea at Piangil on the banks of the River Murray. Soon after we crossed the river at Tooleybuc and into New South Wales. We bypassed Balranald and travelled on across the Hay Plains shown in the photo above.
Because of the heat the birding was poor all day. I saw very few birds as we travelled along.