Jacaranda Carpet in Parramatta

Every stage of these trees is beautiful. When they start to lose their purple crowns they decorate the street and lawns below.

Tide's out at Huskisson

Pity you can't actually see the tiny crabs that race around the feet of the mangroves at low tide!

Shoalhaven River NSW

Cliff on the Shoalhaven River upstream from the Nowra bridge. Very peaceful. Didn't bother to fish. Watched the fish jumping instead.

Sawn Rocks Mt Kaputar National Park June 07

Sawn Rocks. These stone pipes look very like a towering pipe organ and the valley it's cathedral. Lots of angophoras posing as eucalypts along track from the car park - an easy walk. [3km North of Narribri, turn off North East towards Sawn Rocks in Mt Kaputar NP 34km out.]

Old Coolibah on Longreach Common

An old Coolibah tree in the Iningai reserve, an area of Longreach's extensive town common fenced off with support from council, ag students and community members. This very old specimen was hard by a creek which was the dwelling place for aboriginal family groups in centuries past. Since European settlement, this area of common had been devastated by grazing goats and stock from the nearby stock route but due to the fencing is regenerating into woodland and grass meadows. Popular with the babblers and zebra finches, white-plumed honey-eaters, black-faced cuckoo shrikes, peaceful doves, jacky winters and weebills, we also heard brolgas and saw plenty of kangaroos. Bob and Scotty were our informative guides.

Darling River, Bourke

Despite the muddiness from recent rain, and the long term effects of drought still visible in the trees' health, this river (above the weir) shaped up as beautiful and supporting a fine array of birds. Most evident were the whistling kites, corellas, egrets (great and intermediate), a white-necked heron, a white-faced heron, a lonely yellow-billed spoonbill who perched on a dead tree beside the river near the tourist boat for a good hour and a half. There was a thrush at every creek and waterhole, martins and swallows and the ubiquitous black kite who flashes his forked tail just often enough to identify him.

Gathering from my grandfather's vegetable patch up in the Victorian tall timber. My grandma Evelyn Jackson and my mother, Phyllis.

Guerilla Bay down the South Coast - taken by BJC Feb 2007. Peaceful.

Farewell Felicity

Our cat Felicity (No. 2) died on the surgeon's table at age 19 - not bad for a cat who slept outside in all weathers. She went in for a bad tooth but cancer was the real curse. Her history was interesting. We bought her half grown from the RSPCA and many cat lovers will know that it is rare for kittens that age to be on sale. The cute little babies go first and the older strays and throwaways usually have to be put down. But Felicity was an exhibit in an animal cruelty case and when she was no longer needed for the case, the vets were not about to put her down. She had received two operations to mend a broken leg and was obviously fussed over at the RSPCA centre because she was an affectionate pet. One of the best kind of cats who retained her mighty independence yet related closely to family and selected friends (eg the neighbours who fed her when we were away!) She loved our company and we miss her.