Shoalhaven Airport

This trip shows the diversity of trips offered by the Club. This trip did not deviate from the bitumen, even the car parks were sealed with neatly marked parking bays! An easy, but exciting day. Started at Macca’s at Engadine, headed south through Gerringong and onto our first stop at the headland at Gerroa. This is a well known site for fossils and it did not take long to find a few in among the rocks (there was also a claim that some arrived with the Club!). After the strenuous walk around the headland it was time for morning tea. From the headland, we could look down along Seven Mile beach, where 100 years ago people used to race cars, one achieving 100 miles/hour for the first time in Australia. This beach was also used as a runway by Kingsford Smith for the first flight from Australia to New Zealand.

Next stop was Shoalhaven Heads and the park to the south of the town that links the southern end of Seven Mile Beach, backwaters of the s Shoalhaven River and Comerong Island. This is a major resting and breeding area for migratory wader birds and NPWS have provided explanatory signs along the waters edge. We went for a QUIET stroll note the names of the trip participants!!!!!) Armed with binoculars, cameras and reference books. Very impressive the number of Club members with birdo reference tomes. We “twitched” a large flock of migratory Bar-tailed Godwits and many Red-capped Plovers and an occasional Sandpiper. Black Swans, Pelicans, Gulls, Egrets and Cormorants. Blue wrens, silvereyes, galahs whipbirds, wagtails, sulphur crested cockatoos and yellow tailed black cockatoos. Plus a few more that we weren’t sure of.

After an exhausting time bird watching in the jungle and along the mud flats, it was declared lunch time and we found a nice shelter beside the bay that could accommodate the mob for a leisurely lunch. Following lunch, the trip leader managed to get us to walk up to the lookout, but it wasn’t high enough to lookout!

Back to the Marques and a pleasant drive toward Nowra and up to Cambewarra Lookout and Cafe on the Kangaroo Valley road. Great view of where we had been, Nowra and the Shoalhaven river from the hinterland to the heads. But best of all the Cafe had Devonshire teas – scones straight from the oven. Eventually our leader coaxed us back to   the Marques for a pleasant trip through Kangaroo Valley, over the  Hampton Bridge and back home.
Great trip thoroughly enjoyed by all. Thanks Ian and Suellen.