It took a while to find the campsite - it was located just south of the beach on the other side of a little creek, that at low tide could easily be crossed with water levels not much above knee height. After my camping experience the previous night I was very keen on getting my tent up in a "private" area :-) I did not need to worry, the campsite was absolutely fantastic with small isolated areas where you could truly feel happily isolated.
Tent up and ready for a bit of adventure, I started walking south and had probably done less than 200m before I encountered the good sized and very photogenic Tiger Snake above. Snakes in general are very secretive and hard to spot, they know you are coming long before you have a chance to get a look at them and they nearly always choose to disappear without sound or trace. I would love to claim that my luck with the sweetheart above was due to my bush-ninja skills, which allows me to float through the bush without impacting the ground, however, reality was that I had been standing still like stone for quite a few minuets trying to get pictures of a bird, when the tiger snake crawled onto the path few meters in front of me - how lucky can you be? :-D I probably had more than 2 minuets in company with the TS before it disappeared into the scrub on the other side of the path and was gone .. needless to say that I now how quite a few Mb of TS pictures.
The bird above - behind the bush :-) - was not the one I was stalking before the snake incident, but probably the most exciting bird I saw during my Prom excursion. Judged on the pattern on the chest I guess there is a good chance of it being a Bassian Thrush. I managed to get better view when it flew, but no pictures.
Good walking! It was great not having to carry the backpack along and I managed to cover quite a bit of ground. The bird count being low was easily forgotten with a great selection of lizards around included a few that I do not recall having seen before.
The one above looks like an indigenous painting with stripes, dots and great colors. As the sun disappeared I returned to camp, once again planning an early night. I was supposed to return the car before 4pm Sunday, I wanted good time for the drive so I was aiming at leaving the prom before 12pm .. before I could leave I would have to make the walk back to the car park at Mount Oberon, catch a bus to the campsite and also I was expecting that a shower would be high on the "things I would like to have time for"-list :-D .. so I was planning to leave the campsite not later than 7am.
I had to find a better home for the little spider above before I could start cooking and while choosing my campsite I had been very happy with the presence of a good solid log, which looked like it would do the job of a comfy sofa .. as I started cooking the little fellow below popped its head out of my planned resting place and after some careful consideration I decided that the log was not to be used by me that evening .. I guess the combination of a tiger snake sighting and the fact that the potential sofa in question had many holes of various sizes made it an easy choice to stand up while eating. :-D
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