BellycanAnother glorious Monday at Lake Macquarie. View from bus stop after buying groceries.
If anyone on the western side of Lake Macquarie needs to know, the Blackalls Park bottle'o is open today.
Caught the bus to Kooroora Bay and walked across the Fennell Bay Bridge to the Lions park for a picnic today. Glorious day, nice cooling breeze off the lake.
A simple CBF picnic comprising rice in tiffins, a few jars / cans, and pickled eggs. There was meant to be lettuce too but that stayed home (DW sighs).
Saw pelicans, swans, shags, seagulls from the picnic, and a white-bellied sea eagle from the bus.
Walked back to Toronto afterwards, where we found the crowd enjoying the foreshore. Nice lazy sunny holiday vibes.
Oh goody, the school holiday random grass fires have started early. 😒
Here's a view of the flying foxes along the side of Stoney Creek. The colony has expanded to near its limits now without crossing the creek or roads, must be many thousands in there now.
The little red flying fox colony at Stoney Creek, Toronto NSW was very noisy this morning. It seemed like everyone was awake, some flying about, all chattering or screeching. Warm sunny morning?
After a visit to Bibina, armed with a canned picnic and some rice I brought in our tiffins, we caught the bus to Speers Point Park. Where we discovered that they were setting up for a concert, so all of the picnic tables away from the water had a great view of either black plastic wrapping a fence, or an armada of portaloos.
Undeterred, we set up at a waterside picnic table. In a stiff breeze. Those tablecloth weights earned their keep again.
Quite the stiff breeze, I reckon about 40 km/h with gusts up to 50. A picnic with beanies on. Pouring the wine was a challenge, a little flew onto the tablecloth. DW had the same challenge with the chilli oil on the bamboo shoot pickles. Some soaking will be required to clean the tablecloth and serviettes.
So much of a challenge that we pared lunch back to butter beans in tomato sauce from Greece, smoked sprats (sardines) from Lithuania, and chilli bamboo shoot pickles from China. The rest stayed in their jars.
Worth it for the view, especially when two white-bellied sea eagles glided over, a pelican hovered in the breeze with feet dangling, and a little black shag intrepidly landed in the rough water for a feed.
Walking back from Bibina to a bus stop, we came across this lovely bunch of birds around a storm water channel. Right next to the very busy Hillsborough Road.
"Birds of a feather", etc.
Tapatío is a delicious hot sauce made in California, to latinx tastes. I used to be able to pick it up from Coles supermarkets, but they've dropped that line. Boo.
But at least Bibina at Warners Bay still has it, along with a great range of El Yucateco hot sauces, and lots of the La Morena range of products, etc.
While we were there, we picked up some other essentials and some cans for a canned picnic.
The most optimistic sign here in Toronto NSW. There's never a queue here. There's three opportunities to buy bánh mì on this street.
