Harrington

 2 - 3 March 2025

We left Old Bar and drove on to Harrington to stay for one night, so Mick could go out looking for the South Island pied oyster catcher again. We arrived before lunch and set up under a nice shady tree. Late in the afternoon Mick went out with the camera - but once again he had no luck.

Harrington is at the mouth of Manning River

We were watching the development of the cyclone and decided that we would just stay one night in Harrington, then move inland to Armidale so we could still come back to the coast once the weather passed. Of course it rained overnight so we had to pack up the trailer wet - but at least we managed to do it between passing showers.

By the time we left, the forecast was for some very heavy rain even in Armidale, and it looked like there could be some significant flooding ahead for the Northern Rivers region - right where we wanted to spend some time. We decided to go to Armidale anyway and then make up our minds. We had also tried calling some canvas repairers but were having no luck finding someone to fix the zip. 

Old Bar

 28 February - 2 March 2025

We left Fingal Bay after three lovely days with old friends and made our way north to Old Bar. There had been reports of Aleutian terns on the beach so we had to go and investigate. We checked in to the caravan park and then went in search of.

We drove to a spot a little way north then walked about 1½ kilometres up the beach to the sand spit. There were some birds about but it was very windy making it a less than pleasant outing - and, although there were terns, there was no sign of the one we were looking for.

Vehicles drive on the beach which is home to shore birds

We decided to drive up to Harrington the next morning in search of another bird - a South Island Pied Oyster Catcher. We left quite early but the sun was hot by the time we arrived at the beach - and again - no luck with the bird. Later in the afternoon we drove out to Manning Point in search of more birds, and for another walk along the beach in the wind. 

We always keep a close eye on the weather and this time we knew we had to be very careful as there was a cyclone brewing in the Coral Sea that was predicted to make a very southerly track, resulting in some rainy weather along the NSW coast. We figured we could go to Harrington for a night then we would head inland for a few days to wait it out. We had the added complication that the zip on the camper was playing up again and we were having trouble getting it done up - we'd have to try to get that fixed soon.