Judy & Brian Tour Oz: Tathra NSW, Bega NSW, Cheese factory, Bird Route #1, Far South Coast Bird Watchers

We've been holed up in Tathra for the last two days. Mostly because I've godda head cold and feel rotten, but partly because the weather is not brilliant.

Yesterday we went next door and bought yet-another-fishing-rod as I'd cleverly left them all at home and now that we are at the coast Judy is desperate to go fishing. We tried her hand at the mouth of the Bega River, where she immediately pulled in a small Rock Cod, then snagged two rocks in quick succession before giving up. Then we drove up along the beaches and soon emerged at Bermagui, where we tried her hand again from the wharf, but only a token effort!

I took cold&flus tabs and went to bed early and slept 12 hours.

Today I was feeling slightly more human so we ventured all the way up to Bega. It never ceases to amaze me that Judy can drive the car into a foreign town, and drive straight to the big shops without a blink of an eye. It further amazes me that when you emerge from the underground carpark, you inevitably come out right at the door to Millers. It must be some sort of a conspiracy I reckon.

After the shops, we went further up the road to the Bega Cheese factory, not that you see the factory, but they do have a reasonable factory type shop, a museum and an info centre. I was browsing the info place when I came across 3 little leaflets marked Bird Route #1, two and three. They looked interesting and on the way back we decided to follow Bird Route #1 just for fun. The instructions tell you to go so far and stop and see this and that and some other of the avian family. At our first stop we pulled up behind another car where the occupants were doing the same thing but with proper binoculars. We continued on and stopped at the next big tree as directed, where Judy immediately spotted a mother duck and a bunch of ducklings in the distance. Before we knew it, that previous car had pulled up behind us and the two ladies emerged gushing enthusiasm and waxing lyrical about the Australian Shell Duck family and how clever we were to find them as they don't see them en masse that often and that most of the chicks sadly don't survive. She requested copies of our snaps and it was then that we discovered that she was the author of the said Bird Route #1 pamphlet and a member of the Far South Coast Birdwatchers group. We were in luck, two nice ladies that actually knew what we were looking at! They made our day and our emailed snaps may well have made theirs.

Back at the wharf, as you always gravitate toward the wharf in Tathra, we watched the fishos and surfers and waves for a while then decided to have a coffee at the on-wharf cafe. And I'm glad we did because I had the best Portuguese Tart I've ever tasted. Whacko, we'll be back!