Where's your accent from?

Today was another rainy, blustery day out at Two People's Bay, so we weren't able to go out to the field. Instead, Chris and I walked out to Little Beach. I took my boots and socks off and waded through the water. The waves were pretty big, so the water came way up the shore. The sand was so pure; there wasn't any sharp shells or stones or any seaweed at all. My camera was out of batteries, but I'll hike out there again tomorrow morning and take some pictures. The hike is really incredible and there are some beautiful views of the bay. On the way back to the house we got soaked by the very cold rain.

Once we made it back we ate lunch and stayed in the kitchen by the heater to warm up. I wrote a bit and worked on the cryptic crosswords I found in the old trashy magazines at the hostel. The British and Australian slang and phrases make the crosswords extra challenging and the British dude I'm hanging out with wasn't much help. Actually, I shouldn't use the term dude because in the UK it refers to someone who is a non-birder and that does not describe Chris ;).

Around 3:30 I walked up to the potoroo enclosure to help Val feed. She wasn't there and I saw the Ranger's truck over at the ranger station. I went up to say hi. We had a good chat about his travels through Canada. He gave me the key to the interpretive centre so I could check it out. The centre isn't open right now because there aren't any tourists around, but it'll be really busy in a few weeks during the school break. The centre is really new and nice. It explains the story about the noisy shrub bird and Gilbert's potoroo. I'll fill you all in on that once my hands aren't so frozen.

This is one of the paintings of a noisy shrub bird in the display.


I wandered around a bit and took some pictures of interesting things. This is the seed pod of a peppermint plant. They are the main tree species in this area. When you crinkle the leaves up a strong oil is released and it smells very pleasant. Not like peppermint, but like Christmas trees.

This is an insectivorous sundew plant. They grow all over the sand dunes here and the leaves are very similar to the sundews I've seen on the Bruce Peninsula.


Val didn't show up at the reserve until 4:45 today. She was running late and was really glad to have my assistance. We weren't finished until after dark so she gave me a ride back to the station. Just as we turned into the driveway we saw a kangaroo on the side of the road.

Tomorrow we'll probably head back into town because there won't be any work for us here on Friday. That way we'll be able to get an early start on Friday and head out on our roadtrip. I might not post here for a few days, but I'll sure I'll have some good stories when we return.