Things I have seen recently

Simon left yesterday evening to fly to UK for a week as he has to interview potential investment managers on Wednesday. He will also be able to spend some time with Hannah and Kati and their families. As I only have 2 shifts at work this week I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with some blogging. However most of my photos are on the laptop which he has taken so I spent most of yesterday uploading photos so I can now write about them.

Today has been sunny and I have spent most of it in the garden digging and doing other jobs. I have sown a first row of sugar snap peas and put cloches over them.

These photos have been taken on local walks since we came back from our holiday.

The tussac grass flowers in early spring, although only some plants seem to flower.

When walking along the coast between Tussac Point and Gypsy Cove one day I heard a roaring in the tussac above me. I decided it might not be wise to be between the source of the noise and the sea so skirted inland and found this bull sea lion amongst the grass. 2 of his wives were resting a bit further on and another was swimming in the sea.

This was washed up on the beach at Surf Bay and I have seen other similar ones. I am not sure if it is a kind of sea-weed or a sponge. At one end of Surf Bay is a headland called Hookers Point with lots of rocks at the end of it. When the tide is low there are interesting rock pools.

There are lots of these attractive sea-anemones in some of the pools.

One day I spotted this strange creature, looking rather like an underwater armadillo. It is a chiton or coat of mail shell and it sticks to the rocks rather like the limpet next to it. The smaller creatures on the rock are isopods which look very like woodlice but are good swimmers. They vary a lot in size.


Off the end of Hookers Point are some large rocks standing vertically out of the sea and probably about 15 feet high. Usually there are rock shags perched on them but one afternoon a couple of weeks ago there were 2 sea lions sitting up tall right on the top. We have no idea why they were there or how they climbed up the almost sheer rocks.