Sunrise Today...

Sunrise and Sunset Kingscliff

It was a dull cold morning with a sharp freezing wind that cut through my body as I walked along the beach beside the water. The sky was grey. I gave up and walked up to the surf Club where a small coffee stand was serving hot coffee and breakfast snacks and walked back to the Caravan Park. It was later that the sky shared some pink clouds, but the wind was there all day and it was freezing. Even the Melbournites were finding it cold today.

After a full day of shivering, I was loathe to go seeking the sunset, and was talking to the lady at the Office, when I realised the sky had changed color. This was a violent angry sunset and it certainly finished off the day.

It was a pleasant walk back along the walking track that leads from the Surf Club past the Caravan park through to the Bowls Club. I loved the solid carved wooden surfers looking out to the sea from the Surf Club like guardians of the Bay.

Kingscliff NSW

It was too early to find the Caravan Park, so I pulled into a parking area by the River where there was a picnic area and a walking track which was in constant use by walkers with dogs and joggers. Kingscliff is a very modern, well developed collection of grey and white houses all built closely next to each other looking like a huge retirement village. It was heavily built properties all the way from Cabarita through to Kingscliff. I could not see the water from the road the entire trip. I drove through the town and found Kingscliff Beach Caravan Park and booked in. It looks like the parking area for the retirement village. I am here for 4 days….

Sunrise at Hastings Point NSW

I am staying at the Hastings Point Caravan Park. Every morning, the sunrise opposite where I am camped, wakes me up and I pull on a jacket, grab the camera and head off barefoot, to walk the beach. Here the sunrise has always been spectacular and I walk down the sands to the Headland Rocks, and there are always groups of birds also enjoying the morning

To the left is the bridge where the Cudgera River meets the sea. If you like to fish you’ll love Tweed Holiday Parks Hastings Point. Overlooking a long sandy stretch of beach, as well as Cudgera Creek, the park’s secluded location offers a great combination for year-round swimming, surfing, and fishing. The park also features a new walkway access ramp from the park to the creek.

Every day the sunrise was different….

Rocks and Headland Hastings Point

Coastal sites in northern NSW date to within the Holocene period. The earliest of these is a shell midden at the base of East Banora Point on the lower Tweed River where an occupation phase was dated between 4,700 BP and 4,200 BP (Appleton 1993:34). Faunal material showed a predominance of oyster, cockle and whelk by volume, in addition to the remains of pademelon, kangaroo, bream, whiting, flathead and schnapper.

Headland Point is a popular whale watching place. Earlier there were cars parked in a steady stream bottom to the very top, and groups sat on the grass, some with picnics, some with a beer, and some talking on their mobiles, but all watching for the whales.

On one side of the Headland is Hastings Point where the river meets the sea, on the other side is a surf beach. Here the waves pound restlessly to the shore and surfers from south come to surf here. There is a track to the beach, and at Christmas, camping is permitted on the grassed areas. During the school holidays, Hastings Point also offers primitive camping facilities on the Hastings Point Headland for a unique camping experience.

We stood here and watched for whales…if you look closely at the water photos, you may see the two whales I saw.

We finished the walk with calamari and chips from the General Store on the beach and while waiting, saw this strange and amazing cloud formation at the sunset.

Hastings Point NSW

Hastings Point is located in the Tweed Shire of Northern NSW around halfway between Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise. The area is known as the ‘Jewel of the Tweed’ as it is surrounded by what’s known as the big 4 – the ocean, a national park and reserve, a beautiful estuary and a large stretch of native vegetation. I am staying at the Hastings Point Caravan park which is right opposite the beach next to the bridge.

The beach is tidal. When the tide is high, it is full of water an at low tide, there is just sand. Hastings Point is a spectacular place for bird-watching and bush walking, the two going hand in hand with each other. Here you can see a large variety of bird species including Indigo Buntings, Albatross, Australian finches and fragile shore nesting birds such as the Little Tern, Beach Stone Curlew, Red-Capped Plovers and both the Sooty and Australian Pied Oystercatchers.

The Cudgera River runs along the side and the back of the Caravan park….and here are mangroves where people put crab pots out and fish, and where water birds hangout waiting for the fishermen’s handouts. You can walk along the bank of the mangroves that edge the river

Walk to the Lighthouse.. Giants Causeway

Walking the sands over a rocky area where the lighthouse sits, I see the same fisherman and wonder if he has caught a fish. I was thrilled last night when another fisherman gave me 4 Brim for my dinner. They were delicious with garlic butter and I have fillets for tonight. I shall see if I can buy a fishing rod at Tweed Heads when I go there today after spark plugs to replace my aging ones. My coughing car problem was a dislocated spark plug so will have to buy a set today.

Fingal Heads is known as the Giant’s Causeway named after a giant called Finn who created the same rock formations in Ireland. It is said that the Giant’s Causeway came about after a volcano erupted many millions of years ago when the lava cooled leaving hexagonal stone pillows that the waves break over constantly. There is a path that winds down from the lighthouse to the rocks.

The rocks were formed by the cooling of the lava of the volcano. As lava cools, cracks within the material grow most efficiently at certain angles. In many places worldwide, such as Devils Tower in Wyoming and the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, ancient lavas cooled into hexagonal blocks or columns. The headland itself is an amazing basalt rock formation that was formed around 23 million years ago by ancient lava flows from the nearby and extinct shield volcano, Mt Warning.

Giants Causeway Fingal Heads NSW

Fingal Head boasts some of the most spectacular examples of columnar jointing to be found in the whole of NSW. The name “Fingal Head” is actually derived from a fabled Scottish hero who was involved in the folk story surrounding the creation of Fingal Cave in Scotland and the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. The local indigenous Goodjingburra clan’s name for Fingal Head is Booninybah – Home of the Giant Echidna: “Booniny” means Giant Echidna. The spectacular columns of Fingal Head resemble the spines of an echidna, and so the Goodjingburra believe that the spirit of the echidna inhabits the headland.

Sunset and Sunrise at Fingal Heads

Its a beautiful Bay and from here you can see both the sunsets and the sunrises…..the sunset over the Tweed Sand Bridge, and the Sunrise behind the Headland where the lighthouse stands and Cook Island. Sunrise and sunset is also a great fishing spot for the surf fishermen

There was one person walking the beach at sunrise this morning and a collection of Mullet Fishermen ready for the mullet as they come swimming over the horizon from the south. These fishermen have had the business for 39 years….They spend all day on the beach when the mullet are swimming. Today the weather was warm with little wind and though there were lots of seagulls there were no fish.

Fingal Heads NSW

Am now at Fingal Heads in NSW. You follow the M1 Motorway down past Coolangatta and Tweed Heads and after that you come to a turn-off to the left which goes to Kingscliff and to Fingal Heads. You arrive at a roundabout that is Chingerah..and if you have not brought any food, you need to turn right and either go to Kingscliff where there are supermarkets and restaurants, (7.5km from Fingal Heads), or do what I did because I was tired…shop for basics and good take away food at the Service Station. I did pay $6.60 for a small container of butter and tomatoes were $12 a kg. I also bought 4 small bananas and a loaf of rye Bread..and a delicious sandwich and a pie. All eaten now and I am down to Rye Bread and butter for the next 2 days if the Mullet fishermen do not catch any mullet. They fish in the bay but need a southerly and lots of wind to bring the mullet out of the fresh water rivers into the Bay where they get chased with nets and boats in a huge hive of industry until they get netted. The fishermen here have had the business for 39 years…and their catch goes to Sydney as well as Queensland…

These days in Fingal Bay and along the entire coastline of NSW into southern Queensland, jet boats shoot the net around the fish in a matter of seconds and the fish are hauled ashore by trucks. As quickly as possible the fish are put on ice and shipped to the processing plant where they are transported to local and overseas markets. https://www.portstephensexaminer.com.au/story/7226884/questions-about-mullet-run/

The south-western head of the bay is Fingal Head, which is located southeast of the town. Between the two heads, the mouth is over 1 km (0.6 mi) wide. The bay includes a sandy beach about 1.9 km (1.2 mi) long.

Fingal Head Lighthouse

Even though the Fingal Head light tower is not high and it is built on a low headland the lighthouse is effective as it is built on one of the most easterly points of Australia. It is however obscured by Cook Island. It was not until 1971 that a light was established on Point Danger to complement the Final Head light.

The 1860s saw an increase in shipping trade with the new colony of Queensland. Three reefs running out almost 7km from Fingal Head and Cook Island itself were a constant danger as there is deep water close to shore. The first lighthouse on Fingal Head was lit in 1872. The present lighthouse was completed in 1879 and handed over to Lightkeeper William Arnold on 30 March 1879. The light tower is the oldest public building in the Tweed Shire.

In 1970 the light was converted to mains electricity. Fingal Head was converted to an LED light source in early 2021 with the installation of a fixed high intensity LED beacon. The light retains a red sector to warn of the off shore dangers around Cook Island. The lighthouse keeper’s residence was built in 1879 and demolished in 1923 when the light was automated. The foundations are visible nearby the lighthouse. William Arnold, the first lighthouse keeper, his wife Henrietta and 11 children lived here for 27 years until 1st September 1906 when he retired

June Full Super Moon

The June Full Moon is a Super Moon. I saw the moon rise at Corroboree Park in Macleay Island. It was right on time…4.44 behind the clouds. Then it rose above the clouds and was very beautiful though hazy because of the cloud

“The common definition of a supermoon is any full Moon that is at a distance of at least 90% of perigee (which is the point at which the Moon is closest to Earth),” the Old Farmer’s Almanac explains. “June’s full Moon stands at 222,238.4 miles (357,658 km) away — comfortably within that cut-off point.” The moon will look unusually full and bright on Tuesday night, and you won’t need a high-tech telescope or fancy binoculars to admire it. And this June, it happens to be at its closest distance to Earth in its orbit, making it a supermoon by most standards.

NASA says a supermoon appears about 17% bigger and 30% brighter than the faintest moon of the year, when it’s farthest from Earth in its orbit. Supermoons are relatively rare, happening three to four times a year and always consecutively. “Only on the night of the full Moon is it possible to see the Moon appear on the horizon during dusk“

I did take a couple of photos in the evening too…I love a full moon