Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Exploring our local area: Hunter Wetlands


We spent the day with friends today at the Hunter Wetlands - a 45 hectare wetlands site in Newcastle. A great day - but I am exhausted!

We hired a couple of canoes and paddled around the 2km canoe trail to the Rainforest shelter - and then had to paddle the 2kms back! They were 2 man canoes, with single blade paddles - which is great when you have 2 equally strong people paddling - but not so great with one adult paddling and a 6 year old "helping"! So I'd have to paddle 2 strokes on one side, swap over to the other side and correct our course, and then repeat! We basically 'tacked' our way up the trail lol. Luckily there weren't many other people around :)

Fortunately we managed to stay in the canoe - I was worried enough about falling out before the canoe guy told us there were snakes in the water! (And yes there were - we saw them!!)

When we got back we had lunch, the kids had a play on the excellent playground and then we went for a walk along one of the trails - seeing lots of bird life, and hearing lots of rustling in the reeds..

There was lots we didn't get around to seeing, but we ran out of time. I'm considering buying an annual membership so we can call in anytime.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

But what birds did you see? Enquiring minds want to know...

Kez said...

Umm, lots!

Lots of ducks - not sure what they were other than the endangered Freckled Ducks in an enclosure, geese, egrets, ibis (including an ibis feeding it's babies!).

I'm not a bird watcher so I can't help any more than that sorry!!

libby said...

Looks like a great place. Many hours of fun to be had.

Libby