This is not a wooden boat!

Paladian has given some of the back-story for today's safari down to Goolwa to the Wooden Boats Festival. She didn't tell you that I really wanted to blip one of these old boats, preferably a lot of old wooden boats!

The Wooden Boat Festival at Goolwa, south of Adelaide, is famous amongst boaties Australia wide, and there were entries from all over the country. Griff Rhys-Jones (the TV comedian and boatie from the UK) was also there.

According to the TV news last night, today was meant to be a great day for just wandering along the wharf and soaking up the atmosphere, as well as eyeing off the wooden paddleboats and steamers that had come all the way down the River Murray. It must have been quite a spectacle for those who got to see it.

We made several mistakes however including getting there too late to get a park less than a mile away! Hence I must admit that we didn't see a single wooden boat.

We saw a few sailing boats in the far distance, no doubt racing and taking advantage of the ferociously hot northerly which was gusting over the River, with the temperature hovering around the old century. Not good walking weather.
The other mistake was forgetting to bring our monopods or a tripod!

We had our picnic lunch, bought an ice-cream, and so that the day wasn't totally wasted we checked out our favourite birding spot around past the Goolwa Barrages. As Paladian said, we struck gold. This included frantically swapping cameras for whoever had the longer lens, as a bird appeared in view. This is faster that changing lenses all the time.

This is a Black-Winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus), which is not an Australian native, but is one of the most attractive birds I have photographed. Although they seem to be under threat in other locations around the world, they are quite widespread in Australia.

Longer legs.

They have the most incredibly long red legs, which enable them to wade into much deeper waters than most waders, in order to get their food. It's the red legs that really grabbed me - so very attractive and a new addition for the BigBlipYear.