More cricket and Butler's Beach

O.K., I stayed up late and then rose at 6am yesterday to catch the exciting last overs of Australia's run chase to reach 302, with four wickets in hand and 10 balls remaining, and win their one-day match against England at Trent Bridge. That makes it 5-o in the seven match series. Ricky Ponting, the Boy from Mowbray, had a magnificent "captain's knock" of 126 which included the longest six he'd ever hit. At the death there was all-rounder Mitchell Johnstone hitting another six to win the match. It was sad in a gratifying kind of way to see dejected England supporters starting to leave to ground with two overs still to play, at about the time it became clear that the tourists were cruising to a win.

Only problem with not getting much sleep was that I was heading out that day for a brisk three hour walk down on the coast just east of Marion Bay, where there are remote and beautiful beach coves on private land. One is known as Butler's Beach (often seals are to be seen), the other as Salmon Beach where there is good fishing for - who would guess? - salmon. The Butler family's land includes four miles of this coast. My companions included one of the family members, who took us to view what may be signs of the former aboriginal (Nurrunga) presence.

Sunny and magnificent day at the start - turning to dramatic lightning and thunder and rain, which eased off for our mid-walk picnic lunch. Then once we were safely back to vehicle and a fifty kilometre drive to our country town, the rain set in again and continued much of last night.