Julian Rocks flaunts its underwater colours

Julian rocks is situated within the Cape Byron Marine park in northern NSW, on the east coast of Australia.
It is home to over 1000 marine species including wobbegongs, rays, turtles, fish, nudibranchs and many more. It is an aggregation site for the endangered Grey Nurse Sharks, Carcharias taurus, who visit in winter. Leopard sharks visit Julian Rocks over summer.
This is where warm and cool waters meet, hence the enormous biodiversity. A minority of species are endemic to this area. Most are found over a wide area of the Asia-Pacific region.

Find out more about this wonderful underwater playground at www.julianrocks.net

The Daily Examiner continues to go downhill

The Daily Examiner continues to go downhill in its 150th year.
Which is a bit hard to do when you are in the middle of a rather flat Clarence Valley flood plain, but this newspaper is managing the feat.
Tabloid headlines, advertorials, articles which are nothing more than vehicles for product placement, pages in the first half of an issue which are so chocka with paid advertising that it is easy to miss the single news item - and now changes to its website which mean that local news is crowded out by interstate (dominated by Queensland) and international news.
These days if you want Northern Rivers news online then you'd be wise to link to anywhere other than APN newspapers.
It's no wonder that the Far North Coaster online magazine is becoming a popular read.
It fills a niche which Northern Rivers newspapers have obviously abandoned.

A heart as big as Phar Lap's........... brave, beautiful... a hero [ASTI communities please note that this post mentions someone who has passed away]

An important leader in the Yamba Aboriginal community, in northern New South Wales, has died.

Christine Ferguson, 52, died a week ago.

She was the chief executive officer of the Birrigan Gargle Land Council.

The chairwoman of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, Bev Manton, says she was a pioneer in the fight for justice.

"Christine's been involved with the lands rights network since its inception and I guess she has kind of grown up with that political background and fighting for the rights of her people," she said.

"She was just one of those lovely people who could negotiate and not be aggressive about it, but still be forceful and obtain the results that were required."

Christine Ferguson is survived by her son Jason and three granddaughters. She was also guardian to a young boy. (Indigenous Community News Network)

The authors of North Coast Voices will miss her friendship and, along with the rest of the Clarence Valley and the Northern Rivers region, mourn her passing.

** Post title is composed of excerpts from the many eulogies at the funeral service on Friday 27 March 2009 in Maclean, NSW.

What bird is that? Channel 7 finds out the hard way

This week an item on efforts to rid the North Coast of the Indian Mynah, an introduced species, hit a hiccup when Channel 7 Prime News showed the wrong photo of the feathered miscreant.
See if you can spot the difference (besides species, height, body shape and weight, plumage).
Yes - one is a noxious pest and the other a protected native species. Oh, dear. Apologies all round from Channel 7.















TOP: Indian Mynah
BOTTOM: Masked Lapwing Plover