Newcastle hosted the Classic British Car Show at the weekend. We love a car show and so do our friends Tim and Virginia so they came up from Sydney in Tim's Triumph Dolomite Sprint and off we went to the show.
It was in a fabulous setting on the foreshore at the mouth of the Hunter River overlooked by Nobby's Head lighthouse and Fort Scratchley and the location set the cars off beautifully. There were heaps of cars, far more than I expected, with most British classics represented with rows of glorious E-Types, Austin Healeys, Jaguars, Minis and so on. Tim and I spotted the cars we learned to drive in, mine was a Cortina and his a Ford Anglia which was also our first family car when I was a child.
The cars looked even better because we are having a run of sunny, warm days which are making us feel like spring is around the corner, I hope it stays this way because we have a steady stream of friends from the UK visiting in August and we want them to see the place at its best. 

This is a wonderful time of year at the Tilligerry Habitat where we volunteer. We were there manning the information centre yesterday and had a three koala day! This is unusual because koalas are not social and the males in particular give each other a very wide berth, there tends to be one alpha male in each location and he sees off any travelling males who might happen to wander in, we think we have a male at each end of the Habitat with a female or two dotted around but they are mysterious animals and nobody is sure. So it was great to be able to send visitors off with their maps and be pretty sure they would see koalas because they are difficult to spot and we have days when we can't find any to show off. However, there is plenty to look at even if the koalas are in hiding and this time of year is rather special.

The walk around the Habitat is beautiful and tranquil all year round but at the moment the wattle is flowering (yellow fluffy blossom on acacias), banksias have huge bottlebrush blooms and grevillas are in flower. Many of the birds like to eat these and I spotted a pair of black cockatoos, one standing guard while the other was having a real feast. They are very shy birds in spite of being massive - much bigger than their white cousins, they look like Lancaster Bombers when they fly over - and we often only know they are around by their distinctive cry. The locals say they are only seen and heard before it is going to rain and the Aboriginal story is that the black cockatoo came into being when a white cockatoo fell into a fire, was burned black and flew out crying for water which is why they call out for the rain.