New South Wales Butterflies

This was the longest butterfly trip we've been on to date as to go this far & justify the expense we had to make it worthwhile. We went for two months & spent the first month based in Wangi Wangi on the shore of Lake Macquarie. We had a hired car for the whole trip so from there we explored the local area & visited sites recommended to us. A major help in this department was the butterfly sights section of the Australian Butterflies website www.purvision.com . For the second month we travelled further north with a few stops up as far as Coffs Harbour & from there we headed inland & came back south via the mountains of The Great Dividing Range. Again we had a few stops on the way down & finished with 10 days in the Blue Mountains based in Blackheath. I was labouring under the misapprehension that it would be easy to find butterflies in Australia as it was a hot climate but this was definitely not the case & to get a decent amount of species you definitely had to put the work & hours in, but we certainly enjoyed the challenge. While in Blackheath we had the huge benefit (& pleasure) of having two separate days in the field with Martin Purvis, author of the aforementioned website www.purvision.com . This website is the most comprehensive resource for Australian Butterflies & is especially impressive as it is authored & maintained by Martin on his own. Martin has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Ozzy Butterfly & we saw lots of excellent species we would never have seen without his expertise. He's also a top bloke & we enjoyed a few beers together on the day before we departed for home.