I checked the forecast last night and it showed a huge swathe of high level cloud over the coast with no gaps, so I didn’t have very high hopes for a colourful sunrise. However when I pulled back the blinds and looked to the east, there was some colour in the sky, so I headed up the road to Seven Mile Beach. The intensity of the colour increased up until the actual sunrise, when the colour faded and it all fizzled out. Bit of a shame, but the early colour was still excellent. I waited for a while in case we got some secondary colour as the sun broke above that distant cloud-bank, but it wasn’t to be, so I headed back to the car and met a couple of our local pelicans doing their early morning rounds.

Lovely oranges, reds and purples brewing on the horizon.

This was the peak of the colour, looking north-east up Seven Mile Beach.

Colour started to fizz before the sun hit the horizon – this was five minutes before.

Sunrise fizzed, but lovely tones to the south looking towards Comerong Island.

Glassy water on the Shoalhaven River, only the merest breath of wind.

Like all rivers with boat ramps, Shoalhaven Heads has its fair share of Pelicans.

Not sure what he/she was checking out, but he/she did a circuit of the estuary.