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It was a sight that left a seasoned reef guide shocked; a hundred rare cownose rays dancing in the waters off the southern Great Barrier Reef.

Lady Elliot Island Master Reef Guide Jacinta Shackleton was snorkelling off the tiny coral cay earlier this month when she spotted the large "fever" of rays.

The sighting was rare as the animals don't often venture into Australian waters.

READ MORE: Glow-in-the-dark sharks captured on camera for first time ever

Ms Shackleton said it made for one incredible encounter.

"It looked like they were dancing in sync across the reef," Ms Shackleton said, estimating that there were 80 – 110 of the animals.

"I've been conducting research on the reef off Lady Elliot Island for three years and I've never seen a cownose ray before."

The cownose ray gets its name because of the unique shape of its head, which looks like a cow's nose from above.

Because they are rarely seen on the Great Barrier Reef, and in Australian waters in general, researchers say they don't know much about the creatures.

They hope more sightings like Ms Shackleton's can help them learn more about the species.

Levi Fletcher remembers charging into the bedroom to tell his fiancée his audacious plan, to trade a golf ball-sized, red clay tomato for an entire house.

"She was like, 'what?'" Mr Fletcher said.

"Which I guess is what anyone's reaction would be."

READ MORE: Boom time for Australia's residential property market as prices soar

Mr Fletcher hopes his radical idea will get his young family on the first rung of New Zealand's increasingly difficult to get on property ladder.

Currently, Mr Fletcher, his fiancée Beka and daughter, Jadem, 2, rent a small studio apartment in Taranaki, in New Zealand's North Island.

"It's quite hard at the moment, with house prices and all of that. So I decided to see if I could trade a red clay tomato all the way up until I got a house," Mr Fletcher said.

The 22-year-old Mitre 10 worker said he's a glass half-full guy, which will likely prove useful as he embarks on his unusual "out of the box" quest.

Mr Fletcher's plan involves making a series of trades, which increase in value and hopefully ends with a deed of property with his name on it.

It's a road that has been travelled before.

READ MORE: Three-bedroom Sydney home sells for $9 million

Beginning in 2005, it took Canadian man Kyle MacDonald 14 trades over 12 months to go from a single red paper clip to a two-story farmhouse in Saskatchewan.

Two months into his scheme, Mr Fletcher has so far made six trades and is currently sitting on 45 boutique cast-iron firewood splitting devices, which are made in Australia and valued at just over $10,000.

Choosing the right object to start with was important, and a headscratcher, Mr Fletcher said.

"I didn't want something that was boring. I wanted something completely out of the ordinary.

READ MORE: Huge number of Aussie homeowners considering sale

"I was walking around, looking through the house … I couldn't really find anything. And then here's this little red clay tomato, sitting on the table, that my partner had made a few hours earlier for my daughter to play with.

"It was the perfect size, it looked cool. And I told my fiancée that I was going to trade it for a house."

From the tiny clay tomato Mr Fletcher nabbed himself a leather baseball glove.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKIwXPyD7Y4/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp

After that he landed a fishing rod and reel.

From the fishing kit he traded up to a set of power tools and a meet-and-greet package with New Zealand band, Six60.

That deal vaulted him into eight jars of prized Manuka Honey, valued at $8000.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKr69PoDHs5/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp

And the honey secured him 45 kindling cracker firewood splitters, invented by a young New Zealand schoolgirl and now manufactured in Australia.

"You've got to think out of the box," Mr Fletcher says of his trading strategy.

The trades take a lot of perseverance, he says, and "it is absolutely a tough journey."

"There's a point within every trade that it slows down or the interest drops away. You've got to keep going.

"If I don't really work hard for this, then it's not gonna happen."

Key to his success so far are his Instagram page, momentum and word of mouth.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMbkx-IDWuz/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp

Mr Fletcher is grateful for all the help he's had so far, and he plans to pay it forward as he continues on his journey.

He will donate five of the 45 kindling crackers to the vulnerable or people in need over the coming New Zealand winter.

"If I can give back, I will," he said.

"I think everybody has ideas on how they want to succeed or make money or achieve what they want. But a lot of the time, we don't always act on it.

"What have I got to lose? At the moment it's really working."

– Follow Levi's trading progress on Instagram

Contact: ms******@******om.au

US intelligence has assessed that North Korea could be preparing to carry out their first weapons test since President Joe Biden came into office, according to several US officials speaking to CNN on condition of anonymity.

The US officials are on alert as the US and South Korea conduct scaled-down, simulated military exercises and US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin are in Asia for meetings with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

A test or provocation of some kind would not be a surprise, regional experts said.

LIVE UPDATES: Follow the latest news in our live blog

"North Korea traditionally has done some kind of strongly provocative action early in both US and South Korean new administrations," said Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation who pointed to tests conducted in 2017, shortly after former President Donald Trump took office, and in 2009, to mark former President Barack Obama's arrival in the White House.

"The idea was to 'train them like a dog,' a North Korean defector told me," Mr Klingner said, to squeeze concessions from the two, more powerful countries.

"So history would indicate they'd do something in the first few months of a Biden administration as well," he said.

"If they do a provocation, it's perfectly predictable."

READ MORE: North Korea warns US against 'causing a stink'

On Monday, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korea's leader, warned the Biden administration against "causing a stink at its first step" on Monday, hours after the White House said it had not received a response to diplomatic overtures it had been making to Pyongyang.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to respond to the comment on Tuesday. "We don't have a direct comment or response to the comments made from North Korea," Ms Psaki told reporters in a briefing on board Air Force One, en route to Philadelphia with the President. She pointed to the meetings between Mr Blinken, Mr Austin, and their counterparts, where "certainly, the security of the region will be a topic of discussion."

Later this week, Mr Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan are also headed to Alaska to meet with their Chinese counterparts, which Ms Psaki also said will feature a discussion on "security in the region."

Mr Blinken and Austin reaffirmed their commitment to the "complete denuclearisation of North Korea" in Japan on Tuesday and to creating opportunities for further cooperation between the US, Japan, and South Korea, according to a statement from the US State Department.

They will hold meetings in South Korea on Wednesday local time.

READ MORE: North Korea feared to be mining plutonium

One senior US official said North Korea might decide whether to go through with a test after seeing what comes out of Mr Blinken and Mr Austin's meetings in Asia. 

General warns about North Korea's 'alarming success'

On Tuesday, a senior US general issued a public warning about the threat posed by North Korea.

"The Kim Jong Un regime has achieved alarming success in its quest to demonstrate the capability to threaten the U.S. homeland with nuclear-armed ICBMs, believing such weapons are necessary to deter US military action and ensure his regime's survival," Gen. Glen Van Herck, head of US Northern Command and responsible for the defence of the continental United States, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

The possibility of a test in the coming days has led Biden administration officials across several agencies to discuss how they would respond publicly if one happens, the officials said.

The officials would not be specific about what the latest intelligence shows, but a likely scenario, based on imagery and other intelligence, is that there could be a missile or rocket engine test. The last known North Korean weapons test was conducted in March 2020.

Over the last few days, US intelligence has been focused on vehicle activity at a site near Sanum-dong, outside Pyongyang, where ballistic missile and space launch vehicles are believed to have been built in the past.

There has also been activity at North Korea's nuclear facility, Yongbyon, according to analysis of new satellite images published by 38 North, a prominent North Korea monitoring group.

Officials tell CNN that if North Korea carries out a test while both secretaries are in Asia, it would send a pointed message to Mr Biden that Mr Kim wants to ensure he is seen as a key player in the region. However, a test would not come as a shock, with many analysts surprised Mr Kim has refrained from carrying out one for so long.

A US response would vary depending on what, exactly, Pyongyang tested.

READ MORE: North Korea 'took recent steps to conceal nuclear weapons site'

If North Korea does a nuclear test or an ICBM test, particularly a test of an ICBM they paraded in October 2020 that has been nicknamed the "Monster ICBM," that would be "concerning, it would be very provocative," Mr Klingner said.

"It would be a violation of UN resolutions on a grand scale; it would require strong Biden admin response; and it would curtail diplomatic outreach. When they do something provocative, it puts a three- to six-month pause on diplomacy because no one wants to be seen rewarding that kind of behaviour," he continued.

If Pyongyang tests a missile, the questions that will determine the US response will be what range did the missile have, how far did it travel and did it fly over Japanese territory, Mr Klingner said. Rocket engine tests are "not really a violation, but not helpful," he said.

Trump ignored missile launches

Trump ignored North Korea's record number of missile launches in 2019, arguing that they didn't violate Kim Jong Un's pledge not to launch nuclear or ICBM tests — though the North Korean leader had announced he had no need to conduct those tests anymore because those programs were complete and UN resolutions require Pyongyang not to do any launches at all.

The Biden administration is still conducting a review of the Trump administration's North Korea policy, which could be completed "in the coming weeks," according to a senior State Department official.

READ MORE: NK hackers stole more than $300 million to pay for nuclear weapons

While Mr Biden isn't likely to write "love letters" to Kim Jong Un like his predecessor did, Mr Biden's administration has yet to offer a clear break from the prior administration in its stated goals for its approach to the Hermit Kingdom. On multiple occasions, in testimony, statements or briefings, US officials have said their goal is "the complete denuclearisation of North Korea."

Military and intelligence officials have long said they assess that North Korea continued with research and development of missiles and nuclear warheads throughout the Trump administration despite the public rhetoric from the Trump and now the Biden administrations about denuclearisation.

"North Korea's continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs constitutes an extraordinary threat to the United States and our allies and partners in the region," David Helvey, acting assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific Affairs, told the House Armed Services Committee last week.

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