Australia Day

We have a friend from the US, Mike, staying with us for a while, so yesterday we did a day trip up to a small town in Queensland called Rathdowny. This involved driving down to Kyogle and then heading north west and then north along the Lions Road. Very scenic drive that skirts along the Border Ranges National Park and then cuts through the park before heading down into Queensland. This sign was at the NSW/QLD border...I wonder what you get for heroin trafficking if keeping a bunny can cost ya $30k!

We were also intrigued by the number of speed/security cameras at the border, too. Count them, I think you'll find there are 4. Are they watching whose coming in or leaving, I wonder?

We enjoyed lunch at the Rathdowny Pub, before having an ice cream in front of the butchers. Mike and Steve in front of the window. We weren't sure what 'Service kills' actually means. We thought we'd give the tripe and lambs' brains a miss.

This is a very distinctive volcanic plug called Mt Barney that is a major feature of the Rathdowny landscape.

And we're always amazed at these 'forests' of grass trees that occur around our region, especially in the Kyogle area.

Hot weather brings out a baby bearded dragon

The weekend has been very hot. We mowed the lawns yesterday and this morning went down the creek early, before 8am, and mowed down there, too. The black cockies have returned in a flock of about a dozen which noisily tear apart the pine cones starting at around 6 in the morning. I was also lucky to see the pair of wedge tailed eagles and this year's offspring as they flew quite low over our paddock on the other side of McGuinness Road, yesterday afternoon. The pair nests in Jiggi, the next valley over, near where we were really interested in a house and almost made an offer. It's great we still get to admire this pair when they fly over our place.

And, the other neat little animal sighting today was this little guy, a baby bearded dragon. Not sure if it's the same one that I spotted on the other side of the house a month or so ago. It's a bit funny - bearded dragons should be fairly easy to spot, they love basking on the tops of fence posts - and indeed before we moved in to Maryville I did see one doing exactly that. But I haven't seen any adults here since then, and this is only the second sighting of a bub. Oh sweet mysteries of life.....

Melons and pumpkins

Just thought you might like to see what's growing in the gardens...we have a few rock mellon which are starting to look like what they are. This is the only plant that survived out of five seedlings I planted.
Very pleased with the water mellon too...hopefully should be ready to eat in a couple of weeks...
and we've got a few pumpkins on the vines that self sowed in the compost heap. This guy is hanging from the vine which has grown up on to the wire mesh between the shed and the garage.

What Steve's been up to on his holidays

Steve always uses his holidays wisely and productively and these photos are proof of those two principles he follows rigorously. One basement had been used by us as a quasi storage area since we moved in but he has carrid out a major transformation. First he dissassembled the shelving that was in the basement and reassembled it in the cold room which lies adjacent to the basement. This is a proper cold room with refrigeration (lordie knows why the original owners installed it) and it has now become a combined wine cellar and walk-in storage facilty (WISF).

Steve then was able to completely gut the basement, slap on a few coats of paint and install the four pieces of gym equipment that he had recently purchased. We bought the rowing machine and the spin bike at the Tender Centre and

the treadmill on the right and the combo thing on the left are brand spanking new. Steve relocated the sound system we had attached to our former computer (and which no longer works with our new iMac) down to the gym as well. Now all we need is to establish an appropriate work-out routine (WOR). Just watch those xmas kilos fall away.....oh and we do have a pedestal fan down here too..the basement is in fact the coolest and most stable (temperature-wise) part of the house but additional fan-cooling will be needed for much of the year.

Wellington trip

I've just come back from 6 days in Wellington, NSW, doing some field research with colleagues John and Mieke. Mieke is in the pic above at the Lion of Wellington pub, built in the 1840s, where we had dinner a couple of times. Wellington is a small town of 5300 people about half an hour from Dubbo. Apart from sitting in emergency department waiting rooms for 4hrs per day conducting research we also had a look at Wellington Caves, Old Dubbo Gaol and...

the Wellington Botanic Gardens and Arboretum where we encountered this very nice lace monitor or tree goanna. It was not bothered by our presence and didn't attempt to hide behind the tree it had decided to climb.

About 4 -4.5 feet long, in the process of sloughing its skin. Very nice looking animal. Some recent research has now shown that monitors are actually venomous - they have primitive venom glands in their jaws and when they bite they do 'inject' this venom into their prey.

Some fruits from the garden

This small tree, a type of Brazilian 'cherry', grows next to our longan and mango tree. I also planted another one down towards the chooks. This tree is covered in these cherry like fruits which taste delicious and the closest thing to being a cherry without actually being a cherry...here's a bowl full....
And here are some of the mangoes that I have rescued from our tree so that we at least save some from the hungry flying foxes...they'll ripen pretty well over the next couple of weeks..we had one today that I had removed from the tree just after new year and it was beautiful

Wildlife happenings

Fruit bats are tucking into our mangoes now, so I rescued two dozen and the rest will most likely be converted into guano. Our grumichama tree is dripping in delicious cherry-like fruit (see pic in other posting) and that's attracting king parrots, while our bloodwood's flowers are playing hosts to dozens of squawking lorikeets. The yellow-tailed black cockatoos have returned to chew the seeds out of the pine cones. We also have a white faced heron nesting in one of the pine trees near the chookery. A rather large and well fed lace goanna was trying to sun itself down by the creek this morning while Steve and I were mowing the grass and we have baby short necked turtles and water dragons in and around the creek as well. Lots of life going on around us at the moment. Lots of new growth on our plantings - finally after such a dry spring when nothing much was actually growing, just trying to remain alive. After all the rain we've had in the past six weeks, the word is lush!

2009 Rainfall Stats

Total for year 1500mm (60 inches)

Monthly average 125mm

Wettest month: May 350mm

Second wettest month: December 234mm

Driest month: August 5.5mm

Second driest month September 10.5mm

Summer rainfall 689mm

Autumn 690mm

Winter 136mm

Spring 133.5mm

New Years stuff

A bunch of friends journeyed up from the Hunter Valley, Central Coast and Melbourne to stay with us for a few days over New Years and to have fun at the Tropical Fruits danceparty held at the Lismore Showground on NYE. Enjoying breakfast on the deck on NYE morning are Steve in his jarmies, Murray and Michael (piglet) from Somersby, at the end of the table is Andrew from near Kurri, John from Melbourne and Lee, also from near Kurri.
Later that morning we headed up to Border Ranges National Park to do the Barr Mountain walk...alas bad knees and leeches saw Lee and Michael turn around fairly early in the trip, leaving only Murray, Andrew and I to complete the walk.
And here we are before heading out to the Tropical Fruits Dance..singlets were the top of choice for most of us. It was a great night though we didn't stay to the end, coming home around 4.00am (we are getting old)...then Steve, John and Warwick (who didn't arrive until nearly midnight and stayed at Maryville with a couple of glasses of champers and a Bette Midler movie) headed out to the recovery party the next night, but we were home by 11pm (yes we are getting old)! Had breakfast in Kyogle with all the boys before all except for John and Warwick headed off home..then the four of us remaining enjoyed a delish lunch at Utopia in Bangalow before a few G and Ts with our friends Stewart and Matt (who had in fact been introduced to us by Warwick and John) at their lovely property in Georgica in the Jiggi Valley. John and Warwick flew back to Melbourne today after looking at some real estate in the booyong/Clunes area.

Xmaas Day - lunch and dinner

Table looks a little austere but all was great. Shane came down on Xmas Eve and worked like a Trojan getting the creek sides under control with the mower and brush cutter, then he cooked a magnificent spaghetti marinara for dinner. It was our turn to cook for him on Xmas Day: pork, chicken and ham and salad followed by Steve's sherry log and ice cream slice.
Then mid afternoon and John (I work with John - he is head of school and was also a colleague from Newcastle) and Julie came up and so did Glen, and we had another delish meal of prawns courtesy of John and Glen..yummo