Rainy days and Mondays...

well they always got Karen Carpenter down (but so did a three course meal), but not necessarily me, especially as I got to stay at home and work, rather than going into the office. Which is what I did today. Largely because I needed to drive a friend of ours from Melbourne who had stayed with us over the weekend, back to Coolangatta. So, three hours of my day was on the road (again - [I'm being very lyrical this afternoon]) and the rest was taken up with working. And watching the wallabies nibble selected blades of grass in the drizzle/rain. They must have very water resistant fur because they seem to love to graze when its wet. For the precipitation-tragics amongst you we've had 8mm since 7am and it looks like we are going to cop this steady rain/drizzle for the next few days. Good sleeping in weather but alas, we will both be up at 6.15am like usual tomorrow - it's very dark up here at that time, especially on cloudy mornings. In fact, the end of March, just prior to the ending of daylight savings, is probably darker than mid winter. Anyway, I'm rambling on a tad, so I'll end now.

One Perfect (Tues)Day

This morning I set off around 9am to go to David Fleay's Wildlife Park at West Burleigh on the Gold Coast, where I was to meet with the GM and their education person. But first task was to take our Help_Xer, Vivien, to his new host, up in the foothills of the stunning Mt Burrell, which is about 15 mins from our place off the road to Uki. Mt Burrell is the flattened 'mountain' on the right, while in the centre is Sphynx Rock, which gives its name to a funky little cafe a little further along the Murwillumbah Road. Anyway, the property was stunning and I'm sure Vivien will enjoy himself there - just hope the internet connection is OK.
From Murwillumbah I decided to be adventurous and take Brisbane Street which is the back way to the Gold Coast, and in particular Currumbin and Tallebudgera valleys. This road and the views from it, were just spectacular and I'll definitely be exploring this area again - both day and night, because I've been told that it's an excellent road for seeing various snakes at night.
I made it to Fleay's at 9.30 (QLD time) where I wandered around making my observations for an hour or so before then meeting with Sue the GM and their marketing/education officer, to talk about ways of enhancing their offer. They seemed to like my ideas. Stayed there till about 1.15 and then headed home, driving towards Wollumbin for about half of the trip. Driving around the rim of the giant crater and then descending down into it from our place is just a stunning thing to do. We are so lucky to be living in this magical place. Oh and then when the shadows began to cast their cool darkness on the ground it was time to mow - again!

Some fabulous images by Mike

Our friend, Mike, from the States, who stayed with us recently, kindly sent through a whole stack of images he had taken while with us, so I thought I'd share some on the blog. These fungi were on a log along a walking track in the Border Ranges National Park, which is on our doorstep.

Spectacular image of more fungi from the same walking track

An adult male water dragon looking handsome along the banks of the Tweed River at Tweed Heads, which is a bit under an hour from our place.

Two skinks either having a bit of a skirmish or engaged in foreplay. One never really knows with lizards.

And, a small eyed snake, again found near the Border Ranges National Park. This is a fairly common species around our place but this is probably the second largest individual of this species I've found.

Vivien's quiche lorraine triumph

Vivien, our Help_Xchange helper proved himself tonight in the kitchen, when, using three fresh larnook eggs and some other special ingredients, he conjured up this delicious quiche lorraine. Here he is mixing the eggs, cream and cheese...
And here is the finished product after baking in the oven. Almost souffle like.
And absolutely delicious! Bon appetite!

Hot weekend

Pic of Jonnie....this will make sense if you read the entire posting

It's been a bloody hot weekend! Not the kind of weather that you should be pushing lawn mowers around to cut 3 acres of lawn, but alas, Rita had decided she didn't want to play coupled with the rather long grass that had been growing with all the perfect growing conditions meant we had no choice but to mow. And mow. And mow. And mow some more. Because much of the grass was so long, we had to mow over the same spot a couple of times. We was a cursin' I can tell ya. Then back down this morning at 7a, to mow down there before the sun became too hot.

Vivien, our latest helper, and I then went around all our fruit trees and raked off the mulch, fertilized with pellets and fish emulsion, watered in, and remulched.

Hot.

We pick up our friend, Jonny, this arvie at Lismore station. Jonnie was the deputy British High Commish for PNG back in 2003 and I stayed with him in his lavish house for a few days back then. These days he is posted in the Middle East and gets around with a bullet proof vest on much of the time. Jonnie is staying till Wednesday.

Carpet Python down by the creek

This guy may have been under one of the wild tobacco bushes down near our creek for about a week, judging by the indent he left when I had to persuade it to vacate as I mowed this morning. Found it yesterday, in the same position, still with a sizeable bulge inside it, so I suspect it had eaten a large bandicoot and it's been digesting quietly for the past week. It was well over 2 metres in length
and had a rather large head. The carpets I have seen up here tend to be darker than this guy who was much browner. Very lovely. It impressed our latest Help_Xer, Vivien, from France, who I don't think had seen such a large snake in the wild. He seemed pretty impressed anyway.

Wet, wet, wet

It's been a very wet weekend up here as it has been over much of the eastern half of the state. It began raining late afternoon Saturday and kept up over night and much of Sunday. But we only copped good, soaking rain - about 65mm worth over the weekend, not the 200mm that Murwillumbah, which is only 55 mins away - received.
Just before the rain set in on Saturday afternoon, Steve and I planted 9 trees and shrubs that we had bought or had given to us as presents since the beginning of the year. We'd been waiting for the ground to be nice and moist before planting. So in went three frangipani, a coffee tree, wisteria, yellow sapote, Thai guava and an Indian fruit tree starting with S that I can't remember its name.
The creek had risen above the bridge sometime during Sunday morning but had gone down by Sunday afternoon. Provided we don't cop a heap of rain today (which I don't think we will) we shall not be flooded out!

Disgusting in Brisvegas

I spent most of last week in Brisvegas attending the biennial conference of the Australian New Zealand Association of Leisure Studies. I stayed at the Riverside Apartments at Southbank but I wouldn't recommend it. It's the most reasonably priced of most of the accommodation in Southbank but the bathroom was shite. This was the first time I've ever gone back to reception and asked if there was a better room (I'm happy to pay the extra'). 'You've got the best room' came the curt reply. Just a really crummy little, very little bathroom, was my main gripe.

Anyway, the conference was really good, I even enjoyed it. Usually I loathe conferences: morning and afternoon teas and lunches I dread because I just can't chat sensibly with someone I don't know over a scone with jam and cream. In fact I'd like to run a conference with the title 'This is Not a Conference' Conference, but that's for another time. But the ANZALS mob are very friendly and I knew quite a few people there, having been involved with the organisation of one of their conferences in Newcastle in the early 90s. This time round I chaired a session, I assessed a presentation by a PhD student and I presented a paper titled 'The thrill of disgust, the attraction of repulsion: examining negative emotions in leisure and tourism experience', which was jointly written with a Newcastle colleague, Nancy Cushing, It went over quite well and seemed to strike a bit of a chord with a number of people, except I think one of the imported (and important) keynote speakers from the states who in his presentation argued strongly that leisure was only about positive emotions and indeed the study of leisure was in his words, 'the happy science'. Oh well, you can't please 'em all.

Kooky Kyogle

We were shopping in Kyogle this morning, buying our fruit and veges, chatting with Esther who sells all kinds of delicious things like chocolate fudge cake, samosas, little mascarpone tarts with blueberries and grated chocolate, buying the newspapers and what not. It's a nice little town, possibly still a bit red-necky in places and quite kooky from a retail point of view. 'How so?' I hear you ask. Well the Balinese curio shop (and indeed you may be asking why there would be a Balinese curio shop in Kyogle at all) doubles as the tobacconist and also sells home brew supplies; you buy your lottery and lotto tickets not from the newsagency but from the hardware store, which also does a nice line in children's apparel; and any problems with water pumps means you need to see the Holden dealership. Kooky.