Yabby traps catch more than yabbies

After our friends, Vivien and Glen, who stayed with us almost a week, had returned from a spot of fishing in our creek, they gave me the sad news that they had discovered a yabby trap along the bank, among the grass. They also told me that it contained the remnants of a number of freshwater turtles. I was horrified and dumb-struck and sickened.  They offered to go down and retrieve the trap, so Steve and I walked down to the creek with them and Glen and I quickly located the trap again. Sure enough, inside the death chamber were the remains, just the carapaces and plastrons, of four short-necked turtles, including one young animal that you can see on the left of the others. Again, I just couldn't believe that someone could set such a trap -  knowing that other animals could easily find their way in through the openings, and then drown. And I wonder, with dread, how many hundreds or even thousands of similar traps are lying on the bottom of creeks and rivers, while the putrefying carcasses of turtles, water rats and platypus, slowly rot within them.  This is completely irrational, I accept, but I felt a twinge of guilt that these turtles, which I might have enjoyed seeing sometime in the past, as they sunned themselves on protruding rocks or logs, had drowned, silently, in our creek.
We hauled the trap from the bank and took it back home. It won't be catching any more turtles again.

Sunday at Bangalow Market

 Our friends, Viv and Glen, from Newcastle, had stayed with us since last Tuesday and during their little break with us at Larnook they had spent a day at Sea World, visited Nimbin and Kyogle, hung around home and generally enjoyed themselves. So on Sunday we decided to take them to Bangalow Market, as Viv had loved the Channon Market when she had visited previously. They are both fabulous but quite different in character and feel. The day was promising to turn out hot, so we left home just after 8 and got to Bangalow about an hour later. At the moment we are going into the Northern Rivers' red phase with these spectacular Flame Trees in flower all over the place. The bangalow palms (and I've not been able to find out whether the palms were named after Bangalow or Bangalow was named after the palms) contrast beautifully with the scarlet of the flame tree's flowers, don't they. That other red-flowering, oh-so flamboyant tree that is bursting into redness now is the poinciana, which along with the jacaranda and flame tree, has been planted along many of the streets in Lismore.

 The markets were busy, colourful, creative, interesting...all those things that good markets should be. I really love the feel of these markets up here and yesterday I was in the mood to shop, so we bought some lovely things, ate some lovely food, and had a great time. We stopped off at our friends, Stuart and Matt, who live in a beautiful Queenslander in Bangalow and enjoyed some banana and walnut loaf, freshly baked and bought from the markets.  We also bought some absolutely delicious chutneys and pickles form a lady from Goolmangar, which is in the next valley over from ours.

And to top off a near-perfect day, was left-over pickled pork, cabbage and bacon, carrots and mashed potato, that Vivien had cooked the day before.  Viv and Glen left for Coffs Harbour this morning, before arriving back in Newcastle tomorrow.

HelpXer: Antony

 Antony, our HelpXer from Belgium spent two weeks with us. His major task was to shift 15 cubic metres of mulch from the pile along the driveway where the truck dumped it, over to the Big Bush Garden and spread it nice and evenly. Which he did quite well, and I readily admit it's a bit of a tedious job when done with no help. And hot. And heavy. So he achieved that goal as well as a bunch of other things, including a lot of watering as he was here for the end of the dry spell.
Last weekend I took advantage of the rather sparse ground cover on our paddock opposite to our house and we wandered over there checking the fencelines. Because when you have fencelines along paddocks you need to check them periodically to make sure they are intact. A long-dead cow, (not one of ours of course) however, was no longer intact, and indeed was just a jumble of very bleached bones. So what's an excitable, 18 year old Belgian to do but grab hold of the pelvis bones and, well, stick his head in it.

 Not a bad look, really.

Towards the end of his stay with us, Antony began experimenting in the kitchen and produced a couple of batches of tasty crepes as well as these delicious cup cakes which had a blob of, what else, but nutella, in the centre of them.  Nutella is to Europeans what Vegemite is to Australians.
Antony left us on Thursday morning to cycle down through Casino and then on to Grafton. His ambition is to slowly cycle down to Sydney by Xmas and enjoy a Sydney Xmas and New Year.  Though he doesn't really like Sydney. Or big cities. or crowds....

Wet

I write this post on Sunday morning to the comforting sound of steady rain hitting the iron roof of our house. As you may have begun to detect, I was starting to get a tad worried about the lack of rain that had fallen since June which had killed off our pasture grasses to the point where Baxter and Dexter were reliant on the lucern we were giving them twice a day. But over the past weekend we scored about 80mm which has transformed the paddocks and the lawns around our home. Instead of brown we have green. And now we are enjoying steady 'follow-up rain' which should really replenish the ground water and quench the thirst of all our plants, big and small. Our rainwater tank is now at maximum capacity and Julia's Little Creek is flowing happily into Hanging Rock Creek.

Still Dry with a capital D

Only 16mm fell here at Larnook in October, 20 in September and only 5 in August, so it's certainly looking very dry here. We were hoping that our friend, Piglet (aka Michael) would bring some much needed precipitation with him from the central coast while he was here over the weekend, but alas, all he could muster up was 1mm. One of Antony's (our current HelpXer) daily tasks is simply to water our gardens and fruit trees. We are lucky we have two water tanks, one which is rainwater derived, and provides our drinking and washing water, and the other which is bore-derived, which provides our garden and toilet flushing water. If we didn't have both these tanks we would have had to have bought water by now.
Really hoping we get 50-75mm this month. We are basically buying lucerne now to feed the boys as there is hardly any grass left in their paddock. (that's about $70.00 a week in lucerne - ouch).

Our first cycling HelpXer

Meet Antony, not only the first of our HelpXers who arrived on his bike, but our first Helper from Belgium. Only 18 years old, he arrived in Brisbane about a month ago, and after spending a few days checking the city out, made his way to Ipswich where he had his first HelpX experience. While there, he bought himself the bike and the trailer and then rode from Ipswich to Beaudesert on his way to, yep, you guessed it, Larnook! It took him two days to ride from Ipswich to our place, and given its about 150km over some very steep terrain, I am just amazed. He was one tired Belgian when he arrived at our place last Tuesday.
While I was in Singapore, our friend Warren, from Newcastle came up to spend a few days with Steve and they headed up to Brisbane last Monday to see Elaine Page, and do some shopping. That's Warren in the background looking suitable dumbfounded when he learned how far Antony had ridden.

Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay

 A forest of Super Trees connected to each other via a canopy walk creates a very distinctive feel at the Gardens by the Bay (see posting  below).

 The trunks of these SuperTrees are in fact vertical gardens, planted out with hundreds, if not thousands of bromeliads, orchids and other epiphytes.

At night these trees are lit up by thousands of coloured lights so I must go back during the evening next time. You can see one of the giant domes which house the most amazing collections of plants you will ever see in the one area.

Singapore

 Last weekend saw me in Singapore for a few days on a work trip, mostly to stand in for my head of school and present the graduates at the graduation of our cohort of Singapore students who take our degrees through MDIS, a collaborating partner of SCU's, and to attend the Singapore chapter of SCU alumni, together with a dinner on the Friday night with various senior 'executive' of SCU and MDIS. I get to go to Singapore about once a year these days and I always enjoy my time there. This trip was no different. The pic above is taken from a friend's 54th floor apartment overlooking the Marina Bay development with the amazing Marina Sands casino/integrated resort in the background. The three towers with the boat seemingly marooned on top.

 After the graduation, I caught up with our friend, Warwick, who is a flight attendant with QANTAS and happened to be in town. We taxi'd over to the fabulous Fullerton Bay Hotel for a light lunch and a couple of cocktails before paying our respects to the Merlion who projectile vomits continuously back into the harbour.

 I spent much of Friday at the newest tourist attraction on the island, Gardens by the Bay.  This is a huge development, a botanic gardens for the 21st century, replete with 'supertrees' which are these incredible steel tree-like simulations which of course form part of a light show during the balmy evenings. The two must-do parts of the Gardens development are these giant domes, glasshouses. The one featured here simulates a cloud forest biome up a mountain. This waterfall is what confronts you as you enter this exhibit,

 Steel walkaways twist around like old Kodak film - it is an incredible experience.

 As you move out of the exhibit you must pass through this audio visual extravaganza called +5 degrees which basically gives you a fraction of a degree by fraction of a degree account of what the earth might be like under climate change leading to an increase of 5 degrees in the earth's temperature.

Of course, Singapore is a food paradise, so on my last afternoon, last Sunday, after my 90 minute massage, and feeling very relaxed, I spent a pleasant hour or so drinking a couple of glasses of sangria and enjoying some very delicious tapas before heading back to the airport and flying home.