Some rainfall data

This data taken from the Bureau of Meteorology site shows how much rain the region copped over the last weekend.  As I say in a posting below, we received 250mm over three days, so we were spared the torrential rain that places quite close to us received. So, for example, Uki, which is 35 minutes from us on the way to Murwillumbah, scored 203mm on the Sunday with another 192 on the Monday. No wonder the Tweed River cut off the road. Our frend, Glen, lives at Dunoon and you can see that it also copped a wallopping.

Station Name	24 hours to 9am - last 7 days												Since 9am 29 Jan
	Ài 23	24	25	26		27		28			29
Uki	0.0	2.0	13	58		89		302			192
Murwillumbah	0.0	2.0	32	27		65		223			113
Cape Byron	0.8	0.4	2.6	2.2		39		90			29
Dunoon	0.0	0.0	10.0		29		59		268		127
Huonbrook	0.5	5.0	10		64		123		430		258
Lismore (Dawson St)	0.0	0.0	5.0		5.0		52		138		93
Lake Ainsworth	0.0	0.5	22		5.0		52		136	55
Ballina AP	0.0	1.2	5.4		5.0		55		149	55
Alstonville STP	0.0	0.2	14		23		68		260	113

Hans and the Big Wet Weekend

This is Hans, a good friend of our friend, Shane. Because Shane is living with us at the moment, Hans, who is visiting Australia from Norway, stayed with us over the weekend as well. And we're glad. He's a great guy and was lots of fun. And given how wet and wild the weekend was, we needed that fun. So soon after arriving, Hans was very keen to see the carpet python that picked off one of our girls a week or two ago, so here he is getting up close and personal with the carpet.

Quite a lovely shot of the python (Hans took all the pics on this and the following posting). I must see if I can coax it back out of the Chookery in the coming days so that the remaining chooks stand some chance of not ending up in its belly.

We had some lovely wine-time moments in the spa during the day, at dusk and in the evening.  It's a very relaxing thing to do.

 Over the weekend we copped 250mm and so the creek flooded across the bridge by Sunday evening. This is a rather beautiful photo Hans took, of the flooded creek at night.

Here we are, bright eyed and bushy tailed, enjoying brunch on the back deck while the rain, it continued to fall.

The Big Wet Part II

The lorikeets have discovered the pear tree now (just how do the birds and fruit bats know when trees are in flower or fruit) and we have been waking up to their bad tempered squabbling over the past couple of weeks. Last week I noticed a few lorikeets much smaller than usual perched high up in the mango tree and I did wonder and hope whether they might have been scaly-breasted lorikeets, which I hadn't seen here before. Sure enough, as we walked past the pear tree on Monday morning, there were a couple of gorgeous scaly-breasteds munching through the pears. Hans managed to capture this shot.

We walked down to the creek a few times over the weekend to check on how the flooding was going. This is Steve and I and our rainbow coloured umbrellas, in keeping with living in the Rainbow Region, of course.  Hans enjoyed the contrast of colour against the greyness of the days in his photos.

 Down by the creek with Bluey looking back. The creek rises much higher than this but you could still feel the might and strength as the water gushed down the creek and beyond its banks, taking with it huge logs and islands of plants.

 Monday was a fun day for us. We didn't cop the bad winds at all so the light to moderate rain just enhanced the day for us. We made chocolate chip cookies in the morning, watched a few episodes of the Catherine Tate Show, enjoyed some wine time in the hot tub and even played a couple of games of nude bocce. (yes there are photos, but no they will never appear on the blog I'm afraid).

And to top an excellent day off, Shane cooked baked chook (yes one of our roosters that he dispatched quickly and efficiently last week) and veges for dinner.  A couple of glasses of wine and yet more Catherine Tate.  A very good day!

Glen and Joel visit us

Even though we're coming into our fifth year up here, we still have friends who have yet to come visit, so it's always great fun when they do (and when other friends who visit regularly come up as well of course). Last week our friends Glen and Joel from Newcastle spent three nights with us. So I took a couple of days off work and we spent two excellent days showing the boys some of our fave spots in the Northern Rivers.

 So last Wednesday we first visited Nimbin, where the guys were keen to buy hemp and bamboo clothing before heading across to Protestors' Falls in the Nightcap National Park. The walk takes you through some lovely rainforest before leading to the waterfall, which was not so impressive because only a tickle of water was cascading over. But still beautiful.

 Glen and Joel - rather photogenic, don't you think?

 From the Falls we then drove down to Bangalow and then across to Byron. While we were still in The Channon, we spotted three camels, casually grazing a property. We'd seen them before and so we weren't so surprised, but it is still a pretty strange sight to behold. More bamboo and hemp clothing bought at Byron.

 Then on Thursday we walked the Barr Mountain Circuit Track in the Border Ranges National Park, which is an excellent walk and one which I've done probably half a dozen times now, although it was Steve's first go. We heard a male lyrebird calling, creating an amazing cacophony of bird sounds and calls, without seeing it.  But, much to our surprise we did see...

this guy, which is an immature wedge-tailed eagle, perched in a tree above the road as we were driving back out of the national park. It was still rainforest where we saw it, and it was happy enough to stay in the tree while we stopped and had a look.
Once out of the park, we lunched at Uki before spending some time at a rainforest nursery at Burringbah (with Joel buying several bush tucker trees and shrubs) and then down to Mullumbimby (where yet more bamboo and hemp clothing was purchased) and then on to Brunswick Heads for a swim.  The boys drove home to Newcastle on Friday morning.  It was a great few days.

Positive swamp wallaby sighting

Friday 11 January. 509pm. 32 degrees in kitchen, probably hotter outside

Adult Swamp wallaby slowly bounded across the boys' paddock close to the fence and headed down under the pine trees and into the longer grass on the other side of the fence.

I did sight two swampies the year before last in the same paddock but it was a flash-by sighting and I was never 100% sure.  But this was a definite.  You beauty!

Pre and Post NYE

 So, yes, full marks for guessing this is pre-NYE Tropical Fruits Party. Grant made these fabulous costumes for us (Steve fashioned his own) keeping with the Party's theme of Beyond Atlantis. So we were meant to look all marine-y. It was a great party, probably in excess of 5000 punters who were all intent on being happy. We pulled up stumps by 4am however and made it back home through a misty Rock Valley by 4.30.  And then slept!

Now this isn't actually New Year's Day but the day after. (You wouldn't have wanted to have seen us the previous day, not pretty). Anyway, the boys having a civilised brunch yesterday before Kelley and Grant drove back to Gold Coast airport later in the afternoon for their flight back home to Sydney. New Year's has become a bit of a Larnook tradition and we usually have close to a full house. Brilliant.

The Year So Far

 Today is the first day in a week or so where we haven't had friends staying. Our friends, Grant and Kelley (from Sydney) and Michael and Murray (from the Central Coast) arrived last week to bring in the new year with us. There was quite a bit of champagne drinking, great food eating (Kelley made a delicious risotto while Steve and I cooked up a Thai banquet on another night while Grant made a delicious caramelised onion and goat cheese tart, not to mention the perfectly marinated lamb cutlets that Murray did,....yes we ate well) and lots of laughs.

 There was also a bit of sewing as Grant and Steve set about creating costumes for us to wear at this year's Tropical Fruits NYE Party, the theme of which was Beyond Atlantis. It looks like a sweat shop a little, doesn't it, but rest assured the boys weren't chained to the sewing machines and overlockers for too much of the time.

 By Xmas Eve I was antsy for a bushwalk so Steve, Michael and Murray headed over to Nightcap National Park about 15 minutes north east of Nimbin to go for a walk. On the way up to the park, Michael spotted this very lovely and very yellow carpet python sunning itself on the edge of the road

Murray decided he wasn't quite up for the walk so he remained back at the start of the track while the rest of us did a walk to Mount Mathieson. Was a very nice walk, quite cool though for the part through the rainforest and we actually lost 5 degrees Celsius just in the drive up to the start of the walk from Nimbin. We managed to spot a yellow faced whip snake and a land mullet so was very enjoyable.