Vanuatu II

 The next morning at 7.15 I started my trek around the island.  I'd asked Anok if it were possible to walk around the island and he told me it could be done but I would need to leave early so I could walk at low tide. Much of the western edge of the island was beaches and easy to walk on but

 on the eastern side the beaches were few and far between and I had to clamber up and over these rocky headlands on about three or four occasions.  My shoes weren't the greatest for climbing over wet basalt boulders but I was determined to walk the island so when I came to each headland I assessed it for the best route and then made my way slowly up and around each one.  I was pleased with my problem solving abilities actually.  I was having my own little Vanuatu Survivor experience.

 Two of the villages are situated on the eastern side of the island and this one was idyllic. The houses were set amongst pandanus and palms on clean white sand.

 Of course one of the highlights was finding this banded sea snake on the sand amongst some boulders.  These are reasonably common but it was my first.  Actually no it was my second. I once found some kids on a beach in Bali who had caught one and had somehow manage to slide it inside a plastic soft drink container.

 People on islands such as this one actually experience climate change in a much more direct way than those of us in the West, who, by and large, still talk about it in more abstract terms.  The sea level had noticeably risen on this island and the times when they grow certain vegetables has changed.  Part of the sea off this island was protected in a marine park and a program was underway to 'plant' more corals that had been lost to bleaching.

 I returned to Efate and then on the next day I took this cruise on the yacht, Coongoola, to Moso Island, yet another of the islands just off Efate.  This was a great day and we visited a turtle hatchery before going around to the other side of the island

 where we disembarked the yacht and boated over to this stunning beach where we had a BBQ lunch. Two snorkelling trips were made from this beach.  They boated us about 10 minutes to a coral reef which was just absolutely stunning!  It was literally like floating over a coral garden.  The colours of the corals were stunning and were similar to the amazing corals off Pemuteran on the northern coast of Bali.  But not so many fish...still lots but not as many as Pemuteran.  This is the island where Survivor Vanuatu was filmed - all three or four versions: Americam, English and French versions.

 And now just a few random pics of Port Vila.  The first is part of the huge vegetable and fruit market in the centre of town that operates pretty much 24/7 six days a week.  The stalls are mainly staffed by women who come in from surrounding villages on the island to sell their surplus. They sleep under the tables at night.

 This is Bosco, the guide who took me and three others on an 'ecotour' of some villages.  He was excellent - very good communicator with a great sense of humour.  He carried his bush knife (machete) with him of course.

 I was surprised to learn that Chinese immigration had taken place over the past few decades.  The Chinese own and run many if not most of the retail shops in Port Vila and according to the local ni-Van people, they tend to keep to themselves and not integrate into the community.

The Secret Garden contained lots of local custom stories including this one...not much more to be said, really......

Vanuatu I

 My little trip to Vanuatu was meant to be a short relaxing holiday in tropical weather but alas I hadn't done enough research - August is the coolest time of year with max temps averaging around 24-25.  Which is still pleasant of course but I had been hoping for high 20s/low 30s.  This shot is taken on Pele Island, a small island off the northern tip of Efate, which is the island I holidayed on but I stayed on Pele for one night.  The weather over that weekend and the Monday was the best of the 6 days - warmer temperatures and mostly blue skies.  I'll come to Pele a bit later.

Getting to Vanuatu was somewhat problematic.  The captain made two attempts at landing but aborted both (due to low cloud and low levels of visibility) and then told us he would have to fly to Fiji and then sort things out from there. The flight time to Nadi airport was 90 minutes.  Customs guys came on board shortly after we landed and gave the cabin a good spraying and then we sat for three hours while the captain tried to negotiate with Port Vila airport to return to land.  We were told that Vila had a 6.00pm curfew and so special dispensation would be needed for us to land.  Eventually he gave us the bad news that not only could we not return to Port Vila but because of a lack of accommodation, we were not able to overnight in Fiji, meaning we would have to fly back to Brisbane, which was another four hour flight.

So after spending 11 hours in a plane we ended up back where we began.  We weren't a bunch of happy campers, I can tell you.  While Virgin did put us up at a 4.5 star hotel and gave us a meal voucher to spend at the hotel, by the time we got there (having endured waits to (i) get our luggage (ii) go through immigration (iii) get sorted at the airport in regards to the hotel (iv) drive back into Brisbane city to the hotel and (v) check in, it was well after 10pm, so all the cafes and restaurants at the hotel were closed and the room service menu was an 'after 10' menu, meaning I had a toasted sandwich and a beer.  The other thing that annoyed us was that we weren't given any complimentary anything on board the flight from Fiji to Brisbane....so if you wanted anything (such as a pie or a drink) you had to pay for it.  Not happy, Jan.

 Anyway, the 8.30am flight managed to land in Port Vila, even though the weather conditions looked remarkably similar to those of the day before, so many of us weren't convinced that we would actually land.  I stayed in a hotel called The Melanesian, which was very well located, being about a 5 minute stroll into the main street of Vila.  If I was to stay on Efate again, I would stay at a resort, I think, so I could more easily access beaches and the water.

 The main street of Port Vila still showed evidence of Cyclone Pam's ferocity with this building behind the original parliament house (the very small building with the mural) abandoned because of damage (it had been the location of the Department of Finance and Treasury).  Most of the buildings along the main drag were one, two or three storeys high.  The highest building was a hotel.  I felt very safe at all times.  the roads are incredibly pot holed though, as you can imagine, with the kind of weather that the town has to deal with.

 Without a car, you are pretty much dependent on commercial tour companies to take you to the attractions.  I did a couple of half day tours including this one to Mele Cascades - don't you think it looks a little like Gandalf the wizard from Harry Potter?

 The tour also took in the Secret Gardens, which was an interesting guided interpretive tour that is situated on a tropical plant nursery.  In addition to the many many interpretive signs, there are also a number of enclosures with local animal species including this Pacific boa, one of only two snakes on the island.  I'd kind of forgotten my island biogeography theory which tells you that oceanic islands formed out of coral atolls or volcanoes and far from larger land masses are going to be fairly low in terrestrial animal species.  So, yeah, not much in the way of land animals on the many Vanuatu islands.

 One of the highlights was to see this amazing fire show at a place called the Beach Bar, about 20 minutes out of town.  The group of fire workers performed to a range of contemporary western music, so it was good to see they weren't 'locked into' performing only so-called traditional forms of dance.  They were all in their late teens/early 20s and from local villages.

 As I said, I made it across to Pele Island where I spent one night and a couple of days. Getting there involved a taxi drive of about an hour to a small jetty and a 15 minute boat trip.  There's about 400 people who live on the island, across four villages and a few people have built some very low key 'bungalows' right on the beach.  I was the only white fella on the island during the time I was there.  It was fantastic.

 I spent much of the time reading and relaxing and eating the scrum my food that Anoch's wife, Joanna, prepared for me. I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to snorkel but the water was just too choppy to be enjoyable.

 This is my little beach shack.  The toilet and shower were in a separate out house where I am standing to take this picture. No electricity of course but I had a little light by which I could continue reading.  But I literally fell asleep by about 8.30/9.00pm.

Th

 Some of the beach had the most beautiful pink tinge to it which was caused by pink quartz amongst the sand.  I'm looking out towards another island about 10 minutes north of my bungalow.

And a rather lovely sunset to end a rather perfect day.

Larnook in August

Sunday has failed miserably to match the sunshine and warmth of yesterday. One of those days when it is cooler inside the house than outside.  Which is where I was for much of the morning. Starting with taking advantage of Julia having stayed over after dinner and a movie, to help us move the boys from the front paddock into the Billen Cliffs paddock. Where the grass is greener. And longer. They were largely well behaved and if they hadn't been, Bluey would have kept them in line. Then it was mowing down by the creek. Accomplished without too much drama. Though I need to take the brush cutter for a visit down there sometime in the next month or so.  Weeds. Lantana. Vines. Yuck. Chooka now lives by himself.  The remaining two girls died a few weeks ago. We won't be getting any more hens. Though I hanker after some cute little bantams. But not yet. It's not time. So we let Chooka wander around during the day. He is mostly OK. But there is the occasional over-enthusiastic scratching out of mulch or soil around a shrub or tree.  But he is happy. No sign yet of any reptilian activity. Other than the carpet that took to sunning itself out from the pine tree garden.  My captive blue tongues are yet to show signs of courtship. Or fighting. They give each other a hiding during courtship time. No HelpXers for quite some time and none on the horizon. Hopefully we shall host some soon. There is lots to do. To get the place looking its best for spring. We are still waiting on a visit from the self-proclaimed 'Tank Doctor'. Yes, we have a sick tank. Water tank that is. And I guess it's injured rather than sick. It has a hole.  We no longer have any water in it. Luckily we have another tank filled with the bore. After a lot of doctoring, Steve and Julia managed to re-shunt the water pipes and rejigged the pumps so that the bore water now services all our aquatic needs. For the time being anyway. Until the tank doctor gets here.

My little road trip

One of the difficulties about living in a place that is close-to-paradise is that residing there makes you reluctant to travel elsewhere.  Especially so since we both travel every day for work. So by the time Friday rolls around         neither of us really wants to spend much time in the car over the weekend. However, while Steve has been in Newcastle this weekend, consumed entirely with costuming Mary Poppins, I decided to take a week's leave. And I decided that I would take myself off on a little road trip to places I'd not been to before but they had to be within a few hours from home. Should I go coastal, hugging the coastline northwards to the Sunshine Coast and perhaps Gympie, or perhaps west to Boggabilla and Goondawindi?  The weather wasn't looking all tha promising regardless of where I went so I decided I would head up to Warwick and on to Toowoomba in the Darling Downs.  I'd never been to either place and I'd add another layer to the trip by making it a second hand bookshop crawl.

So, I packed the car with the little I needed and headed off into a sunny morning through Kyogle and then up the Summerland Way through the little villages of Old Grevillea and Grevillea and eventually on to Woodenbong, which is about an hour from Larnook.

Heading towards Woodenbong, the landscape is dominated by  the oddly shaped Mt Lindesay, which rises up somewhat menacingly from somewhere over the border in Queensland. It was a perfect day - virtually no traffic on the roads, a big blue never-ending sky and sunshine bathing everything in a golden wash.

The first big stop was the town of Warwick, perched on the Condamine River.  Former QLD premier, Annna Bligh, was born in Warwick, although I discovered this fact not in the town itself, but on Wikipedia, I'm afraid.  The town is very attractive with some lovely sandstone public buildings such as the post office and town hall.

I parked out in front of a St Vinnie's store and had an unsuccessful browse through their books before finding the Little Shop of Books second hand bookshop. It's inventory was mostly paperback novels and I only managed a book on the wigmen of PNG.  I do collect books on PNG so it was a good find and a good buy.  I pushed northward for another 45 minutes or so until I reached the very fine city of Toowoomba.

Again, many fine public buildings in this city including this fabulous deco theatre, the Empire. But alas, I visited the site of seven bookshops, seeking out those second hand treasures but alas, most had closed down. The two that were open were Christian bookshops.  In hindsight, apart from ringing each of the shops beforehand, I also should have spent more time at the charity shops (well in fact, any time at the charity shops would have been good).  I overnighted at the Great Divide motel outside of which grew this fabulous bottle tree

The next morning, after a tasty smashed avocado on toasted turkish bread for breakfast, but alas, no Italian dark chocolate hot chocolate because the fabulous Cioccolato, where I had enjoyed this sensational drink the day before, did not open until 11.  I had to push on.  I had already decided by this stage to extend the road trip by another night and my goals today were to visit the Western Darling Downs Zoo and then head on down to the wine growing township of Stanthorpe.

The Zoo is a privately owned attraction which held some interesting animals such as tapir, serval, white lions and a rather lovely anaconda.  The landscape in which the zoo is set is quite dry and it reminded me of Western Plains Zoo - but without the moats. The animals all looked in good shape.

Stopping briefly in Warwick again, where I had a pretty revolting fish and chips, I headed down to Stanthorpe, staying in the aptly named Apple and Grape Motel - apples and grapes being among the (many) forms of agricultural produce grown in the district.

Learning from my past experiences at Toowoomba, I mad emu way to the Salvo's store in the centre of the main street (which itself was a lovely well kept main street with three beautiful old pubs with big verandahs and wrought ironery). I managed to find a couple of books here that I was happy to buy. Just before sunset I made a dash up to a lookout that was situated above the town and watched the sun lazily sink below the horizon.

After an enjoyable chicken parmigiana washed down with a couple of glasses of local chardonnay, I meandered back to my very 70s motel room where I finished reading the novel, Animal People by Charlotte Wood. Apart from being a reflection on human-animal relationships, the novel takes place over the course of just one day in the lead character, Stephen.

Friday morning was quite chilly, the car thermometer reckoned it was 1 degree when I pulled out of the motel at 8.00am, but I'm not convinced it was that cold.  I stopped about 20 minutes later at Ballandean bakery where I bought a pie to have for breakfast and a sandwich to have for lunch which would be taken in Giraween National Park, the Queensland 'twin' to Bald Rock National Park.

I arrived at the park just before 9.00am to be greeted by a mob of grey kangaroos grazing peacefully on the grass in the picnic area car park.

I was to see other greys as I walked along the network of walking tracks which took me to a number of stunningly beautiful places such as the junction pool

and the Pyramid

on the summit of which is perched a number of these huge granite tors.  I wonder when this one will break free from its 'moorings' and hurtle hundreds of metres below. The last few hundred metres of the ascent requires you to walk up a granite slope which I reckon was close to 40 degrees. I was wearing book shop searching shoes rather than bushwalking shoes, so the climb was a little tricky at times. The view though was well worth the struggle.

I left the park just after 1.00 and drove the 20 or so kilometres into Tenterfield, where I was hoping I would find two second hand bookshops.  Well at least that's what I hoped. Of course neither of which was still operating, but I did find the Salvos and bought just one book there - for Stevie actually, not for me.  However, there was the most fabulous antique shop that I had a look at and bought a lovely Chinese ginger bowl.  The lady who served me suggested the second hand shop at the other end of town as somewhere she thought may have some books for sale.  Sure enough I struck gold.  Lots of books here and I managed to buy $40.00 worth.  No real 'finds' of course, but still worth having in my collection.

I headed home following the road past the Bald Rock National Park and its concern for lyrebirds which get too close to the road

and I also stopped briefly at a site I had driven past many times but had never stopped to check out, Thunderbolt's Hideout.  A short walking track meandered through ferny glades to a granite outcrop containing a number of overhangs and deep crevices

where the bushranger, Thunderbolt, holed up, on occasions.  The most spectacular of these is a low 'cave' under  huge granite boulder that could easily fit fifteen or twenty people, and I wondered who else other than Thunderbolt would have sheltered here over thousands of years. I had an uneventful trip home (apart from sighting a road killed red bellied black snake outside Woodenbong, which I thought a bit unusual for that time of the year) and made it back home just after 5.00pm.

So, although the trip wasn't a success, second hand book-wise, it was a fabulous tonic to get me out discovering new places, listening to great music in the car and experiencing some sense of freedom - to get me outside of myself, even if only for a short time.  I can't wait to take Steve and our friends up to show them these places in the future.

My bad

Gee, I just had a look at the blog and realised that I hadn't posted anything since May.  I had thought I had posted in June at least.  What can I say?  Probably not much, but I will post some bloggings a little later this evening.  I promise.

Going for a big walk

 I'd been waiting for the perfect morning to do this walk and last Sunday morning proved to be that day. With the cooperation of Steve who drove down to the end of the walk in one car, and me in the other, so I could leave one car at the end to come home in, I set off at the intersection of Sargents Road with Kyogle Road, about 8 minutes from our place. We had driven the entire length before several times, and my guess was that it was somewhere between 15 and 20kms long.

This is a photo essay over three postings of the walk.  It filled me with so much pleasure and joy and I intend to walk a number of these within the Rock Valley and Cawongla areas over the coming months. I sill share them with you through the blog.

 Not far into the walk and I get to admire this fabulous pole house which has spectacular views towards Blue Knob and Wollumbin. If we ever win lotto and this property becomes available we'll buy it and rent it out as a holiday rental (and stay there sometimes ourselves).

 Wonderful views over towards the Billen Cliffs from a westerly aspect. Our place is in the far right quarter of the pic, somewhere

 also looking back down Rock Valley to the right of the cliffs, which we drive each day we motor on down to work.

 Remnants of the forests that once covered the landscape still exist: this a very large brush box

 After about five kilometres the road faces more of a northwesterly aspect and great fields of green and golden grass dominate, with forested mountain ranges in the background, creating a lush and beautiful landscape.  The volcanic plugs and spires of several Queensland mountains can be seen in the distance. If taipans existed in the northern rivers region this is the kind of place they might like.

 Another remnant of times past - a solitary hoop pine.

 The morning was so sunny and still.  I began the walk at about 9am and the air was still cool. But after an hour of walking my jumper came off and I was very glad I had taken a hat with me. This shot is looking down towards Kyogle.

And another view towards the fascinating and spectacularly rugged ranges just over the border into Queensland.

the middle....

 About a third to maybe half way through the way the road changes name: from Sargents to Homeleigh Road.  The road in its entirety actually sweeps around Mt Homeleigh, first giving views from the east and soon from the west.

 I've long loved walking on country roads - and taking photos of them. I love the way they disappear into the distance, I love the gentle curves or the straight lines and I love the way light and shade play out on their surface. Of course I also love the thrill of discovering a lizard or snake sunning themselves along their edges as well.

 Political struggles are inscribed in the landscape in various ways - some subtle, some very obvious. Landowners in the Northern Rivers region have been determined to keep the region free of coal oil gas mining and many properties, ours included, have the 'Lock the Gate' signs defiantly attached to their gates.

 Struggles of a different kind are also evident on the walk. I am very alarmed by the growth of all kinds of foreign creepers and vines which are literally smothering native plants like this grass tree or Xanthorhea. I would think that unless someone intervenes (at a system level), many of these ancient plants will die.

 A beautiful tree

 The views along the road have been spectacular.  I am looking out to the north west here, into Queensland.

 Cattle and horses cast me curious looks as I walked past paddocks and a dog threatened to skirmish with me at one house, but these were my favourites.  A small herd of alpacas.  I still haven't given up having some of these share Maryville@Larnook at some stage.  They are just so cute.

At least this grove of grass trees was not being smothered by the nasty vines and creepers.  They looked so good.  These long lived plants that are probably older than the white occupation of the country.