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.

Towards the end now

 The landscape for the final five kilometres or so is typically open pastures with small clumps of eucalypts or individual trees standing in the midst of grassland. However, the surrounding hills and ridges have a good forest cover.  I love the little oases that farm dams become - providing habitat for frogs and reptiles and an assortment of birds.  The trees cast welcome shade for the cattle.

 The influence of just a single tree is very obvious in this shot as the lush green grass grows under and around the base of this large fig. Rainwater is funnelled down the branches and trunk of the tree while rain also drips off the leaves, providing both additional moisture as well as shade for the grass below. It's also pretty obvious that cattle haven't been in this paddock for a while or that luck grass would be eaten down.

 Almost the entire length of the road has been unsealed and so the final few kilometres of sealed road is a welcome relief and provides a modicum of respite for my feet which have taken the brunt of the irregular and loose surfaces of the road up to now.  I rather unwisely wore anklet gym socks and ordinary flat soled shoes which in hindsight was not the best of decisions for a walk of this length.

 Oops, a little out of sequence, but we can live with that, can't we.  An old milestone now used, somewhat inelegantly, I think, as a perch for a letter box.  7 miles to Kyogle and 33 miles to M which I assume would be Murwillumbah (though I think it would be further than that, but maybe not).

 A chorus of bell birds tinting away accompanied me for the very last couple of kilometres. The thicker eucalyptus forest grew between the road and a creek, providing the kind of habitat that the birds enjoy. Unfortunately, bell birds are doing great damage to eucalpyt forests up this way and beyond.  They 'farm' lerps which are little animals that suck the sap out of the ecualypt and the birds then eat the sugary secretion that the lerps produce when they are annoyed by the birds. The bellbirds keep out other birds that also eat the lerps, resulting in too much lerp damage to the trees, and which can result in the death of large areas of forest.

And finally! The end is in sight. 17kms and 4 hours later I arrive where I had left my vehicle earlier in the morning.  I think 4 hours is a somewhat slow result, but the walk was a very relaxed one and I stopped many times to take photographs and enjoy the views, and my feet were quite sore during the last third of the walk due to inappropriate sock-ware.  Anyway, I'm very glad I did it, and I look forward to taking you along to my next long distance walk sometime soon.

Seven Years in the Northern Rivers

So ANZAC Day also commemorated my seventh year living up here in the Northern Rivers (Steve didn't move up here until six months later in October). It doesn't seem that long - but then again how long is seven years supposed to feel, I wonder.
I have been trying to remember what sort of things I wanted to do once I had moved up here. Big transition stuff, you know the thing. Become vegan or start running marathons. Bit about the only thing I can remember with any certainty was that I wanted to learn to swim properly. But alas, I've not done anything about that. I did go for a couple of runs with the local Hash House Harriers for a while when I first moved up here, and when I lived at my friend and colleague's lovingly renovated dairy bales at Pearce's Creek, near Bangalow, I did go on some very long walks every weekend. But that's about it, really.
Certainly, though, I have developed skills I didn't have before moving up here but most of these revolve around Larnook, so maybe I'll leave them for the 7 year anniversary of Maryville@Larnook in September/October.
But I don't have a 7 year itch. Loving living up here and will continue to do so.

Limits

Now that we have been living here for getting on to our seventh year (well in September), I thought I'd reflect on the kinds of ecological limits that influence the growth of the plants here at Larnook.  One of the most critical is the frost that we experience during June and July. Last year's frost was the harshest we've experienced here, although still not as bad as the 'black frost' that hit the area in 2007, the year before we moved up here, which bit so savagely even into the well established mango trees which sit on the highest part of the property.  But they were still pretty harsh, though, remarkably, we didn't actually lose many plants, but many suffered from burn. I really hadn't expected that we would experience frost living in the sub-tropics, but of course, we do get cold temperatures for a couple of months just before dawn, due to our position 50 or 60 kms from the coast. (Note to self: work out exactly the straight line distance from our place to the coast).
The second limit is rainfall, believe it or not. Once again, a bit of a surprise, but we seem to have quite dry winters and springs.  The period between June and October can be very dry, and if we don't keep the water up to many of the shrubs and fruit trees we have planted, they become very stressed. Indeed, as Liam would not-so-happily confirm, most of our fruit trees are doing below-par because we really don't water them anywhere near as often as they need to be. So, as I see things, frost and rainfall deficits leading to very dry soils, are the two most important environmental factors limiting what we plant and what thrives here at Larnook.

Keeping us poor on the land

Back when I was looking at properties to buy when I first moved up here in 2008, I recall a woman who lived next door to a property we were really interested in, saying, in an off-hand way, 'we love it hear, but it keeps us poor'.  Now, we are far from being poor, but living on a property, where you buy in mulch in the truck-load, does bring with it additional expenses, which does have an impact on the bottom line of the household budget.
This year seems to be a bit of a doozie so far.
First, the hot tub motor started to sound rather sick and rattly, so we had to buy a new motor and Steve installed this (having Steve as part of the household team does, however, save on any number of expenses, so there is a big savings there :-).  Unfortunately, the ozonator has also had the richard, though we are still able to manage without it, though I think we will be buying another sooner rather than later. Ozonator, that is, not a new hot tub.
Then, our friendly pest exterminator had to rid our house of termites, so that was an extra cost that we hadn't accounted for in this year's budget.
And then to top it off, we discovered to our horror that our solar panels were not feeding in the power that they had collected into the grid. We had a guy come out this week to check the inverter and sure enough, it has packed it in.  A little online investigation found that many, many customers whose solar system had come with that particular inverter, had also experienced the same problem, though it seems we have been lucky with the length of time ours did actually work.
Anyway, this isn't meant to be a whinge, just a little observation on the costs of living at Larnook.

Dinner Fun

After all the excitement of the Giant Pumpkin Competition (see below) we had a lovely dinner with Mel and EB, Julia and Andrew.  A great way to end a great day.