Hide and Seek with a Bearded Dragon

He was a miniature dinosaur of a lizard, frozen in the middle of the road into the shape of a grey tree branch with legs. I slowed the deadly wildlife crusher that is my station wagon and pulled over to the side of the road. I grabbed for my camera under the seat as he crossed in a leisurely fashion to the relative safety of the road verge.

As I exited the car he changed tactics and ran over to a nearby tree. It sat at the base watching with its head at a strange angle as I got one quick photo and then obviously deciding I was not going away, it climbed the tree.

Not on my side. And not very far up. 

Oh no. It quickly ran around the tree and climbed up the back. Naturally I moved to the side to get a better photo. Then he did the strangest thing. He moved again to be behind the tree from me.

For several minutes we played hide and seek as I moved to one side and he moved away from me so all I saw were four little sets of toes on my side.He seemed more scared of the camera than of me or my car.

So, in the end all I got was this “spot the bearded tree dragon” “where’s wally” type of photo. He looks like a bump on a log.

It is the small moments like these that make every day travelling in Australia special.

I love the wildlife here. 

Up Close and Personal with the Australian Bush

I grew up in New Zealand so the kangaroos of my childhood were two dimensional cartoon characters that wore boxing gloves and striped shorts.

Today I saw two of the real kind in a nearby bush. Long, lean, and grey, they took off so quickly, I didn't get a photo. 

I love Australian animals but today I had a better look at some of the smaller things. The miniature yellow and black striped helicopter bug with pulsating blurs for wings and the crucifix spider with its shadow twin.

Thousands of spider webs from the traditional with a central twist

to some that were a sort of multi-level bundt pan shape. 

These scrolls of falling parchment, bleed from each limb as if they have been attacked by a huge potato peeler, but they fall naturally from a paper-bark tree.

.

And the squiggly bark tree lives up to its name.

I wrote about the blackboys recently. They are in full regalia with spears held high. 

And they look even better up close.

I “mapped my walk” with my phone app, and it was a very slow few kilometres but so totally worth it. After all you have to stop and smell the roses; even when those roses are tiny white start flowers or even shreds of curled up paper.

It’s all good.

Bush Walking with Blackboys and Goannas

There are koalas in the trees and kangaroos hiding somewhere in the tall undergrowth, but I have no chance of seeing either because my eyes are firmly on the ground scanning ahead for snakes.

It has been raining and the grassy ground cover is tall and bushy. It could hide anything.

I pick up a stick that would give me precious moments of protection if I see a snake and then get attacked by an army of ants that have been using it as a super highway. I throw it back and take my chances with the unseen snake population. They can probably hear my big boots hit the ground and are slithering away from me as fast as they can.

This is the Freshwater forest very close to my home and as Australian forests go, it is not particularly memorable. It is mostly scrubby gum trees and it does not have great walking tracks, boasting only a rough dirt track dug in by tractor that becomes a muddy obstacle course of puddles after rain. I have never seen any of the reported eighteen koalas that live here, and only seen three kangaroos in a whole year.

What it does have is hundreds, or perhaps thousands of the curiously named Blackboys. They are short charcoal-black tree stumps topped with a mop of bushy green tendril hair and, depending on the time of year, a tall spike on top. Their real name is xanthorroea but they are also known as grass trees.

These plants love a good fire and thrive when burned regularly. The council obliges by setting fire to the forest every year and letting it burn through. It helps the forest regenerate and clears out the tall dry grass and most of the fallen branches. If there is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire, it will not be as dangerous because the most scrub most likely to catch fire by a stray cigarette butt or lightning spark, is already gone.

A myriad of birds live in this forest and return after the annual burn off. I have seen pink and grey galahs, silver throated kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets, lyrical magpies, yellow crested cockatoos, black and white butcher birds and many more. They are hard to see in the forest but they fly across my home and often stop to visit.

There are also snakes that survive this clean out as well as goannas and other lizards. I know because I have had a snake cross the great tarmac divide and come into my house. I have also had several species of lizard in my pool area. The koalas have visited our trees and we have holes in our grass that suggest bandicoots make midnight visits. One thing I had not seen, until today, was a goanna.

I have wanted to see a goanna ever since my husband told me he used to have one living near his letterbox. Today, there is a speckled goanna in the rainforest trees at the end of my garden.

Yet another Aussie wildlife dream has been fulfilled. Now I wonder what can possibly be next. I wouldn’t mind a visit from a frill-necked and gangly-legged water dragon, or maybe a small mob of kangaroos. When I mention this to my husband he insists we might see and elephant cross our lawn one day. Who am I to argue?

Hunting for Crocodile Steaks and Emu Fillets.

My son was visiting from New Zealand and I had promised him some uniquely Australian food. We had done some research and made bookings at the Tukka Restaurant in Brisbane City.

He was looking forward to vanilla cured crocodile with a nectarine and strawberry salad, and lemon myrtle dressing. I had my heart set on emu fillet, with celeriac remoulade and a raspberry and liquorice compote. I love liquorice and who serves it with meat? I had to see.

These will become handbags. Are they also destined to be dinner?

The GPS had been playing up all day but as we entered the city it failed completely for long minutes at a time. I headed in what I hoped was the right direction, watching the GPS as it locked in and out of our location. We parked in an unfamiliar part of town just as it turned five pm.

An hour later, we were still walking the winter dark streets looking for our restaurant.

We had started walking in what the GPS said was the right direction. The road disappeared into a huge busy intersection spanning more than two streets and then re-emerged as a narrow street on the other side of a large grassy park.

Negotiating the busy streets meant crossing up to five lanes of road, some of which did not have cross-walks. Impatient drivers heading home after a long day at work made it risky.

On the other side, the street numbers were too high but we walked further down, mostly because I could see the lights of the nearby Storey Bridge glowing prettily. I really hoped the restaurant would be set under it with magic views of the river.

It wasn’t looking good. I checked the GPS again.

If I went by the street address, it should have been in the triangular shaped leafy park between the adjacent streets. I had seen a picture of the building on the Internet. It was a tall white building with a large obvious sign. I ruled out the possibility of it being underground, and wondered what made it so difficult to see.

To make things even more complicated, we looked over a barrier next to the footpath and there was a lower level. That too seemed to head off in the wrong direction.

In frustration, I called the restaurant and a staff member told us it was right across from the Suncorp Bank. I turned to the GPS again and it said there was one just five hundred metres away. We had wandered quite far from where the GPS had originally directed us so we wandered back and found ourselves outside a huge, curved, multi-storied office building topped by a Suncorp sign.

Ten minutes later we had done a circumnavigation of the building and were still lost.

After over an hour of criss-crossing the busy streets, we gave up and went to dinner at a local Chinese, vegetarian, sushi, and noodle restaurant where we ordered a stir-fry and soup. To spice things up, I ordered canned drinks in guava, pomegranate, and lychee.

I called the restaurant with the last eight per cent of battery life on my now ailing GPS enabled phone and apologised. He asked where I was then said “Who told you that address?”

It seems we were in Boundary Road and we should have been in Boundary Street. That certainly explained a few things.

The next day I apologised again to my son and thanked him for his patience. He said it was okay. “It will make a good story” he said.

I can hear the laughter now as he tells his brothers how mum has really lost her marbles. I only hope he goes easy on words like “senility,” “Alzheimer’s” and “Is it too soon to put her in a home?”

Fish in the Bush?

As I walked down the sandy path, a black lizard slithered into the spiked grass and under the leaves. Birds flew between the canopies of nearby trees and called out in musical tones. The huge jagged gashes of tree branches torn from their trunks suggested a recent storm had damaged the area.

Beneath one of the shattered trees, was a large square concrete tub on legs, split into two pieces. More concrete shapes hulked nearby and a metal rail surrounded it all.

A sign told me what I wanted to know. Fifty years ago it was an aquarium.

The concrete tanks used to have glass fronts and they held seawater piped in from the local bay. Wooden huts sheltered the tanks from the sometimes fierce sun and tidy paths led from one building to another.

In 1962, Bill Stewart obviously thought it was an attraction that Bribie Island needed. The government was offering incentives to local businesses in anticipation of the new bridge to be built the next year. He decided to set up the aquarium using the latest technology from a Sydney based research group.

Bill collected the fish himself. The sign says he spent all his time diving for fish to fill the tanks. Perhaps he should have spent more time on marketing and promotion. His aquarium closed less than a year after it opened and has sat quietly disintegrating ever since.

Fifty years later, people like me occasionally come to gawk. It is not Macchu Picchu but I like it all the same. It is a charming ruin of broken concrete, squares, and chunks, collapsed into messy piles. It tells a story of creativity unrewarded and hopes dashed. It is not that old, but it is history, and unlike the more popular South American ruins, I can have it all to myself. There are no crowds here.

I followed the track around to another ruin looking much like the first and then past it through a strangely quiet section of closed in forest.

It just needed a low grey mist swirling across the ground to make it the stuff of horror movies. Instead the sun spread heat and light across the tops of the remaining trees, where it filtered down into quite an acceptable morning walk.

After the second structure, the path continued on to grassy sand dunes and then a deserted stretch of beach, but I didn’t go that far. I was in unsuitable shoes and an orange boat racing across the near horizon felt like an intrusion into my peace. In any case the ruins were more interesting.

I love something unusual and unexpected. A dilapidated aquarium in a remote piece of bush is certainly that. Add to that an island setting, and one that, thanks to the bridge built in 1963, I can drive to, and I am very happy indeed.

I was surprised that there was nothing to advertise the spot until I reached it. The road was unsealed and the car park was churned up with mud. Further back along the road there was another car park, and as I left I noticed there were two dogs and their owners starting off for walks of a second track.

I thought it odd, given that there were at least three signs requesting no dogs be walked in the area.

I wondered if they had plans to disregard the other prominent signs too. Signs that said “No Nude bathing.”

I decided it was time I left.

Stained Glass Bugs

I had been working hard delivering pamphlets on my motorbike all morning and I was tired and hot. I stopped by the seaside for a break. The sky was briliant blue, the sea sparkled and there were flowers still on the poinciana trees, but the brightest thing of all was the tiniest.

The first one I saw was electric blue and if it is not called the“Stained Glass Bug” then it should be. It crawled along the trunk of a tree near me. I took lots of photos and then I sat on a bench by the sea to eat my lunch.
I caught a flash of colour from the corner of my eye and found that it had followed me. Even more surprising was that two others had joined us, one orange and one yellow.

Insects love me and I am often covered in enough mossie bites to look like a well pinned voodoo doll. This time I was covered in enough extra strength insect repellant to discourage a full sized rhino, but somehow the bugs found me anyway.

Every day I find new things to amaze. If you know what they are called, please share. It is the first time I have seen these, and I hope not the last.

Of Castle Doors and Kangaroo Letterboxes

Let me set a scene for you.

It is a peaceful leafy Brisbane neighbourhood on a quiet weekday morning. The morning sun shines through the orange Poinciana trees, and the frangipanis are still pretty, even though the paths beneath them are littered with their fallen flowers.

Into this beauty and stillness I arrive on a little red Honda postie motorbike that sounds like an overgrown lawnmower with undertones of whipper-snipper. When I rev the engine in first gear, it sounds like there is a posse of speedway bikes racing in the distance.

My job is to deliver a single black and white pamphlet advertising tree cutting and stump removal, to every letterbox in Brisbane. I have started here in Redcliffe precisely because there are plenty of trees here and perhaps someone will need the service of the landscape company that employ me.

I have a postie bike with a plastic basket zip tied to the front, and a heavy wooden box held onto the back with three wood screws that let it bounce up and down on uneven ground.

I like to think that everyone is up and buttering their breakfast toast as they wonder why the mailperson came early today and I refuse to worry about anyone that might be having a lie in. The Queensland sun has been up since four thirty and this is the best part of the day.

It doesn’t sound like the world’s most desirable vocation but it is the job of my dreams. I get to ride a motorbike all over Brisbane and see different places every day. I set my own hours, plan my own routes, and get paid from the time I leave home until I return. It is so flexible that I can spend more time at home when Phil is here and do more work when he is away. I get lots of thinking time to plan my writing and I am not micro-managed.

This last is important to me because I have had some disappointing bosses. I used to be a middle level manager and managed up to one hundred and twenty people. I loved the managing part, but hated being managed.

One manager threw tantrums and tried to make me write up all my processes before I left because she really did not know how to do her job. Another claimed my work as her own and her failures were sometimes attributed to me.

In contrast there is nothing to think about in my new job except, where is the next letterbox and does it accept ‘junk mail.’ And of course, what will I discover next?

So far I have seen an ordinary house with a castle door, a concrete Viking frolicking with a concrete maiden, yards populated with gnomes, elves, and other whimsical features, and of course lots of funky letterboxes.

This is another wonderful way to explore Australia; one house at a time.

A Gecko in the Bathroom

Just like most people, I prefer to shower alone, but since moving into our new house, it has not been just a matter of walking into the bathroom on my own.

Just a few days after we moved in, I found a large spider in the bathroom and began squealing like a little girl. Luckily my husband was home to rescue me.

Since that first spider, I always check the room before I undress.

Over the last few months, I have found two more large black hairy spiders, two small speedy spiders, and several bugs. They all got gently relocated except for the one that got away. One of the biggest ones disappeared into the shower frame and never reappeared.

It was bad enough knowing it was there, but then the other day I walked into the bathroom and found something else I didn’t expect or want.

A small grey gecko clung on to the sides of the bath, looking for all the world like a rubber parody of a gecko. Its little black eyes looked like little beads stuck onto its head and its light colourless skin looked stretchy and artificial.

Unluckily it ran much faster than a rubber toy. Luckily I have had lots of practice with a plastic bowl and paper lid. He got hunted down and turfed out after a few minutes of clumsy handwork with my plastic bowl, and a few more minutes of admiring him in his confined space.

If he had turned up a few months earlier, I might have been kinder and placed him gently under one of the bushes that edge our property. After visits from numerous spiders, ants, mosquitos, a snake, and a frog, I was not so patient. The poor thing got thrown from the balcony into the nearest plant, along with a lecture on the inadvisability of coming inside the house again.

I like geckos in principle and have one on my house entrance

but I don't really want them up close and personal.

I thought that was it, but there was another surprise in store.

I went into my office to do some work on my computer and a small insect landed on my desk.

It looked like an ant with wings. It turned out was an ant with wings, and, it was not alone. Looking up I saw its whole extended family swarming around the light bulb on the wall.

Thank goodness for fly spray. And thank goodness for vacuum cleaners and dustpans.

That is how I learned that when some ants want to move to a new nest, they grow wings and follow the queen as she searches for a new spot. I am grateful they were attracted to the light or I might not have found them until they had set up a new nest under my bed.

It might be time to give up the dream of an organic home and buy myself an industrial strength fly spray dispenser.

A Lizard in my Pool

There seems to be a theme developing on the blog. I have had recent close encounters with koalas, and spiders, and even a snake in my living room. There is interesting wildlife popping by to visit daily. Luckily for me, the latest one did not come any closer than the pool in my garden.

Before I go on I need to explain that our pool was designed to be a swimming pool, but the previous owner neglected it for so long, that now it is a mass of pondweed, coffee coloured water, and insect larvae.

One day we will pump it out, disinfect it, and make it all sparkling new again so we can use it for its intended purpose. In the meantime, I love watching the birds skimming the surface for insects, and enjoy seeing the ducks treating it like their own personal hotel spa pool.

And now there is another reason to love having my own personal wildlife pond; a lizard has come by for a visit.

It seemed happy enough, sitting in our waste outlet, but it occurred to me that it might be stuck. It might not be able to climb the slick fibreglass pool walls and leave.

The next day I watched it swim at the edge of the pool and then reach out ineffectively to the water outlet, little hand flailing. As I watched he began to sink. His head stayed above water for a bit watching us with beady eyes, and then his whole body sank into the depths of the murky pool.

I called my husband over for advice.

Neither of us knows much about the lizard but we decided to play it safe.

We carefully manoeuvred the lizard onto a leaf rake and deposited it under some shady bushes, where it stayed motionless, and almost invisible among the twigs, until we left.

I am not sure if we saved the life of the lizard, or merely interrupted his morning swim. All I know is that if he was playing dead, he deserves an Oscar.

Just in case it happens again, I am going to put a knotted rope into the pool. The next lizard, goanna, snake, or skinny koala that gets through the fence into the pool will be able to find its own way out.

Is that A Frog Upstairs?

A while ago, a carpet snake turned up in my living room. A few weeks before that, I had two koalas in the trees outside my door.

I thought I had had my share of ‘Crocodile Dundee’ type adventures. Then the other night I came home to find a frog in my house. I wonder what will be next. A kangaroo? A pelican?

It is all seeming a little unlikely. I knew there was lots of local wildlife, I just had no idea that it would all want to come into my home.
I had just arrived home and it was a little dark. I walked upstairs, turned on the light, and the bouncy little grey thing hopped across the carpet looking for somewhere to hide. Luckily we still have no furniture in most of the upstairs rooms and he was easily cornered and taken outside by my intrepid Aussie boyfriend who is now my husband and wildlife wrestler.

I spent the next three minutes checking the house for frog sized cracks, as my husband vainly tried to reassure me that the frog came in through the door. Since the snake incident, I have always made sure the door was closed firmly. Perhaps my husband left the door open, or maybe it came in behind us as we arrived. I worry that if the frog got in then the snake might return. Perhaps he will hear about the frog and come back inside looking for a little grey snack.

Only a few days ago, after finding the third spider in a week, I waged war on all the bugs and spread a three month insect killer all along the skirting boards and ceiling beams. Obviously no one told the frog and he assumed we still had froggy treats on tap.

It reminds me of the children’s story about an old lady that swallowed a fly, and then swallowed a bird to eat the spider, a cat to eat the bird, a dog to chase the cat, a cow to scare the dog, and so on.

Perhaps one day we will be visited by a four foot goanna. They are not common here, but Phil assures me they exist. If there are any within a fifty mile radius, then I am sure one will turn up here eventually.

Perhaps I should invite it in. A goanna in the house would be too big to sneak up on me and might keep the house snake free. It’s worth a thought.

Of big things like ... Yetis?

 One of the things I love about this part of Australia is that everything is so big. Wonderful things, like large colourful birds, fish that fishermen can write home about, and kangaroos and wallabies that look to me like a kind of large rodent.

There are also annoying things like the bulbous, fat, and persistent flies. The third time I whack my arm and miss them, I remember they won’t be put off by a loud noise or a simple wave of the hand, no matter how “karate kid” fast.

Other insects are also large and sometimes come with teeth and fangs. I have come up close and personal with giant cockroaches, and furry black spiders of joke shop proportions. I have even had a snake enter my house and curl up to sleep in my living room.

So many things have been a surprise, and some are just plain mysterious.

Today I attempted to remove some of the garden weeds. I have been wrestling with an infestation of “Mother-in-Laws tongue. A blade shaped leaf that grows up to four feet high and has spread to plague proportions along our fence.

It fights back.

As I grab one end and pull it out, the other swings around and slaps me on the face, or tangles in my legs and tries to trip me up. Sometimes it succeeds.

Next to the aggressive weeds, there is also a gorgeous large flower that has grown up all on its own. It sprouted from a forgotten and sadly neglected pot in the overgrowth of the sadly neglected garden borders.

That is a big pot and those flowers are almost six inches across.

In Far North Queensland I watched an enormous cassowary cross the road.

Other large things are not as easy to identify. A while ago, I looked out my window and saw what looked like a large hare. It was three times the size of anything I had seen in my whole life. Of course the photo is blurry like the pictures of the loch ness monster or the yeti.

 

As a voracious reader of one too many Readers Digest ‘survival under wildlife attack’ stories, I am understandably nervous about a four foot high rabbit or a haystack of a bird with barbed wire feet.

Are these just bad photos, or the beginning of a new legend? You decide.

A Snake in my Living Room

The other day I was relaxing in my new comfortable easy chair and watching a little daytime TV when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. When I looked down, I found I had been joined by a six foot long python.

The only reason I didn’t jump out of my chair in fright was because I had met him a few days before.

I was hosing my garden when he appeared from the corner of the house. I tried to chase him away with a stream of water, but instead he took up residence in my garden shed. Stupidly, I left the door open so he could leave again.

I had only just come to terms with a snake in my garden. He seemed friendly enough and quite good natured when a neighbour and I spent twenty fruitless minutes trying to encourage him out of the shed with a broom and a long handled rake. I figured he could stay there if he wanted. I knew of others who had pet snakes and I knew it would not hurt me unless I hurt it first.

I was also told on good authority that they usually slide away when they see someone.

This one was apparently much friendlier. He climbed the outside stairs to the open back door, came inside through a slightly open door, crossed the living areas, came down the internal stairs, and then deliberately chose to come into the room where the TV was blazing away and there was bright fluorescent light.

It cruised lazily past my feet as if it owned the place, ignoring my polite but insistent requests to leave, and then went to sleep in a coil in the corner behind some tools that belong to my husband.

 

I know I am attractive to Aussie wildlife. The mossies always go for me first, and I am loved by leeches and ticks, but this was ridiculous.

Luckily I had friends I could call because this was beyond my ability to solve. I feel more comfortable with snakes than most of my friends, but this only means that I can look at them from six feet away without screaming.

The friend picked him up using a broom handle in the centre of his coil and dropped him into a spare recycling bin I had. We then wheeled him outside and let him out in the forest across the road.

It was exciting, but not something I want to repeat.

I spent my first fifty years growing up where there were no snakes. Now I have been up close and personal with several. Even people who have lived in Australia all their lives have usually not known one to come into the living areas.

I am just lucky I guess.

A Koala in my Garden (Part 2)

Last week I had a snake in my garden. This week I had another visitor. A much more cute and cuddly looking visitor. I finally saw the koala that has been visiting my back yard.

My husband, Phil, saw him first, just a shadow moving along the ground in the early light. When I arrived he had already started up the tree just outside our window, his furry body out of sight on the other side of the tree trunk. All we could see were his little claws clamped on either side of the trunk.

He climbed to a high branch and that sat there watching all around as we went outside and stared back at him. He was so cute. Koalas have round furry ears, and a surprisingly large flat black nose. Looking back at us he was teddy bear cute.

All day I kept checking on him. Apart from heading higher, he stayed in the same location and seemed to be dozing.

The next morning, I heard him growling, so I rushed out in my pyjamas. It took me ten minutes to find him just a few trees away, and then there was another surprise. A second lump on the tree, turned out to be another koala. This one was balanced on a slim branch out over the neighbour’s driveway.

As we watched, the first koala climbed cautiously down and then loped from tree to tree, down the garden, looking for the perfect spot.

Koalas are only active for a few minutes each day. They spend most of their day eating and snoozing. I feel particularly lucky to have seen this one moving.

The same day I also saw two kangaroos bouncing off into the bush and two amazing red spotted ladybugs. I often see tiny green tree frogs, and bumpy grey frogs. We have regular visits from birds of all kinds including the uniquely Australian kookaburras, cockatoos, galahs, and parrots of many hues.

Having a snake in the garden, is a small price to pay for the privilege of seeing all the other wildlife almost as close. I love it here

A Koala in my Garden

Last week there was a terrible racket in the garden. Something in the trees around our house was making itself heard and it sounded like a cross between a large growly dog and King Kong.

Luckily I was not alone at the time and it was easily explained by my Aussie husband.

It was a koala. A cute cuddly-looking, fluffy bear toy of a koala.

They are the sloths of the Australian bush and hardly move all day, but they sure can make a noise.

Woof, growl, grunt, growl, woof.

Tasmanian Koala

They are also masters of disguise. In three years in Australia, I have yet to see one in the wild. I have spoken to friends who have spotted one. I have been in a bush with a friend who saw one. I have missed one by minutes. But they have remained elusive so far.

Even though I know there is one in our trees, I have not been able to see that either.

Luckily, there are wildlife parks of all kinds here; including places where you can go to see koalas in trees close up.

I took the koala photo at a Tasmanian Wildlife Centre. They help koalas who can get hit on roads, stuck in swimming pools, and occasionally trapped in trees. And unhappily, that happens all too often.

Like many animals, the koala is in danger from modern civilisation. Australia has done a lot to try to protect the koala, but for an animal that is the epitome of Australian wildlife, it is sad to see it become so hard to find.

So, … I keep on looking up when I go outside.

Then yesterday, I got another surprise. I should have looked down.

As I was watering the garden snake appeared at the edge around the side of the house. Before I could deter him, he had slithered into the garden shed and made himself at home amongst the tools, the barbecue, and half a bag of mulch.

Phil is away so the neighbour was pressed into service to try and recover him.

He did his best, encouraging him onto a garden rake and then onto a sheet, but the snake was too fast and slipped away before we could contain him and move him back to the forest.

I did the only thing I could so, and that was to shut the snake in the shed until the morning when I could call someone.

The Snake in my Shed

Later I spoke to Phil, my source of all things Aussie. He is three thousand miles away at work this week and can only be moral support.

“He does his hunting at night. You need to let him out” he said

After a rather extended discussion, I put my tramping boots back on, went back downstairs with a torch, and nervously propped open the shed door.

So now, I may or may not have a snake in my garden as well as a koala. I kind of hope he slithered off back to the forest over the road. But there is a part of me that would love a tame snake in the garden; just as long as I know where he is. And unfortunately I don’t. He could be anywhere.

I scare myself by imagining him sliding in through the gap in the balcony ceiling. I soothe myself with the knowledge that he was probably in the garden all along and we have lived together peacefully so far.

I check the garden frequently for movement. I throw open the downstairs door when I go out in case he is hiding behind it. I have taken to wearing shoes just to go downstairs.

I am not really scared ... it's just that ... what is that noise in the ceiling?

Free Events for the Financially Challenged

Just before Phil and I got married, we bought a home of our own. I have stopped house sitting and started house renovating.

Since Phil and I have both been nomads for the last two years, we have not much in the way of furnishings. The living room is bare except for the working trestle we are using as a couch and the bedroom has only a bed. Our clothes, tools, and other possessions sit in little piles around the edges of the spare room. We have a microwave, a kettle, two plates, two cups, and some cutlery. It is like camping in our own house.

Everything here needs fixing, so I spend up to two hours a day painting, scouring, and buying for my new house while Phil is at work. It is going to use up all our money for a while, but it hasn’t stopped us travelling and having adventures. We are just going to have them a little closer to home for a while.

There are so many local events. This month I want to go to an Indonesian Royal Wedding Festival, a Chinese Lantern Festival, the Brisbane Laser Light show, and the Brisbane Riverfire event. I would love to attend the Zombie walk, the superhero festival, and the Toowoomba Flower Festival, but it might be all too much.

Closer to home, I want to go to other free events like a movie night at the local library, a musical show at my church, an introduction to snakes and lizards, and a to spend a morning watching kids set up mini worm farms.

For my creative side I plan to attend a silk dyeing workshop and a clay animal making workshop. For my health and wellbeing I have applied to attend an abseiling day, an informative cruise of the local protected marine region, a cycling tour of a nearby island, and a day ocean jet skiing.

All of this and much, much more is available in my local region; most of it free, and the rest at a subsidised rate. Only the flower festival is more than 30 minutes away and some are just minutes from home.

It took me all morning to collate the activities and put them into my calendar and I haven’t even started to decide which of the nearby exercise and sport classes will suit me.

It is astounding how much there is to do here, and thanks to the mild climate, so much of it is outdoors. Even if there is nothing planned I can still walk a few laps of my local forest, wildlife reserve, or beach, or just stay home and walk around my garden.

I suspect it is going to take a little longer to get the house all set up as I want, but I don’t care. I am not old enough to settle down yet, and I suspect I never will be.

Perhaps you have some local events you love. Please share them with us in the comments.

An Unconventional Middle Aged Wedding

People have been wondering where I have been, so now it is time to confess.


I was in New Zealand getting married to the man who is surpassing all my dreams. I couldn’t be happier.

Us with our two Best Men

Phil and I pop over to NZ several times a year to see our 16 tonne baby, and on the last visit he proposed. (While I was under the yacht painting … long story) So we decided to marry at the Marina.

Since then it has been a whirlwind of invites, and preparations, and planning that resulted in what I modestly claim is the best wedding I have ever been to.

Why? Well for one thing we played pass the parcel.

When Phil suggested it I was surprised and not particularly convinced but I decided to give it a go since he has just said yes to my plans to have several quizzes and a PowerPoint presentation.

We had just six tables of close family and local friends and it was the ideal size to have some fun.

After the short ceremony we took photos and then led a group down to see our yacht. It is the perfect yacht for making people feel okay about not having a yacht. She is sound but needs so much work. Some of our guests even took photos by a different and more photogenic yacht.

When we returned we had a quiz about our courtship. Not even close family got more than half the questions right. We asked things like what we did on our second date. The options were

A. Crashed our rental car into a taxi

B. Set fire to a boat or

C. Took a midwinter swim in frosty Wellington

Of course it was B  (you knew that right?) and we have photos to prove it.

Then we had our second quiz asking people to match our close family members with a fact about each of them. This way we achieved our objective of having my family get to know his a little better.

The only speeches were short and funny and definitely not formal. My dad told jokes and sang I am a Little Teapot (another long story). My brother interjected with funny comments and Phil and I both had a Best Man (we have only sons)

All in all it was just what I wanted.

And the pass the parcel? It was a big hit.

It ended up with Phil’s sister who won a book of humour to read in the toilet. (It was more tasteful than it sounds.)

We ended the night with dancing and the visual presentation of wedding jokes and quotes such as Rita Rudners gem “I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewellery.”

If you want to steal any of my ideas, please do. It was an unconventional wedding and lots of fun. I thoroughly recommend it.

And as for my travels.

Phil has been a big part of my Australian adventures and so there will still be plenty of them. Stay posted.

Pillbara Sandstone Caves

Don’t you just love it when something unexpected happens and it is really, really good?

Phil and I were on our way from Mudgee in New South Wales to Queensland and decided to check out a small spot between Coonabarabran and Narrabri in the Pilliga Nature Reserve. I have driven along this road several times but had not previously noticed the small sign saying there was a walk here.

This time we decided to stop.

There was a dirt track leading to an unremarkable looking walking trail. It said there were caves but I wasn’t expecting much.

Quite quickly the track approached a large rocky outcrop that had been invisible from the road. The rock was layered and etched into beautiful patterns of scoops and stripes. The old rock was grey but the exposed parts were so clean they looked like they had been scraped away just yesterday.

We walked around the rock and marvelled at the many impressions and caves around the structure, from narrow ledges to full blown caves.

This area used to be the gathering point for certain Aboriginal tribes, and I could easily imagine groups in each cave. Here a gaggle of teenagers might have gathered to compare stories about the day. There the mothers might have gathered where the rock was lower with a sunken pit where the children could safely play.

Others might have lain in solitude or in tight pairs on the smaller ledges. Perhaps they looked out over the valley carpeted with treetops and considered their place in the world in the same way I did.

They camped, and slept, and played, and cooked here.

In one sealed off cave there was even a large rock with several grooves, apparently made when the locals sharpened their knives here.

One cave was the most awe inspiring of all. It was somewhat palatial with several levels and views through to other caves. I could imagine the elders meeting here to discuss important tribal matters.

There was a sense of the spiritual there. A solemn stillness as if the area was still new and unspoiled. I could imagine it untouched through the years, even as I left my own footprints among the myriads of others on the sandy floors.

I was grateful that it was quiet, remote, and not well sign posted.

I appreciated that someone had gone to the trouble of making steps and paths, but I was happy that no one had made it into a commercial enterprise. It wouldn’t be the same surrounded by coca cola signs and ice cream stands. Finding a place like this in a remote spot is one of life’s simple pleasures.

There are many of these hidden gems of geological architecture around Australia and all you can do is research the area before you go, or just be open to exploring anything that looks interesting like we did.

Or you can read blogs like this one and enjoy them vicariously.

I would like to thank those of you who inspire me with your own stories of travelling this wonderful planet. Thanks guys.

The Bridge Guardian and Suspicious Poultry

I was going about my business, just hunting in the bush (as you do) and there he was. The most magnificent duck I have ever seen.

He lay on the bridge I wanted to cross and stared at me from among a group of regular sized ducks that appeared to be body guards (or maybe adoring acolytes)

Although he was at least four feet shorter than me, he stared me down, and then wandered off all self-important and dignified, as if he just happened to have another place to go. His entourage followed.

 

In my role as a house sitter and writer I get to explore a lot of country. I am still in New Zealand and travelling the windy highway from Wellington to Napier on the East Coast.

It is called Highway Two (a nod to its importance as the second biggest highway on the North Island) but it is still narrow and parochial. Despite regular road work, it regularly slows to city speeds to pass through the centre of little country towns and if you catch up with a truck you can be doomed to follow at a snail’s pace.

Some of the swathes and folds of emerald and gold hill that make it such a beautiful road to travel can also make it impossible to pass trucks labouring up a circuitous incline.

I can’t complain about the wild life along the road though.

At one park there were some rather marvellous partridges (quail?) hanging out with the ducks.

In another, seagulls played at being ducks, in a busy inner city fountain,

At one highway rest stop hidden behind straggly trees, I found a suspicious looking rooster.

 He had set up a home for his little family next to the picnic table.

 

New Zealand is an awesome country and well worth exploring. If you have never been here, I can recommend it, especially if you can take a road trip. You can even go bush in safety.

We don’t have big spiders, grumpy bears or any snakes, poisonous or otherwise.

Just watch out for grumpy poultry.

NZ Earthquakes 1931

The Christchurch earthquake was devastating and continues to haunt the city. People are still living with uncertainty as many buildings remain cordoned off and aftershocks are still being felt a year later. It is unusual in length but not in strength.

As I write this I am staying on a yacht that is moored In the Napier Harbour. If you like vintage planes, old machinery, and 1950’s fashion, you would love Napier.

It is a small city on the East coast of the North Island of New Zealand and four hours from Wellington. It is slightly warmer than Wellington and more often sunny. It is a coastal city, bordered on two sides by the Pacific Ocean and the Harbour and overlooked by myriads of homes, built on the steep surrounding hills, many of them perched on stilts for stability.

It is a beautiful city and a popular place to take holidays and to retire. It is also a city built on tragedy.

On an ordinary Tuesday morning in February 1931, the city was rocked by an earthquake. If you have seen the Christchurch earthquake on TV, this was worse.

It lasted two and a half minutes; measured 7.8 on the Richter scale and killed 256 people. Many more were injured and almost all the buildings in town as well as in the nearby town of Hastings were destroyed. The Wellington Regional newspaper suggested that Napier had been “Wiped off the map.”

There were big changes to the surrounding areas too. Nearby coastal areas were lifted around two metres and about 40km of seabed, became dry land. This land is now the airport and the busy port area and shipping terminals.

The Port that used to be sea floor

It was huge and changed the region significantly.

Over the next few years, most of the city had to be rebuilt, so even now, it has a distinct 1930’s feel. All the public buildings, the parks, even the garden layouts, were designed in the style of the day, Art Deco.

Napier honours that past with museums and displays and by holding a very popular Art Deco weekend every February. I was here last year and many women wore flowery dresses and cloche hats while their men looked dapper in their suits and boater type hats. In three weeks, I will tell you all about it.