Storms

 Oh, boy had we had a time of it with storms. Since Saturday we have had six maybe seven, currently the third one for the day is happening. 

We have missed a few and only received some rain. 20ml yesterday and yet places to the south, east and west of us about 20kms received over a 100ml. 

Poor Lucy is terrified of storms, she is better than she was but still not good.

She is sitting on the bed with me as she can get closer to me than Warren, he is in the lounge and she can only get under his chair. It's unusual that she gets on the bed and stays there.

She has her head turned to the door, not sure if she is turning away from the window or if she is keeping an eye on Warren. She pants and drools while the storm is happening so she has a towel under her head. I dare say we will be washing the doona cover tomorrow

A Productive day

 After a sleep in this morning, I had quite a productive day. Because it is/was Sunday, I don't like to do washing or vaccumning in the house. Basic house cleaning, like making the bed and wiping down benches is okay but not big stuff. However, I have no problems with doing craft work. 

When I was young, say under ten, if we visited my grandparents who lived in the city and bought weekly comics for the grandkids, but if we were there on a Sunday, we were not allowed to read the comics. Only reading on a Sunday was the bible.

Anyway, today I finished two quilts, one needed some buttons sewn on it, the other was about half done and I made a bag.

I love the colours of this. It is a print and the print is actually not square on the fabric, which is a shame. I had made a quilt from jt and this was left overs.

I also crocheted a pair of slippers while watching TV. I had a new pattern sent to me and it is much easier and therefore quicker to make. They will be my main project over the summer months as well as some toys.

Then dinner which Warren thought was pretty good.

Portuguese chicken with salad and wedges, I thought the chicken may have been too hot as it seemed to have quite a lot of paprika in it but it was mild thank goodness. 

  

Christmas baubles

 These are a dime a dozen and we have several, probably too many as we dont get too carried away at Christmas these days. However I saw a crochet pattern for them and decided to have a go at them. 

I had a ball of cotton in the yellow, just one ball so I made these two. I am making advent wall hanging for a friend and putting some small gifts. As it needs to be posted to Victoria, I need to get on with it and things need to be small and light. 

Plastic shrubs

 Lucy and I walked the Parkrun path today. Two reasons, its nice and shady and I needed to replace one of our caches that we put over there in June.

I haven't been back since our caches were published and I was surprised to see how dry and sparse it is along the path.

I noticed a shrub that looked a little odd, at first I thought someone had thrown out a fake house plant. One side is the backs or sides of houses and the other side is a large high metal barrier as the main highway is just the other side. It is surprisingly quiet though.

The photo does show it very well, the branches are quite green with segments and pink flowers.

Very dry and the metal barrier in the background.

Snakes and lizards

 It is that time of the year.

Warren was walking Lucy the other afternoon and used a shortcut path, a snake slipped along the path in front of him and went into the undergrowth. 

There are houses nearby with kids so he knocked on the door and told them what he had seen. 

I am always on the lookout but hadnt seen a snake in about three years when I nearly stepped on one in the bush. Prior to that it had been years and years since I had seen a snake, probably back when I was a kid on the farm.

This morning Lucy and I were out early, earlier than usual as it is starting to get hot so I need to get going before it gets too hot and I saw a blue tongue lizard just off the side of the path. It could have been a stumpy as it was short and stout, about a foot long. Lucy noticed it after me and was interested but I pulled her away and we kept going.

It's nice walking in the shade of the trees but sometimes it's easy to miss seeing things.

Toys

 As its too hot to crochet blankets, I have moved on to toys.

First one was a cube in bright colours, it's about five inches square. I put a bell inside of the stuffing but it is hard to hear it.

Second toy was a pattern that I got from the internet, called Humpy bumpy. 

Quite easy to do although each segment took a day/night of crochet.

The mouth and horns are a roll of crochet that is stuffed as making and then sewn on.

I have made a second one, finished it tonight, that's not quite and big and I made the mouth flat, it's also in more pastel colours.

Garden clean up take two.

 We have one tomato bush in the garden bed nearest the house along with some herbs and a couple of shrubs.

Somewhere in there is a solar fountain. Warren picked several bowls of tomatoes, the plant was growing over the edges.

He wanted to mow the lawn so decided to trim everything.

Oh, there is the solar fountain and the little pond. I had forgotten that I had planted some spinach in there as well and a couple of Lucy's tennis balls were hiding under the foliage.

 

Garden cleanup

 Last week there was a knock on the door, very unusual. It was a guy who is a tree arborist and he asked about our big tree.

We had thought that several limbs needed to be cleaned up but it was a daunting task and we hadnt done much about it. 

Warren came back inside and told me about it plus the quote, gulp $650 and that was with a discount normally it was $900. No idea why we got a discount or if it just sounded good. 

It was a bigger job than I thought with him here for about six hours and there was a second guy for the last couple of hours which was the clean up. 

All the limbs were taken away as well.

I didn't get a before photos but this is the tree after he had finished.

Earth Cache day/weekend.

 Each year at this time, there is a weekend to find and log an earth cache. I must admit that some earth caches when need to answer lots of questions make me feel quite dumb.

We did a few while we were away and I liked them as they were reasonably simple. The closest one to home that we hadn't done was at Glass house Mountains. Thankfully we didnt need to climb a mountain but drive to the lookout, answers a couple of questions and take a photo. 

The mountains are actually lava plugs.

We went to the look out cafe after for morning tea? Looked more like lunch. We did share the plate.

We were home by 10.30am and bypassed lunch for the day.

A Christmas Shop.

 It was our last break before home at Tiario, hum not sure of that spelling, its 2 hours up the road. We grabbed a drink, a toilet stop and a sit in the park, not neccessarily in that order.

There is a Christmas store there, it's open all year round but I have never visited. Decided that we needed to stretch our legs so we went for a quick walk, there was also a cache that way but that was further and it stayed where it was.

All things Christmassy, Warren liked the red robins so I asked if we could just take it off the tree or did they have others. I was told that everything could come off the trees except one, a white one as she had just sold it complete. Apparently someone had been in earlier, seen it, went home and rang back to buy the whole thing. As it was highly decorated, I wouldn't like to think what it would cost.

Trains

 We saw lots of train lines mainly cane trains tracks. We didn't ever have to stop for a cane train but we did run alongside of a couple.

The cane train tracks are a lot smaller and criss crossmany roads and even though some towns up north. 

One day while driving, we saw four trains in less than an hour, two passing each other as we drove past.

Breakfast at Childers

 As we set off so early and it was our last day, it was decided that we would have breakfast at the nearest Maccas, which was Childers. Found the golden arches and it was suggested to drive in from the side, Warren had the blinkers on then we saw the dip to get into the parking area, it looked at though it dropped half a metre over a metre, quickly changed and we ended up in a side street.

Walking back I saw this tree which told me that it's Oct in Queensland.

The garden was on a corner block and stunning with several areas to sit.

When I grow up, I want a garden like that!

Our last night of our trip.

 From Mackay we were going to take three days to get home. We got to Marlborough where the jade was for an early lunch. ( PHOTO now)

Warren says we are making good time, we could go on for another hour, pulling up at 4pm and then that would give us 400k to home. I offered to drive but he said he was fine So we packed up lunch and continued.

The camp site that he had chosen looked deserted when we got there, we did need fuel so I was tasked to check out the caravan park which I couldn't see any. It is a bush stop at the start of a small national park called Cossulum park. A roadhouse with some motel rooms and in front if them was space for three caravans. We could have power but no water as they operated on rain water. It was the cheapest at $20. Probably the noises as we were that far off the main highway but the noise was kind of comforting, certainly didn't keep me awake yet we were both awake early 5.30am. It felt a bit cold as well. We had coffee inside the camper and as we didn't unpack much we left at 6.20am. 

The back road as we left, the couple who lived at one end of the motel rooms was heading to work/open the roadhouse as the top of the van was coming down so we were able to give them back the key for the shower/toilet. It was like having an ensure except we had to go down a few steps to the next level.

Australian Jade

 Yeah, right that's what I thought when I saw the phrase but apparently it's real!

We stopped at Marlborough to have lunch. As usual once we stopped, I checked my phone to see if there were any caches near by. Yep there was one and an earth cache within 100m.

The earth cache was about Aussie Jade and there was a big lump of it in a sheltered cage in the park. It is called crytslaprase, maybe the spelling is not quite right. It is mined about 20kms away, owned by a private company. There is nickel in the soil which helps to give the colour. Most of it is mined, packed in drums and sent/sold to Hong Kong to be made into jewellery.

I certainly did not know that there was such a thing in Australia.

Mackay

 We stayed for the long weekend. Caravan park was full but we didnt see many people around in the park, think they were like us and went out for the day and they stayed out.

We had read about sculptures and so we went to look at some of those, we parked and walked ending up clocking up about 6 kms.

This one was called sugar cubes and most of them had a ship's name on them.

Walking up to these I thought they were helicopter blades but they are in fact whale bones. The red one looks a bit grisley and it has been done in small red tiles, they are quite large.

One was called cane fields and it was in the middle of the road and just looked like pieces of silver tubes piled on top of one another.

Not exactly a sculpture but it is a levee wall and every year, there was something about what happened in that year. The wall was 300 metres long. We were ready for a coffee after that. The weather was good not too hot and each evening about 5pm we were reaching for a jacket, first time that we had worn them.

Bowen part two.

 After the tyre blow out we headed back to Bowen for new tyres. Bridgestone place  had a couple of jobs in front of us so we went for a walk and a coffee.

This was down at the jetty. We didn't walk out there as it was blowing a slight gale.

Some nice old buildings, we were debating if it was a bank in a former life, I opted for a court house. Around the corner and yep, it was the court house.

These palms look like they have the fruit of a pineapple, wouldnt want to be under one when it fell.

Back to Bridgestone and the guy asked if it was windy at the jetty, when we said yes, he went on to tell us that the town used to be called Blowen because of the wind. Warren told him he was talking bull...... but he insisted that he was correct. It was only changed to Bowen when there was a massive wind that blew the L right out of it! Bloody hell, and I thought he was telling us about the history of the place. 

Birds

 Yep, it was all about the birds today. First we had a curlew visit, many times I have heard them but never seen them before. Warren thought it was a curlew but had to confer with Mr Google. Apparently their defence is to stand stock still when there are predators around.

Our geo caching outing was along a water way and called The twichers trail, we didnt see any birds there though but did find six caches all before 10am. Then it was time to find a coffee club.

Friends dropped in for a visit, this is both their home towns but they live further north. 

Preparing dinner this evening, we had two ducks drop by, Warren decided to give them some cereal and suddenly we had 24. Quite a pretty duck with distinctive feathers.

Bowen to Mckay

 We are meeting friends here so its only 188kms from Bowen but it was too far to go without a stop, hence two days in Bowen. 

Warren had rung ahead and booked at McKay as it is a long weekend. We got going at 8.15 and jyst before 9am on an overtaking lane, there was a noise. Oh, no, we had blown a tyre, same tyre as last week but of course, the spare was on there.

As there was no where to pull off, Warren drove down to the end of the overtaking land, stopped and put the hazards on. It only took about twenty minutes to change, I am getting quite good at getting the spare off and wheeled around ready to put on.

This was not just flat, it was completely buggared, with strips of rubber and wires showing.

We drove back into Bowen and had all three tyres replaced as the one we bought in Cooktown was a stopgap which would get us out of trouble. It was a car tyre but we need light truck tyres for the camper trailer.

Bowen

 Great caravan park here, plenty of shade and less than 40 metres away was p

icnic tables under cover which overlooked the sea.

We went for a drive to Horseshoe bay.

Beautiful colours of the sea. Then we went to a wetlands area and discovered this.

The carpet snake is the l .ocal indigious' people's totem.

After walking on the beaches and around wetlands it was time for coffee. 

Tully

 Reported to have the highest rainfall in Australia. We stopped here for lunch four years ago on our way home from our trip around Australia. 

It looked like rain when we were there. The boot represents the highest ever rainfall back in the fifties off over 7 metres about 29 feet of rain fell over that year. 

This time the boot was open and ready to climb. I hate climbing and stairs/steps but do need to force myself sometimes. It was a spiral staircase.

Scene from up top.

With the zoom on, it is a cane train going to the refinery in the back ground smoke stacks in the one above show the refinery.

Next bins in the park showing cutouts of animals

 

 

Driver Revived stops

 We have seen several of these on our travels but none have been manned. Still a good spot to pull up and rest awhile and usually there are toilets as well. 

Just did some research about them and when they started thirty odd years ago, Bushells donated tea, coffee and biscuits. Back then, there were not the service centres along the highways and it was set up to reduce highway fatalities.

Mainly open during school holidays or long weekends they were run by service organisations. Free or a coin donation.

I think we have only used them twice, both times to show overseas visitors what they were about. We always make a thermos and have the makings for coffee with us if we are travelling long distances.

Atherton food trail

 This was a little disappointing. I had heard about this from an online friend, they had gone to Cairns for holidays and did a day trip. Could do it with a tour company for only $160 per person. Yikes!

Many of the places were only open from Thursday to Sunday, don't know if that is usual or because of Covid. We weren't interested in the beer or wines, did go to the Coffee Works and the Humpty Nuts. We had visited the Gallo dairy and the Strawberry place four years ago so didn't feel that we missed much.

At the caravan park, we had a friendly magpie, Warren gave him some cheese. The next morning, he turned up  again, most unusual Warren had bare feet and magpie must have thought his toes were big fat worms as he gave him a bit of a peck. I said that he wasnt quick enough with more cheese!

Mt Molloy

 Mt Molloy is the turning point of either going to the right when heading north, to go to Cooktown or turning left to go to the tip. Everyone in the north refers to the Gulf or Cape York as "the tip".  To me, the tip means going to the rubbish dump so it took awhile for the penny to drop and realise what people were meaning.

We stopped at the small township for toilets and coffee, we had bought pies at the market for lunch, mine was seafood, Warren stuck with a mince pie. Even cold they were good, homemade fresh for Saturday markets.

There was an old boiler that I took a look at, there was a cache there, surprise surprise.

Warren found a nice shady spot under some trees. The main road was divided and had shade trees with seating around them, great idea for travellers. Lots of traffic going both ways.