12/10/2011
Happy hour had an extension last night, bedtime came at 1am after a lovely evening with the guests from the apartments. It’s fantastic being able to sit out until late at night in just shorts and tee shirts, with nice food, good company and the odd libation. Julie plays the guitar and sings and so we had a musical evening also.
As to be expected, it was a slow start to the day with nearly everyone having a dip in the pool first thing.
We wandered along the beach to Palm Grove for lunch and back a lot slower.
13’10/2011
They threatened us with some rain today but it’s not looking likely. The cloud did build up on the mountain tops behind us, but so far nothing. We were quite looking forward to it, or at least the novelty of it, we haven’t seen rain since May.
It would seem that we have been adopted firstly by the bird life that visit’s the garden and secondly by the neighbours Staffordshire Bull terrier ‘Chops’. The neighbours work and leave Chops in the garden but he keeps escaping to spend his days with us. He loves to come down to the beach with us for a swim and would love to join us in the pool if we let him. At dusk and into the night we are visited by Beach Stone curlews, generally 2 of them but occasionally there are 4 or more. They come in to be fed mealy worms which we keep in the fridge, but last night, they had BBQ- ed rolled lamb. I expect they will turn their beaks up at just worms tonight! There are Rainbow Bee eaters nesting in the grass and we have a Kookaburra, it’s all very rural but no Kangaroos.
14/10/2011
Phil and Julie took us out for the day in the Ute to show us the Atherton Tablelands which, Jane says, reminded her of the Cotswolds. If you take away the banana and coffee plantations, remove the palm and fig trees, get rid of the tea plantations, and plough in the sugar cane……….I suppose it does! It is certainly a very picturesque region with both flat land and rolling hills. To get there we had to climb the very long steep and winding road over the Kuranda range and through the Barron River National Park passing the town of Kuranda which can be reached by cable car from Cairns. Once up into the tableland the ground becomes very fertile, they can, and do , grow everything around here. Coffee, sugar cane, banana, citrus fruit, grapes, kiwifruit, lychees, mangos, tea and some time ago, tobacco. There are also dairy farms here with plenty of grass for the cows to graze, and they produce a wide variety of cheese.
We visited the small towns of Mareeba, Atherton, Malanda, Millaa Millaa, Yungaburra Heritage Village and Gordonvale on the way home. We had a picnic lunch by Millaa Millaa waterfall , visited the Malanda falls then drove to Lake Eacham for a swim, in the beautiful clear water with big fish and lots of turtles. Of course we had to pay visits to several places of interest, such as the fascinating Malanda Hotel, all polished wood panelling and a really nice wooden staircase. The Lake Eacham Hotel because it was hot and we needed a drink, then there was the Mountain View Pub looking out towards Walshs’ Pyramid Mountain. Following that another pub in Gordonvale, whose name escapes me as by now my powers of concentration seem to have evaporated along with the several schooners.
We all finished the day sitting around our van feeding the curlews mealy worms and dead mice.
15/10/2011
Couldn’t get going for some reason this morning, had to throw myself in the sea to liven up, in fact, apart from a few chores around the place I have spent most of the day doing nothing and floating in the sea.
We walked into Palm Grove to watch France v Wales on T V, a 6 o’clock kick off. The pub was full of pseudo Welshmen….. What is it about these tenuous links to all things Celtic? Is there anyone with ENGLISH ancestry?
The rain that threatened the other day finally made it last night, gradually building up to a tropical storm. We were lucky enough to get a bus back from Palm Grove, or else a 2k walk home would not have been pleasant. We had to batten down the hatches and secure the awning, the wind being so strong we thought it was going to rip it to shreds or blow it away……..at least we know the van doesn’t leak!
Well, we wanted to see rain but after 4 hours the novelty definitely wore off!
No comments:
Post a Comment