Day 170 Dunoon Saturday 24th November 2012

Hi Folks,

We awoke to the calls of the Pheasant Coucal close by (you can hear the call about half way down the linked page). I did manage to spot it in the lantana you can sort of see it in the picture.

Yes there is a Pheasant Coucal in there.

This morning after a leisurely start I tackled some mowing on a reasonably sloping piece of land with the small 2 stroke rotary mower. It was a good workout for an hour and a half. Meanwhile Susan was removing weeds in the scrub adjacent our caravan. Prior to lunch I adjusted the throttle control screws of an Super Works 1800W generator using my multimeter as a guide. I didn't really know what I was doing but figured that the engine speed controlled the output voltage. One screw set the "idle" voltage and the other set the speed when the generator was under load. The settings also affected each other. In the end i was pretty happy with the result and tested it with an angle grinder and it seemed ok.

After lunch we had a sojourn for a couple of hours before Susan, Sara (another helpexer from Italy who arrived before us)  Lazuli,  Jali and I headed down the entry road to clear some wood and rocks from an area to be graded next week. The highlight was the discovery of 2 snakes under some plastic. One large and one small brown snakes. There is no shortage of them here.

When we returned Susan felt a tickle on her back while trimming greybeards beard and I removed a tick running along it. Sitting at the table after tea I found one on my own back walking along. Lazuli also found one, apparently there were a few lurking in the weeds.

We had another good meal and spent time after dinner chatting before retiring to the canvas just before 10.

An archival picture shown to Sara today to illustrate the big country

We are off tomorrow and will probably head to the markets at Nimbin and or Bangalow with Sara.

night folks

Simon