Day 110 Bellingen Tuesday 25th September 2012

Hi All,

Today started a little earlier than normal as we farewelled Larry who is off up north for work and won't be back until Sunday.

After our morning coffee and breakfast we started on the mulching completing the areas near the bower bird nest. Then we adjorned to our favourite weeding jobs, Lantana for Simon and Ageratum for me.

This variety being the type eradicated here

The mauve "ornamental" variety

Unfortunately the rain a few days ago seems to have invigorated the plants and newly sprouted plants were in evidence, to top that off I noticed a very large mauve lantana near the yurt. We had the usual google search and a physical comparison to establish it is classed as an ornamental variety, but still a classified noxious weed! Tommorrow the curtain falls. It is unfortunate really that plants with spectacular flowers often become problematic for us humans, and there are some particularly attractive Lantana varieties.

Simon completed the sanding and bogging of the timber beams, it will be ready for painting on Thursday.

We had a late lunch and a leisurly afternoon, I did practice some house cleaning in "our" bathroom which was in need of a vacumm after Simons beard trim.

Corey made hamburgers for tea and we started watching a half dozen movies before settling on the Mel Gibson "What women want" we decided it was funnier the first time.

Kevin is burning the midnight oil and will set off to pick up the new helper  from the train station shortly.

Ella looking distainfully at the doggie warning tape

Bedtime for me, night folks

Susan

Day 109 Bellingen Monday 24th September 2012

Hi All,

The apprentice blogger is in the hot seat tonight, well sitting up in bed typing! Simon announced last night that I could take over the blog writing for a couple of days, I am sure it was some type of dare... I protested of course saying he is much the better writer, well it has worked up til now!

It was quite gratifying looking down towards the dam this morning to see the results of yesterdays work. As I was telling Kevin last night I do like to have projects underway, at home this drives Simon crazy as I am always planning 3 of more projects ahead, in the world of Helpx we supply the labour for other peoples projects, I guess I am getting my fix that way.

Pano of paddock and dam

 
This world of helpxing is really a fabulous thing, we do often remark what a good life it is, meeting new people, living in allsorts of different situations and accommodation, generally free from the minutiae of the everyday, but that is not entirely true as there are groundhog days every now and again.

Today we moved on to mulching, that was after Simon got the mower working a red Jonsared ride on that came with the house, a lead to the battery was loose. Simon shovelled and ferried the mulch and I spread it out. I also managed to dig up a good number of broad leaf weeds in the previously mulched bed. The area under the persimmon tree completed we moved on to the bed adjacent to the bower birds nest. This one is a regent, and collects blue items to adorn its bower, with the main trinkets, clothes pegs (blue) plastic dolls tea cup (blue) plastic from broken ice cream containers (did I mention blue). Apparently the bird was annoyed we were close by and was making quite a racket or so Kevin said, I didn't hear it myself.

Shovelling

Is this responsible driving at 2 kms/hr?

Today's work day came to an abrupt halt just before lunch as the clouds rolled in with some very loud thunder claps. Doogan was beside himself cowering in the pantry, Ella is now copying his behaviour and had crawled under the coffee table. Over lunch of grilled open sandwiches we discussed and googled "dogs fear of thunder" and "loudest thunder" "thunder dbA" to find that the loudest thunder is about 120 decibels and had ruptured ear drums, broken windows and popped nail out of walls. Thankfully nothing untoward here.

After lunch we did managed to get a few other jobs completed - cleaning up the battery terminals on the mower - Simon, cleaning and stacking a few more bricks - me.

We both did a wander around cameras in hand, me photographing flowers and Simon birds, of which  there are so many here. I was thinking back to the bird feeder I painted in Woodbridge Tasmania, and wondered if it is of any success in attracting birds yet? The equivalent amount of seed here would be gone in 10 minutes!

Grevillia

Grevillia creeping prostrate form

Native Hibiscus

Cigar flower

Lily

Azalea

Begonia

Unknown but has beautiful fragrance

Bromeliad

I also let my tidy genie out today and did a rearrange of the cutlery and utensil drawers, might drive the guys crazy..... Kevin and I shared the dinner making I did beef stroganoff with noodles and he made waffles, we are eating well, thankfully there is a hike from the paddock up hill otherwise all this good living would be showing.

Cheers

Susan

Day 108 Bellingen Sunday 23rd September 2012

Hi Folks,

Another fine sunny day today.

The brushcutter gingerly steps out on the papyrus

View from a distance

Papyrus movement 

Side view showing the extent of the papyrus

Progress at lunchtime

The task of the day was removing papyrus in the dam. It was all hands on deck. I was assigned the brushcutter while Susan, Larry and Kevin removed the debris and sprayed the stumps with frog friendly round up. We used the old floating island as a platform. As we moved further out the papyrus became more floating and feet disappeared into the water. Susan managed to get one very wet foot. It was hot work swinging the brush cutter and the sweat was pouring off of me. We called a halt at lunchtime with plenty achieved. Today's question is how did they make paper from papyrus. The answer is here

For some reason the hot water has gone cold in the house. With all the sweating today we are hoping it will be hot in the morning!

Rainbow Lorikeet

Rainbow lorikeet (Susan's pictures)

White headed pigeon

Lemon butter yummy!

After lunch I finished the filling job on the verandah. Susan pulled up lomandra and did some weeding. She then made lemon butter. The lemon butter accompanied ice cream and rock melon for dessert tonight ,which we had after vegetable soup.

night folks

Simon

Day 107 Bellingen Saturday 22nd September 2012

Hi All,

We headed out around 9 up to the tablelands via Bellingen. Our first stop was Mountain View where we did just that (enjoyed the view). We drove through Dorigo and Ebor taking the turn off to Lookout Point in New England national park. This presented a problem since we intended to be there for some hours and did not have any food with us.

Aquarium wall at the hatchery

Fingerling trays at the hatchery

Fingerlings

Fingerlings  (no sound)

Adult fish

We decided to head back the 15km or so to Ebor taking in a couple of sights on the way. The first stop was at our turnaround point the Dutton trout hatchery. While Susan waited in the car I took the $5 self guided tour. The tour was very enjoyable starting with an 11 minute movie in the theatre. There was a wall of fish tanks containing native fish. The rest of the tour was around the adult fish ponds and into the hatchery. the hatchery was in full swing packaging boxes of live fingerlings to be collected by the local acclimatisation societies. The hatchery produces over 2 million fingerlings per year.

Upper and lower Ebor Falls

Ebor Falls

By the time we returned to Ebor it was lunchtime and we stopped at Fusspots cafe. Susan had been laid low with a severe headache and was feeling pretty poorly. We had a nice lunch, steak sandwich and hamburger followed by coffee. After lunch we travelled to the upper and lower Ebor falls on the Guy Fawkes River. These were only short walks from the car.

Point Lookout (1563 metres) Click for the big picture

View from Point lookout

We then travelled back to the New England National Park and drove to the end of the road to Point Lookout. The park is world heritage listed and contains Gondwana rain forest. The view from the lookout was stunning and there are many walks to be explored. the park has a couple of camping areas and cabins and would be well worth a return visit.

Wollomombi Falls in the late afternoon

The afternoon was slipping way but we had time to drive towards Armidale to Wollomombi Falls. There are actually 2 falls the other being Chandler falls. Wollomombi falls are 260 metres high. The gorge is very impressive and a hell of a way down from the lookouts.

We returned to base for a delicious chicken curry tea. After taking some drugs Susan felt much better. The weather was glorious up on the table lands. However it is obviously cooler than the coast with pictures on the hatchery wall showing snow! Something else that needs to be considered when choosinga place to live seasonal weather variations!

Night folks

Simon

Day 106 Bellingen Friday 21st September 2012

Hi Folks,

A short blog tonight as it is late and I am tired.

We had light showers today under cloudy skies for most of the day which made things a bit difficult. I ended up applying some more filler to the woodwork under a rigged up tarpaulin. Hopefully a nice warm windy drying day tomorrow. I also pulled a fascia board off the deck and did some brush cutting in the vegetable patch where Susan was digging and weeding. I spent some time reading the brush cutter instructions and consequently adjusting the harness and the mounting points for the attachment and handlebars. It makes it a lot easier to use. I also read up on the mixture fine adjustments so it now idles a bit better. It looks like the clutch is not working properly since the head spins at low idle speed so a repair is required.

Other than that not much to report. We had some more terrific home made pizzas for tea and our kindly hosts bought me some beer! I wasted a heap of time this evening trying to unlock my Optus modem after following their published instructions which are not correct.

We have a day off tomorrow and will proceed to the New England National Park for a look around.
The weather looks as if it will be fine and sunny so there should be some good views.

night folks

SImon

Day 105 Bellingen Thursday 20th September 2012

Evening folks,

Today's blog starts last night just before bed. Susan had me examine something on her shoulder that I had looked at earlier in the evening. This time it did look like a small tick. I put the Lyclear on to kill it and deal with it in the morning.

In the morning Susan was laying in bed and felt something roll from her nether regions. I retrieved a small bloated nymph stage tick from the bed and disposed of it also removing the something from her shoulder. Hopefully that's the end of it. It is a bit hard to detect them if you can't feel them.

Pole 2 

Pole 1, 3.1 meters

Bogging up pole 2

Today most of our working hours were spent with Kevin replacing the verandah poles. The cross beam out in the weather was a bit rotten where the upright and bearers intersect so will be patched up as best I can. The local hardware was a bit short on stock but we have some premixed acrylic putty which should do the job. We propped the beams up on a new pole, removed the old one, propped the beam up with the old one and installed the new. It all went pretty smoothly. The poles were the right size although I did have to take 5mm off the bottom of one. I joked to Larry last night that he would come home to the roof on the ground with three pairs of legs sticking out.

Distant black snake

We were sitting in the bedroom this afternoon when Kevin rang from the garden to see if we wanted to see a couple of black snakes. I kept well back but did manage to snap the larger one in the distance.

Susan made pumpkin soup for tea, while Kevin and Corey made affogato with kahlua for dessert. Excellent!

Since we updated our Helpx profile the other day we have had a rush of enquiries which Susan is dealing  with at the moment. So many locations so little time !

Night folks

Simon

Day 104 Bellingen Wednesday 19th September 2012

Hi Folks,

Another sunny day.The air was fresh and humid after yesterdays rain. I walked the circumference of the property  this morning enjoying the ambience.

On to our tasks today.  I sprayed the outside of the house with the surface spray. I then removed some of the timber that needs to go for the pole replacement. I also jacked up the deck on my bottle jack since it is supported on a pole that is to be removed. It was opportune that I took the swag off the trailer to get the jack out since some of the downpour yesterday had penetrated the outside bag of the swag so I was able to dry it. Susan continued coating the new poles, took up some shorts for Larry and started weeding the vegetable garden. A task I carried on with after lunch when she went down the hill to continue work on the blue curse.

Scaly breasted lorikeet

Little wattlebird

Scaly breasted lorikeet

Green catbird. Makes a call like a cat or a baby.

Kangaroo paw in the garden

Grevillea in the garden

Birds were abundant today. Unfortunately a catbird, one I could probably never hope to photograph in the wild, flew into a window and killed itself this morning. Burying it became another task for the day.
The afternoon excitement was a cow breaking into the property from next door. Kevin chased it back between the fence strands and I leant a small hand to repair the entry point.

Tea tonight was BBQ prepared by Corey. Excellent steaks!

On the planning front we have decided subject to the next hosts approval to stay here until Saturday week and jump about 15 minutes up the road.

night folks

Simon