Day 122 Bundagen Sunday 7th of October 2012

Hi folks,

I am the winner of blog roulette for tonight.

I took the opportunity to walk to the beach before breakfast under sunny skies before the wind and clouds rolled in. After a 500 metre stroll northwards along the sand past a pod of surfers I u turned back towards the entry track. I was going to head southwards but could see some young naked women in the distance emerging from the surf so i decided better of it.

A grey cloudy day here with a fairly strong breeze from the sea. Susan struggled through the day and had a nap before lunch to regather her strength. Once again she focussed on gardening. I pottered on a few small jobs before trying to figure out how to construct some steps up to the deck of our cabin. The present step is a slippery jerry built arrangement that has already resulted in a bruise and broken skin on my left shin. The difficulty comes in constructing it from the space blocks and bricks that are here and buying some planks to use for treads afterwards. The layout is mostly done so it is now a matter of some concrete foundations and laying the bricks. The easy way out would be to buy some ready made steps which are available in kit form. However at around $100 it's an expensive fix.

The rendered walls. Not the worlds most exciting pictures

The grey day and lack of car usage meant i needed to take the car for a run to charge up the auxiliary battery that runs the fridge. I drove to Repton, Arthurs Rocks and then to Mylestom which is at the mouth of the Bellinger River. The caravan park was pretty full. The wind and waves were surging in off the sea so i only poked my head out onto the beach briefly.

I then returned to base, battery suitably refreshed. We are eating well and healthily here with lots of garden fresh vegetables. The only downside of the garden is the aroma of the organic pellets that are being used. Somewhat fruity to say the least. Finally the bird featured on last nights blog was a pied butcherbird.

We are still deciding where our next port of call will be. I think we will be putting names in a hat and drawing one out!

Hopefully the weather and our energy levels will improve shortly and we can pursue some more sightseeing,  enjoying the extra hours of light at the end of the day.

night folks

Simon

Day 121 Bundagen Saturday 6th October 2012

Evening viewers,
I am unexpectedly on blog duty tonight as Susan is feeling somewhat poorly. A bit tired and feverish and throaty. All pretty non specific. She is curled up in bed. I think it may be the same malaise I have been suffering from. However i am coming good!

The weather today clouded over but never really threatened. Susan continued on her way in the garden with spreading the weed mat, digging weeds, watering, preparing to grout some tiles. I had a little win first up when i screwed the replacement filter bowl on the fire pump, which was followed by it starting first time. I decided to render the wall out the front of our unit. A task that took me the rest of the day. It turned out pretty reasonable and more importantly our host was happy. I will add an after shot tomorrow.

A people friendly pied butcherbird

Part of the wall before rendering.

We had an excellent tea tonight. Shunyam cooked Atlantic Salmon fillets which were absolutely magnificent.
Susan was going to attend the drumming and dance concert at "The House" but as mentioned above is knocking out the zeds.

This rapidly disappearing reptile i have identified as Mcphees Rock Skink. There is no way i am quick enough to capture one on still camera. Pausing the video works well though.

Shunyam was out purchasing more materials today which means we should get a couple more jobs knocked over in the next couple of days assuming the chief whip cracker is ok. There will certainly be an impetus to get the fire pump and sprinkler(s) installed with the Rural Fire Chief on the news here tonight forecasting all sorts of massive conflagrations for this summer and to be prepared.

Our clock has been forwarded so am looking forward to a sleep in with the sun coming up an hour later tomorrow. Don't think about the logic of that statement too much.

Night folks

Simon

Day 120 Bundagen Friday 5th October 2012

Hi All,

A leisurely day here today, hot too, only about 27 degrees but we are not acclimatised and were struggling a bit with the few tasks we did this morning.

One of the priority jobs at the moment is to fix netting to the blueberry/strawberry garden to keep birds and bandicoots out. The bandicoots dig around the base of plants exposing the roots and eventually killing the plant, the birds of course eat the fruit. Fruit fly is a problem here too with citrus quite affected, there is a really fine mesh that can be applied to plants, but it wouldn't be cheap. Currently the eggplants are protected by this mesh.

Shunyam's property is about 1/2 hectare and have the most productive fruit and vegetable garden of any of the hosts we have stayed with. In the early days it was one of the example permaculture gardens in Bundagen using the swale planting method, these days there are a mix of vegetable beds, some in mesh others open. There are many exotic fruits, some from South America, which I can't pronounce much less spell. One of them has a purple skin like egg plant but is the size of a lychee and has a sweet white flesh but a large seed which takes up most of the fruit. This tree fruits in an odd manner, I will get pictures when more ripe fruits appear.

After lunch we all went into Bellingen to view the Bellingen Art Prize exhibition, there were about 200 exhibits; painting and sculpture, I cant say I agreed with the judges choice of winning painting, a dark abstract piece.

The exhibition

Funky bird sculpture

Bird close up, it would be a nightmare to dust!

My favourite

Shunyam's favourite

Simon's favourite

This piece was titled "Spring"

I voted for this in the peoples award

Returning home we encountered one of the pythons close to our cabin Simon managed to get some more snaps and video. Door closing is being practiced with vigilance!

Our cabin

Python

Monty the Python

Night Folks

Susan

Day 119 Bundagen Thursday 4th October 2012

Good evening viewers,
Thought i better drop in and scribe some words just in case you were thinking that Susan had buried me in the back paddock.
Today was a bit of a struggle for me. A late night last night, after midnight, waiting for Susan to finish the blog although to be fair i could have curled up in bed earlier. The sun comes up here at some ungodly hour and consequently ones body clock thinks it is mid morning by 7 o'clock so no sleep in and a feeling of tiredness all day.
Task wise today Susan was watering, emptied a cupboard so i could do some shelving, did a bit on the shelf for the bathroom and of course weeding. I struggled through making the shelves for the cupboard in the shed and put the shelf brackets in in the under sink cupboard. The shelf wasn't level as there was a 1cm discrepancy in the markings which was easily corrected. In summary lot's of little jobs and progressing some of the bigger ones.
The highlight of the day was the invasion of the lace monitors. The early one was smaller. Later in the afternoon i heard crashing noises out the back of our cabin and a much larger specimen was observed. They are known for stealing meat from inside houses. Shunyama has had monitors and pythons inside so we keep the doors closed when not in the house.

Lace monitor 1

Lace monitor 2

With respect to the python pictures last night. i have been checking my new field guide and comparing pictures they are "intergrades" between the diamond and eastern carpet python which are found in the northern rivers area i.e. where we are now.
Much of the salad and vegetables we have with our meals is grown on the block here. One downside of the area is fruit fly! I now understand why there is such a war against them in South Australia. I have been eating a bag of grapefruit from Bellingen. Today i found maggots mainly because i was looking. I found maggots in all of them so my bowl was filled with pieces carved from several. I am sure the others i have eaten this week have contained maggots too not a nice thought.

Beach at Bundagen this afternoon

night folks

cheers
Simon

It's a bit shaky since it was taken at a high magnification since i wasn't going closer!

Day 118 Bundagen Wednesday 3rd October 2012

Hi Folks,

The apprentice is still at it, while maestro explores other internet content. The tables are turned he is supplying photos for me to add, this was usually my task.

Today Simon set about looking at the fire pump in earnest, having purchased fuel last night to top it up and see if that helped start the thing...it didn't. Simon then noticed  a critter blocking the fuel supply, critter dispatched, line clear all good, turn on flow attempt to start motor and end up with a boot full of ULP. It seems a cap of some sort is missing. Shunyam will try to source one, so in the meantime Simon stepped out and measured the sprinkler locations so that the suppliers can work out which sprinklers and pipe are required.

Meanwhile I was doing various tidy up jobs as well as collecting bits and pieces for a number of jobs from the list. This is when I spied the python sunning itself on the rainwater tank, on closer inspection it was not 1 but 2 engaged in a very close encounter. Shunyam remarked that she has seen 5 tangled up together, that is "group sex"! I also found some sort of lizard climbing the wall but it disappeared before I could get a photo, we did managed to snap a largish gecko in the shed though.

Entwined

Yes there are two heads

Knobby tailed gecko

I helped Simon mend one of the gates, we have really noticed the added effort required when working with hardwood, he broke one of his special drill thingys from his Bosch. This little tool has been invaluable on the road so we hope he can get a replacement drill.

Meals here have thus far been delicious, tonight's fish curry was Thai inspired served with red quinoa, the curry had veggies and herbs from the garden including beetroot. I would never have considered beetroot in curry, but the deep pink colour was interesting, the flavour superb.

Shunyams "rocks and sand recipe" was:

ground ginger

4 small kaffir limes whole

6 kaffir lime leaves

1 onion diced

ground corriander

water

bring to the boil then add:

pumpkin cubed (leave skin on)

beetroot peeled, cubed

broccoli 

asparagus

spinach

small green capsicum diced

add water as required

add fish cubed

440 gm coconut milk

bring to the boil and simmer until fish if cooked

garnish with chopped parsley and coriander.

Dessert was chocolate coated ginger.

Mmmmm night folks.

Day 117 Bundagen Tuesday 2nd October 2012

Hi All,

It was actually hard to awaken this morning, must have been the bath last night, I slept extraordinarily well, but the light streaming in the window would not be dulled (ahh no blinds), so we arose and breakfasted.

Shunyam wrote up the list of jobs which will give us plenty of variety over the next couple of weeks. Today it was a bit more gardening and organising some fruit to take down to the co-op. We also moved our trailer into Shunyams yard to appease the neighbours and free up a parking space.

At the "main house" a cafe is run each Tuesday, and the co-op is open which offers a buy and sell option, grains, breads, eggs etc are sourced locally and pre-ordered or purchased on the day. Community members can also sell excess produce from their garden. The co-op now has one person who does the organising, previously the responsibility was shared, apparently this arrangement is more effective. It will be interesting to get a bit more information about the workings of this co-op, as it was one of the considerations of the Tasman Village.

We had lunch in the cafe, well actually sitting outside. It is more of a canteen (line up, served at the window, find a seat). The food was excellent felafel, rice, yoghurt dip, chickpea dip, and Mediterranean salad. After lunch we wandered about and had a look at the school building and library. The school is no longer operating, children go to schools outside the community, a decision taken some years ago, however a preschool is still run within the community.

Water tank art

We drove past the meditation centre at a distance, a place to visit, which has some interesting architecture. There is lots of artwork here, I managed to take some pictures of painted rain water tanks, and will take snaps of the mosaics when we next visit the main house.

Python

Finishing off our days jobs we headed to the "woofers" shower, outside the other cabin, as the shower at our cabin needs tiling. It was there we spied the python laying contentedly half in the down pipe, we estimated it was about 2 metres long.

I am not sure whether Simon was kidding when he suggested pulling it out by the tail to get a better picture, thankfully he heeded my caution.

Freshened up we headed back to Bellingen for dinner with Kevin, Larry and Corey and helpxer Daniel. We had a fabulous evening, great food, nice wine, lots of laughs, wonderful company. Not sure what they call their restaurant, but I reckon they just earned their 4th hat!

Choc Mint Pavlova

The happy group

Cheers

Susan

Day 116 Bundagen Monday 1st October 2012

Hi Folks,

Imagine this.... Relaxing in a hot bath outside in a tropical garden, a lily pond as a backdrop, frogs croaking and fireflies darting overhead.... well that was us at dusk, only a few mozzies to contend with so hot water topped up ahhhh. This was our reward for a full day in the garden, most enjoyable until the fruit bats started on their nightly forage, signalling time to get out. They are pretty freaky, especially when they are less than 3meters away.

I had meant to take a picture of the outdoor bath today, never thinking we would be in it tonight, but didn't get around to taking any pictures myself. Simon did manage a few, including a tiny green frog who almost became lunch as he was hiding in the freshly picked lettuce.

Little green frog

 Today's work was gardening, a bit more weeding, and mulching. One of the tasks was to empty out one of the weed barrels and spread the nicely composted contents, so that we could refill it with the next batch of weeds, boy did it smell!

There has been a drumming workshop in the "Main House" the community gathering hall, we haven't seen it yet but will be going over for lunch tomorrow. We were able to hear the drums in the distance and I recognised the "cup a tea" rhythms from the Nubeena drumming evenings.

Yet another tick

We awoke this morning to the smell of smoke, Simon thought it was a distant bushfire, I thought it was more local, which apparently it was, as the fire officer made his rounds mid morning to find the culprit. One of the jobs we are going to help with is setting up the fire protection watering system, which got me thinking to property locations (in the event we ever buy something) and conversations with Kevin after we saw the Kalang property. Bundagen like Kalang has one road in/out. Here the fire plan includes go down to the beach. Note to self make sure any property purchased has 2 roads in/out.

P. S. I also found a tick in the bed, I have given up counting, on examining he little blighter found he was not blood filled,  so maybe she hadn't latched on yet, she never will get a chance now!

Night folks

Susan