A few days away

Tonight I write from a new destination only a little more than an hour from home on the New South Wales coast at a tiny town called Lennox Head. The only downside I have found so far is the exercise that is needed to get from the car to the unit – several banks of steps, both up and down. On my last excursion carrying stuff up from the car I counted the steps – 50 of them! Ah well, I shall not need to go to a gym for a while!

The place is very attractive and well located. We didn't need to take the car to get to the centre of the town or to the beach.

Here is a look at our Resort (Headland Resort) as seen from the door to our self contained unit.

You can just make out the lap pool at the bottom of the picture, it is very popular and seems to be in use all the time. Of course the temperature is ideal for swimming, it is both hot and humid since the rain with the mercury around 27 degrees and the humidity around 80 per cent. The sea is far too rough to be a good place for swimming and a walk along the sand was an exercise in “dodge the stingers”. The rough seas have washed in hundreds of these stinging jelly fish.

But I was talking about the place we are staying in. It is a one bedroom unit with a bathroom that even contains a spa bath, and a large lounge, kitchen and dining area..

Looking through the bedroom window we can see the sea and the town and the headland.

Finally a photograph I took as we walked along the sands. The tide was almost at its lowest revealing a few little rocks that I found made an interesting foreground for the view of the headland.

The sands are firm to walk on so I did not even have to remove my shoes. The sight of all those jelly fish would have prevented me from removing my shoes anyway! You can tell from the sky and from the dismal grey look of the salt spray that the rainy weather is not over yet. Hopefully we shall get windows of time like this when we can get out and enjoy the sights of the area. We shall make the most of our four days away!

AJ

A Sand Safari

There is always something interesting happening in our part of Australia - especially in Surfers Paradise. Once again there is a sand sculpting competition - which will last all this week so I will be able to return and take more photographs to share.
The weather is against these talented sculptors though. This morning there were very heavy coastal showers so for most of the morning what had already been created would have been covered with plastic to save it from being washed away. I did not get to Surfers Paradise until after lunch time and by looking South you could see the clouds building up and threatening yet another fall of rain. I was with the grandchildren - who both have very short attention spans - so they were happy with the fly-past of the sculptures.

We did not get a chance to see this sculpture before it was covered with plastic. I just hope that when it rains  it does not rain hard and come accompanied by wind because the plastic that was being used to cover the sand was really thin. It looked as if it would tear really easily!
A couple of the sculptures were well advanced and I will share pictures of them - others are still in the very early stages and although the shapes are revealing, they are not yet ready for plastering on the Internet!

The theme of the sand competition is "Sand Safari" so most of the works are of an "African" nature - but there are a couple that have looked "outside the box" and those I will share another day.

This lion cub and the picture that follows are both  of the same work. This artist is obviously a faster worker than the others and his piece is more involved too'

The sand that is used for the sand sculptures is not beach sand. Beach sand does not bind together well enough for this sort of sculpting. The papers advised that the good sand that was used last year came from Bundaberg but this year the sand had to come from somewhere else. Bundaberg is still trying to recover after severe flooding. Their quarries are still filled with water. So everyone feels they are dealing with inferior sand - BUT! They all have the same handicap!
Seeing what these artists can do with a pile of sand is really inspiring and my two little grand-daughters enjoyed an hour of sand sculpting themselves down on the edge of the sea!
Here is a turtle almost made by the eight year old.

By the time she finished it had four legs and patterns on the "shell" as well as a dry moat and a wall all around it.
It is so sad - while we were down on the edge of the wet sand near the sea a bunch of people who were about to have a surfing lesson came walking past us and I had to stand between my granddaughter and them to prevent them from marching over the top of her and her sand turtle as they dragged their surfboards behind them. They were so one-eyed that they could not see in front of themselves.
All pictures here were taken with a six year old point and shoot Samsung NV3.
AJ

Heading home

All good things have to come to an end and Sue and Keith's trip to Australia was almost at an end so we had to part company - they to WA to daughter Bourby where they would pack their big suitcases in readiness for their trip back to the UK; and us back to sunny Queensland.
Before we parted company we visited the shops in Gisborne (where Bob and Kathy live) and Sue was able to find herself a couple of cuddly souvenirs.

Surprisingly the souvenirs Sue found were actually made here in Australia! It is getting more and more difficult to find souvenirs that are affordable that are made in the country you visit! More often than not they are made in China.
Sue and Keith were dropped unceremoniously at the airport and fast and furious goodbyes were said, Colin and I packed our cases and left in our clean red Corolla the following morning.
Not too many photographs were taken on our homeward trek. We seemed to be more intent on "getting home" than on wandering from the direct route. However the sight of a landlocked submarine in the middle of New South Wales did encourage us to take an unscheduled break!

The town name Holbrook was in honour of a highly decorated submarine captain who lived there and the towns people bought the shell of the submarine "Otway" after it had been decommissioned. More can be found out about the place by doing a Google search for "Holbrook submarine"

One very small detour off the Hume highway was made so that I could take a couple of photos of the Dog on the Tuckerbox. there is a famous Aussie song about this dog. The first statue was very different from the present one, I have included both dogs so you can see the difference!

The first dog was nine miles from Gundagai and the newer dog on the tuckerbox is five miles from Gundagai - so that it is closer to the town and to the highway.
The sight of a bank of wind generators brought the camera up to the eye again - this time to Colin''s eye! There has been a lot of reporting in the press about how these wind turbines are causing illnesses among the people who live close to them. We were not close enough to hear them but they certainly look very impressive high on the hilltop.

We booked in for the night at Goulburn, we turned of the highway and came face to face with a mighty Merino sheep! The sun was sinking by this time so it looked very striking in the golden glow of evening.

We had made the choice to drive via the coast road rather than struggle with the flooded roads of the inland so we took the M7 to bypass Sydney and joined the Pacific Highway (which bypasses just about every city on the east coast!) It was an easy and fast run with the allowable speed 110 kph for much of the way. We were amused at the "koala crossing" overhead near Newcastle. I wonder how many koalas cross the road on these aerial bridges!

You can see the inward leaning fences that prevent the animals from climbing over the top of them, on the left. I guess they have to climb lots of different trees to find the one that has the road bridge attached! What a strange idea!
I love bridges too, so when we drove over an opening bridge (one time I did see it open) out came the camera again.

This time Colin was driving so I could take the picture myself! We drove and drove until we reached home - we crawled into the garage at eight in the evening - just as our son arrived home with his tour bus. Next morning, before he left I noticed that the tree at the end of our drive way was reflected in the windows of the coach.

I couldn't really let you see the red car - it was smothered with yellow bugs! Its good to be home - but now I will have to keep busy to keep the blog alive!
AJ

Rainforest beauties

Today is the day in which I will register for the Video Convention – but most of the day was mine to enjoy. After enjoying a relaxing cup of tea from our picnic hamper and admiring a few of the magnificent homes on the Noosa River we drove up to the carpark of the Noosa National Park. The National Park wraps around a headland and in the past we have walked the coast track but this time we took one of the other alternative walks, it was called the Palm Loop because there is a patch of the rainforest that has several palms in among the other large trees and vines.
My picture of the palm area shows how dense the trees are in the forest. I have had to brighten all my photos – but using the Samsung made taking photos so much easier. The Olympus had been fitted with the 40 – 150mm lens because I was hoping to sight a koala. (I didn't!). Having a longer lens requires a faster shutter speed for hand holding the camera – the down side of that is that the camera will not allow a low enough f/ stop to give the brightness to see the subject. After two almost black images I pulled out the little Samsung and had much more success – even without the flash.
Along the walk we saw many things of interest – lots of different fungi. I seem to be attracted to taking fungi! There were a few ground fungi with stalks and a few “ears” that attached to dead tree trunks. The trees were interesting too. There was a wonderful bulgy tree! I wanted Colin to climb up and pose cross legged on the bump but he was too shy to try, he did strike a pose for me – there was a crowd of young people with children following us and they would have seen our antics! When we left the tree I looked back and guess what? You got it! They were clambering all over the bump – and sitting cross legged on it!
I love the way the strangler figs create such wonderful patterns over their host tree. The fig seeds are spread by birds, the seeds stuck to the beak are scraped off high in the branches. An occasionally seed will germinate up there, it may have become lodged under a flake of bark and so escaped being washed out of the tree during rains, the roots grow and grow in their quest for the soil, and they envelop and eventually strangle the tree that gave them life. This tree host has almost come to the end of its useful life, the fig has buried its roots in the soil and is starting to hide what trunk is left. As the fig takes the nourishment from the soil the host tree can no longer win and will die and rot away within the casing of fig roots.
AJ

Birds breakfast time - and off again!

After having a week away from my blog I am giving it a shot in the arm today! I love the birds that visit our home in the sub tropics, they have become very quiet and trusting. The three bird pictures I have uploaded to this blog were all taken in the morning (yesterday) and are all of birds enjoying their breakfast. The first image shows the clutter of Rainbow lorikeets as they squabble, push and shove as they try to get the most sweet juice and bread from the dish - yes there is a dish under all those green feathers! Actually there are two dishes, one contains small wild bird seeds and a handful of sunflower seeds while the other - the one these birds are fighting to get to, has a litre of water mixed with a couple of tablespoons of raw sugar and four slices of White bread saturated with the liquid. If they could squeeze through the crowd the black drongos would also love to get at this sweet treat! They are rather more timid. I have told you in earlier blogs about Twisty Beak, He (or is it she?) has been a regular visitor to our home for several years, he has a deformed lower beak and when a very young bird we took special care of it always putting out a dish of sweet juice and bread and keeping the other birds away. Now he comes in and helps us eat our own breakfast - yesterday he had the best time of his life - he was given permission to lick the marmalade jar!Son Steven went outside with a small piece of meat off the dog roll and was bombarded with a family of Butcher Birds. They will not sit quietly and take the food from your fingers but dash in and snatch it before you can pull it away! Thanks to the delay on the camera (using the Samsung NV3) it took a few attempts to get the timing right. I focused on Steven's fingers and held the shutter part down and pressed just as the bird lifted off the railing.

Colin and I left home soon after 1.45 - we had intended to leave at one but I had so many camera things to load that I was the one responsible for the delay! As well as the usual still cameras and a small video camera for incidental movies I needed to take a good video camera, microphone, headphones, tripod and extension leads for the camera workshop on Thursday. Its a good job that this Video Convention is in Australia because I would definitely have to pay excess on the extra weight if it was overseas! The chargers and batteries for everything electronic - including the laptops all adds up. intend to try and edit the video as I go along so that might prove to be a challenge. I have a swag of copyright free music in my laptop and I did remember to bring the firewire cable!

So here we are at Noosa Heads. I am showing a picture taken from the front veranda and a second picture that shows the place I stood to take the picture.

The housekeeping is not as good here as we have found in every other place we have stayed. The first thing I had to do before I could cook our evening meal was to wash the floors! The kitchen floor was sticky and the floor in the bathroom absolutely "grotty". It didn't even look as if it had been swept properly in ages, hair and sand in every corner. I will be saying something in the morning you can be sure!
There is a festival of some sort happening here tomorrow so maybe I will have a few interesting shots to share! watch this space!

AJ

Our first day in New Zealand

Our flight arrived 15 minutes early so we were through the customs and aboard the Airport Shuttle by 12.15 (after midnight) and the first thing we did when we dragged out a few things from our cases was to put the kettle on! There is nothing like a cup of tea to make you feel normal again!
A hugely expensive taxi ride took us to where we collected the hire car. We were able to hire a GPS at the same time (that costs as much as buying one!) because our own GPS would not find the satellite – I had purchased the NZ update for it before we left and it doesn’t work! Sigh! Ah well, if that is all that will go wrong I don’t mind!
Since picking up the car we have been everywhere! Cathedral Square was the first port of call and I had fun in and around the Cathedral.
My first picture is of Colin outside the Cathedral.

1/80 sec F/8 ISO 100

I really don’t know why I have this luck but every time I visit an old building it is covered with scaffolding and every time I use the video camera there is someone using a mower or chainsaw!
I even took two shots inside the building - without the flash. I held the camera on the back of a seat and held my breathe and the results are quite surprising. I will share only one of them, the other shot is very similar. I did try to take on of the rose window but that turned out quite blurred from movement.

2 secs F/9 ISO 100 (should have increased ISO)

Outside the Cathedral is a tall ice-cream cone of a sculpture, I remember it from the last time I was in Christchurch in 2004 and it still looks just as good! Sometimes city artworks become ugly with rust but not this!

1/125 sec F/8 ISO 100

After a city tram ride that took us to lots of different and interesting places we disembarked to visit the Art Gallery. What an amazing building. The face of the building is walls of glass at many different angles. Rather than show the outside I have selected a shot I took inside the building – fantastic! Of course you are not allowed to take photographs of the artworks that are in the galleries but I was given permission to take as many shots as I wanted of the foyer – so I had a ball!

1/100 sec f/8 ISO 200

We also spent lots of time in the Botanic Gardens. Our absolute favourite place in the gardens would have to be the begonia house! I have NEVER seen such huge flowers! They were stunning. Every colour under the rainbow and all flowers about 30cm across. I would love to be able to grow begonias like that – but they like the cool and hate the humidity so they are not the plant for the subtropics! 1/60 sec f/8 ISO 100

Today was a warm and very pleasant day – we even took out fleeces off and wandered around in short sleeves! Fingers crossed that tomorrow is a good day too! I somehow have my doubts. We can but hope.
AJ

Cashed up and ready to go

The cases are almost ready to close but there is still room to squeeze in a few more things! Today was taken up with banking, arriving in Christchurch Airport only a few minutes shy of midnight it is too late to pick up the hire-car so money is needed to pay for the shuttle bus that will take us to our hotel. With $100 Aussie dollars I purchased $125 Kiwi dollars. That will be a good start. The exchange rate also means that mental conversion will be really easy - in fact I doubt if it will be done at all!

The small rigid case will be filled with camera gear and with a few kitchen essentials - we will be self catering. Picnic cups, a thermos flask, plates and cutlery take up some of the space - but it is the batteries, tapes and chargers that take up most!

It doesn't look as if we are taking many clothes, does it? I think we shall be living in our fleeces and coats and jeans which is why the T's and undies don't fill the one and only case! We shall be wearing a fleece and have a coat over an arm as we board the plane. It will be chilly when we arrive.

So, we leave home at 4.30 tomorrow afternoon, the plane leaves at 6.30.

There will be no blog entry tomorrow but I am hoping that I will find somewhere with wireless Internet so that I can communicate on Wednesday.

While in the bank I was reminded to ring VISA and inform them that I was going overseas. Its just as well I was reminded because I had forgotten. I got onto the phone as soon as I arrived home and you would not believe it, once the technical stuff was out of the way I started chatting with the girl on the other end. She asked where in NZ I was going and remarked that it would be cold but better weather than she was having - it turned out she was in Wellington NZ (North Island)! You never know where the call is going when you ring a 13 number!

Ah well, your next communication from me in this blog will be from Christchurch NZ (South Island). After the heat and humidity of the past few days the chill of NZ will probably make me wish I was back at home! It will be a big contrast.

AJ

A holiday at "Coffs"

Colin and I will be staying in Coffs Harbour for seven days. On our arrival to this popular tourist town we just had to call into the most famous place in this region - the Big Banana! We had promised to bring back a souvenir for each of the children so we just had to call in so we could get something!

Colin was my willing subject for a shot of the landmark - All I had to do was tell him where to stand!

We could not leave without sampling a banana - this is the premiere banana growing area in NSW - so we ordered a banana split - and yum! It was good! Large and sweet and delicious and almost too much for any one person to eat on their own - but we had one each and we left ..... nothing!

A visit to the Information centre was our next call. There we met Dave who didn't actually know as much about the region as I did but he was entertaining and he took a real shine to us! I had been on the 'net and made a list of all the places that sounded interesting and although Dave had not been to half of the places at least he was able to show us on the main map where the little towns were that I asked about. He was a lovely fellow! He even suggested a restaurant where we could celebrate our anniversary!

Armed with a few maps and booklets we booked into our accommodation. We had forgotten that there was an hour's time difference so had to put the clocks forward and after putting in the key for the Wireless connection I then made the evening meal. The connection is so poor in our room that I have had to walk 50 metres or more to the games room where I am at the moment. Unfortunately there is no spare power point so I have to run on batteries! But the Internet is FREE so I am very lucky!

A picture taken in the smart lounge room of our two bedroom unit. The place looks as if it has been recently refurbished, it is very attractive and new.

All this post is being written on a tiny little 10 inch laptop and I feel that I can happily take it with me when I go to New Zealand next month and manage. I had a feeling I would need to take my regular laptop (17inch) if this one was not up to the task of uploading pictures and writing in the blog.

I am not sure which direction we shall be going tomorrow, I shall have to look at the booklets and make a decision - Aren't I lucky, I get to choose!

AJ