I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately as we received the very sad news that Ian's sister Ann passed away suddenly last week. Ann was very supportive and encouraging about my blog and it feels odd writing a post knowing that she won't be reading it. I know she would be the first to tell me not to be silly and to get on with it so here goes;
The koalas seem to be out in force at the moment, this is good news because the local nature groups have been worrying that they are going down rapidly in numbers. The main cause for the decline is loss of habitat. Loads of trees were lost in the big storm and the local authority have now relaxed the rules on tree removal for a year to allow people to get rid of any dangerous ones. You are supposed to prove a tree was a danger to property or power lines but I am sure most people are just taking them down to try and improve their view.
However, we are starting to see koalas more regularly and sometimes two at a time, which is very unusual. Yesterday we walked down to a nearby street where we often see one and she was there, then we were told there was another one back nearer to our house. so we trooped back to try and spot it, luckily the lady who told us had given very specific details about the location and we found it. Two in one walk, we were delighted! As we were looking up the tree taking pictures a couple we have become friends with (well, our arch enemies from the quiz nights really) came out of their house to see what we were looking at and spotted that the koala was actually holding a tiny baby. So, three in one walk, unheard of!
We have made some significant moves this week towards partial self sufficiency or, at least greatly reducing our utility bills. When we first moved here I was amazed to discover all the lush gardens and grass and to see garden sprinklers and hoses being used liberally. I couldn't understand why there seemed to be no hosepipe ban here when, in England, there only has to be a slightly dry week in April and you can't use your hosepipe until October! Also, water is very expensive but people were using it on their gardens without a care in the world. There was also a strange pipe sticking out of the ground at the other house which we could not identify, until eventually someone told us it was a spearpoint outlet. There is underground water here and everyone has a bore and pump put in and, hey presto - free water for the garden! We got our pump fitted on Friday and it has rained on and off ever since (what a surprise).
The other giant leap forward was to finally select the company to install our solar power and hot water. We budgeted for this when we bought the house but it has been really difficult (and incredibly boring) trying to find the correct system and company to install it. What I don't now know about evacuated tubes and micro inverters is not worth knowing! The products and prices vary enormously and it is a bit of a minefield to negotiate. Each time we thought we liked the look of a system, something would get in the way and put us off, even down to basics like a salesperson not turning up or a company quoting a hugely inflated price then pretending to do us a favour with massive discounts. However, we got there in the end and the big install is on 15th September, stand by for photos.
We had a splendid night out seeing Hamlet at the Newcastle Civic Theatre last night. The production was excellent and the venue itself is fantastic, a Spanish Baroque style theatre complete with marble staircases opened in 1929.
The evening out almost didn't happen for a number of reasons. It took us a while to realise that most performances only come to regional theatres like ours for one performance between their stopovers in the bigger cities so you have to be quick off the mark to book if something good is coming. I missed being able to get tickets for a play about Ned Kelly and Miriam Margolyes' one woman show before I twigged what the problem was. However, once we overcame this obstacle and were eagerly looking forward to Hamlet. Then, last Sunday, I was laid low by a nasty bout of flu and as the days passed I was worried I might not get better in time but finally seemed to be on the mend by the end of the week when disaster struck, Ian came down with it! Luckily he was not quite as bad as me and, when Saturday evening arrived, we armed ourselves with bottles of water and cough sweets to guard against coughing fits, and had an enjoyable evening.
Before the illness struck, Ian was venturing into thespian territory himself this week. A new footpath has just been completed at the Tilligerry Habitat and the team there wanted to mark the opening in a memorable way so decided to re enact the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
When the bridge was completed in 1932, the dignitaries, led by New South Wales Premier Jack Lang, gathered for the grand opening. Just as Lang was about to cut the ribbon, Francis De Groot, a member of the right wing New Guard of Australia, galloped up on his horse and sliced through the ribbon with his sword, declaring the bridge open 'in the name of the decent and respectable people of New South Wales.'
As you can see, Ian took on his role as De Groot with enthusiasm!
We are still working away on various bits of the house. Ian is still terracing the sheer drop that is our garden, while I am painting the balcony. We don't seem to have stopped since we got here and I am reminded of my Dad who, after he retired used to say he didn't know how he had ever found the time to work!
It was a gorgeous day today, 20 degrees even though we officially still have one week of winter left to go, so we decided to give ourselves a, well deserved, day off and we set off on foot to do a bit of exploring. Although we know our little town and the neighbouring ones, there are countless footpaths and trails around these parts that we have not walked along yet. We plumped for a fire trail (a man made break through bushland for controlling bush fires) and walked along to the next township, Mallabula, which is home to one of our favourite local beaches. Monty loves running around on the beaches and, whenever I have a pang of guilt about shipping him all that way in a crate, it goes away when I see him enjoying himself so much.
It was so peaceful watching people fishing off the jetty and one man standing up in his kayak fishing, when Ian and I had a kayak we had enough trouble keeping it upright when we were sitting down so we won't be trying that!
We followed the shore around and then tried another new footpath on the way back, all in all a round trip of about 15km, very pleasant indeed.
Our next project after the terracing is the solar installation. It is crazy not to have at least solar hot water in a country with so much sunlight and we have decided to go for the whole lot so have been to Stand Up For Solar meetings, pestered neighbours with solar about their experiences and had reps visiting from all the major solar companies and Ian has been carrying out the boring task of photographing the roof from all angles every hour so the panels can be positioned correctly. It is quite an exciting prospect to be able to be partially self sufficient powerwise, I feel like we should be on Grand Designs.
It is really starting to feel like the beginning of spring now, the light is changing making the sunsets more interesting, the birds are pairing up and building nests and the koalas seem to be a bit more active (this is not difficult, mind you, as they would struggle to be much less active) and Monty has dragged himself away from the radiator. One koala we see fairly often put on a real show the other evening by perching herself way down her chosen tree at eye level (they are usually much higher up). She does not seem afraid of much, probably because she had to live in the koala rescue on a couple of occasions when she was very young, it is a bit worrying really because not everyone keeps their dogs on the lead in the koala reserves even though they are supposed to. However, we enjoyed seeing her close up and, to cap it all, we saw a second one at the end of our walk! We have never seen two in one go before.
We are working hard terracing our garden at the moment. We thought we lived on
a steep slope in Rickmansworth but it was nothing compared to this, at the moment it is like trying to mow Everest so the retaining walls we are building should make it easier and stop the slight erosion that is inevitable on a sloping site like this.
It was a bit of a dark garden in winter but that all started to change a few days ago. The house next door is a deceased estate and has been empty for some time, it was very neglected and had about ten huge trees in the back garden, making ours very gloomy. Last week, however, work began as the relatives decided to spruce the place up to sell it and they took down at least six trees in the back garden and about four out the front thinning out the rest, as you can see in the before and after pictures. It is amazing to watch how the tree specialists take down these giants in a small space and it must be costing them a fortune, these guys work really hard in very dangerous conditions and whatever they are paid cannot possibly be enough. You have to have permission from the council to be able to remove a tree and must prove it was dangerous, so hopefully they did all that first. The gum trees can grow to 120ft or more and are not as strong as other big trees, branches do drop off without warning (they are known as widowmakers) so it is as well not to have them hanging over the house. It was a shame to see trees go and we can now see a few more buildings but it opened up a second vista of water views form our balcony and we now have a nice light garden, so probably increased the value of our house considerably.
The sheer size of the trees in Australia took my breath away and even Ian had forgotten how big they are. At the moment he is classifying native trees and plants for the Tilligerry Habitat website and comes home from working there armed with fascinating facts, the latest being that the Hunter Region (where we live) has more varieties of species of plants and trees than the whole of Europe!
One of the things we have really been looking forward to doing is a trip on a whale watching boat. We are so lucky to live in a bay where the whales pass by on their migration and we have seen them from the beach in nearby Anna Bay, but we wanted to get up close. The whales migrate from May to November each year, travelling to the Barrier Reef to calve and then back south again. At the moment they are on the northern part of their migration, the peak of which is the end of May to mid July and the whale watching trip operators are so confident whales will be spotted during this period, they offer a second trip free if yours is unsuccessful. The peak time for the return journey south is October so we will see if Zoe and Shaun can visit during that month to catch it. The whales do not eat during the migration period so follow currents to use less energy on the trip but, on the return journey they have their calves with them who are lively and curious, so jump out of the water (breach) more and get closer to the boats.
The picture of the double breach was not taken by us, all we got were fins, backs, blank sky and handrail pictures as the boat lurched about, although Ian got a fairly good dolphin shot, but it was taken from our boat a few days before our trip.
We chose to go on the Imagine Cruises catamaran as this would get us closer to the water unlike some of the bigger boats on offer, and we were pleased with our choice. The weather has been a bit wet lately so we waited until we knew it was going to be a clear calm day and booked at the last minute.
Morning saw us heading into Nelson Bay, which is about 10 minutes by boat and 30 minutes by road from us but much closer to the mouth of the bay than our little town, so all the cruises go from there, and we grabbed a quick breakfast before getting on board. Captain Crusty gave his safety talk and offered round the seasickness tablets, neither of us suffer but we did start to wonder about the wisdom of having the breakfast, and off we set out of the bay.
The conditions were ideal and it was good to look back at our bay from the sea to get the whereabouts of the towns into perspective, we learned some interesting facts too like Port Stephens is bigger than Sydney Harbour but has never attracted the development of large cities because the bay is too shallow for big ships.
The catamaran headed out to sea for about 30 minutes before we were told to start scanning the horizon for whales. Because the whales follow the currents it is fairly straightforward for the boat to find them and the whale watching boats (there are 3 companies with a boat out each at the same time) all keep in touch by radio to let each other know of sightings. We saw plenty of breaching on the horizon but none really close, apparently whales sometimes breach because they have an itch and it dislodges a few barnacles, but then we spotted some Humpbacks up close and followed them along for some time. They are magnificent and it is hard to appreciate just how huge they are until they are seen up close, the boats have to keep a certain distance away from them but the whales don't know this so sometimes come closer.
We were joined by some Common Dolphins who bobbed alongside for a bit then Captain Crusty received a radio message from another boat saying they had spotted a pod of False Killer Whales, this was apparently very unusual so, without further ado, we were off. No time to retake seats or even get into a reasonably safe high speed position, I had been doing my best Admiral Nelson pose up front hoping to get some good photos and had to stay there, hanging on for dear life as we shot across the ocean at top speed (it probably wasn't top speed but it felt like it). The False Killer Whales were quicker than us though and had gone by the time we got there so we sauntered back, visiting some Bottlenose Dolphins on the way, many of these live inside the bay and are the same as the ones we see passing the beach at the end of our road.
All in all, a wonderful day out which I am sure we will repeat every time we have visitors but, back to reality today. It is raining and we have to get rid of a huge pile of branches we removed from our, very overgrown, trees. The free green waste drop off is only open once a month so it has to be today, I am sure you feel really sorry for us!
Last Monday morning we set off at 6am for Melbourne with our trailer and the back of the car full of Zoe's furniture and possessions from England. It is about an 11 hour drive but with comfort breaks it ends up as just over 12. We wouldn't usually do it in one go and prefer to take the caravan and make a trip of it stopping overnight at various places on the way, but this time we had all the goodies on board so went for it. We drive a couple of hours each then swap so can pretty much keep going but it is a long day so we popped the tent in the back to enable us to stop on the way back. The city was all lit up as we drove in and looked fantastic.
It was our first visit to Zoe and Shaun's home and it was lovely. They live in Elsternwick, a very smart suburb just 8km from the city centre. The tram stops at the corner of their road and goes straight into the heart of the city, but they are also only a 20 minute walk from the nearest beach.
Zoe had booked for us to go to the World War 1 centenary exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, it is the one from the Imperial War Museum in London and was excellent.
Melbourne is described as a very livable city and it is quite true, we hopped on the tram and were in the city in no time where it was very easy to find our way around. It is also a very beautiful place with a marvellous mix of old and new buildings which should not look good together but they do.
Over the next couple of days Zoe impressed us with how well she has familiarised herself with the area in a relatively short period of time. She took us to visit Brighton, which is the suburb next to Elsternwick and has wonderful beach huts. She took us to look at the beachside towns along the coast and then back into the city to the Queen Victoria Markets and Melbourne Gaol where Ned Kelly was hanged. The visit to the gaol was in three parts, a tour of the police cells, a look around the gaol and a re-enactment of the trial of Ned Kelly in the court house. While we were in the queue for the court, a guide came along asking for volunteers to take part in the re-enactment, Ian put his hand up along with nine other people and they were taken off inside. They were gone for some time before we were allowed in and when we entered the court, look who was the Crown Prosecutor!
We had a wonderful visit and left at 10.30 Friday morning agreeing that Melbourne was a very nice place indeed. We had had planned to stop off in Canberra on the way back and had the tent with us but it was pretty cold and Canberra really does get nippy this time of year, so we kept going again on the way back and pulled into Lemon Tree Passage at about 11pm.
I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately as we received the very sad news that Ian's sister Ann passed away suddenly last week. Ann was very supportive and encouraging about my blog and it feels odd writing a post knowing that she won't be reading it. I know she would be the first to tell me not to be silly and to get on with it so here goes;
However, we are starting to see koalas more regularly and sometimes two at a time, which is very unusual. Yesterday we walked down to a nearby street where we often see one and she was there, then we were told there was another one back nearer to our house. so we trooped back to try and spot it, luckily the lady who told us had given very specific details about the location and we found it. Two in one walk, we were delighted! As we were looking up the tree taking pictures a couple we have become friends with (well, our arch enemies from the quiz nights really) came out of their house to see what we were looking at and spotted that the koala was actually holding a tiny baby. So, three in one walk, unheard of!
We have made some significant moves this week towards partial self sufficiency or, at least greatly reducing our utility bills. When we first moved here I was amazed to discover all the lush gardens and grass and to see garden sprinklers and hoses being used liberally. I couldn't understand why there seemed to be no hosepipe ban here when, in England, there only has to be a slightly dry week in April and you can't use your hosepipe until October! Also, water is very expensive but people were using it on their gardens without a care in the world. There was also a strange pipe sticking out of the ground at the other house which we could not identify, until eventually someone told us it was a spearpoint outlet. There is underground water here and everyone has a bore and pump put in and, hey presto - free water for the garden! We got our pump fitted on Friday and it has rained on and off ever since (what a surprise).
