Chilling at Narooma

We had a lovely two weeks at Narooma. The temperatures sit about 22 C or so in the daytime and 15C overnight on average. We had one day where it exceeded 30C and a storm came through that afternoon and the temp dropped 10C in an hour. Most of the time it was sunny, though we had a couple of wet days.
We spent the time doing nothing much. A few walks, a game of golf,squash and tennis by those inclined (not me). A couple of trips to nearby quaint towns to sample coffee, cheese, and tat shops etc. A game of mini golf, at which I am not too rubbish, and drinks with Jdubya's associates.
A couple of meals out but most of the time was spent chilling out and looking at the view. It is a million dollar view.
We watched Jdubya surf one day.

We had lots of visitors to Jdubya's restuarant which opened at breakfast time each day and ran till dark at night. Some of the patrons included this young kookaburra.

And countless rainbow lorikeets. They are the Chopper Reids of the bird world.

"We are just here for the food. We are not, like, together or anything!" Lots of cockatoos. Isn't he a handsome fella.

Some prefer the personalised service.

"Hey, there is a queue!"

There is a definite pecking order, both within a group and between types.

For the meat eaters, bacon fat was popular.

" Don't you know it's rude to talk on the phone during dinner, especially MY dinner?"

Every morning the Blue Tongue Lizard came out to sunbake. He was here two years ago as well.

A shot of the inlet taken on one of our walks. Along the boardwalk there you can hear the beautiful sound of bellbirds.

A tiger ray, it looks like a kind of bottom feeding shark.

A black swans nest in the middle of a swamp along our walk. Those are not the swans, their babies have just fledged. We saw them a couple of days prior.

Mr King Parrot came every day. He had an exclusive table as the lorikeets would not let him eat in peace.

Mrs King Parrot. She has a green head he has a red.

The interior of the Bodalla Anglican Church. This is a pretty old stone church for Australia 1860 ish and all that oak and stained glass was shipped from England.

On another stunningly beautiful day we went to Bermagui. They have this amazing rock pool to swim in. It is changed each day by the sea. Not sure how and I bet it was chilly. There were swimmers though.

The inevitable sunset, of course.

I took a slip down the stairs and hurt my foot. Could be sprained but I suspect a bone might be broken. It kind of grates when you rub it and hurts like anything of course. That kind of curbed my activities a little.

I still managed to hobble to the end of the bar. That is what they call the breakwater in Narooma by the way, not what you are thinking.

Looking north from the lookout near the golf course.

Jdubya lines up for the evening shift.

A beer in one hand and a bird in the other. What more can a man want???? These two Corellas popped in one day. They are not regulars. Must have been their anniversary!

Rosellas were quite regular as well. Quite a variety really, plenty of entertainment watching them all. On our last day in Narooma it was my birthday. It rained all day, so we spent it reading etc and went out to the golf club that evening for dinner. As did the other 9000 inhabitants of the town. We got a good table though. I am a good table vulture and not adverse to switching when a better one comes up...

It's an unbeatable view.

Merry Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve was spent chilling at home, KISA spent time fixing Jdubya's computer so a bit of a busmans holiday for him so far. Santa came by in the rural fire truck, he drives down every street and throws lollies at the kids. Christmas dinner, I slow roasted this baby at 150 degrees C for 5 hours and it was delicious and very tender. Nom Nom...

Cheers..we did a lot of that...guess who forgot the tripod...perched the camera on the back of a chair..

A bit of breakfast, champagne and sunshine overlooking the sea. Hear it rained a little back home...and snowed a little in the island far far away.

A glass of bubbles to start the day off is traditional even if you are "not doing christmas".

The house faces east so it is hard to get a shot that is not straight into the sun if you want to catch the view too at that time of day.

Our pressies...KISA gave me a Kindle and I gave him an iPod. Playing with them took a while...

Merry Christmas to all, we hope it was a lovely day for you too...

Off on our trip

We left home on the 18th and drove to Brisbane to catch up with the boys, TBS and Nana. We arrrived in time to watch B and S decorate the tree. Completely forgot to take photos during those two days, many apologies.

On Monday the 20th, we headed to Dalby, where we bought the car, as it was due for its 10000 service and we were passing nearby, so elected to have it done there instead of at home. It had been raining a lot out this way and the fields were flooded.

Because it is so flat it doesn't drain so quickly, the ground was already sodden as it has been so wet lately.

The road into Dalby was already over on our way in. Once we got to the car dealer, we discovered that there was a warning that Myall Creek, which cuts the town in half, was predicted to go over the bridge that afternoon, due to heavy rain in the upper catchment area. We were planning to spend the day in Dalby with a courtesy car and maybe stay the night. They had a lot of cancellations of car services so they finished our car quickly while we waited and were were refuelled and heading out of town by 10.30am. The creek rose and the bridge went under two hours later, as did the caravan park we were planning to stay in. That was the first of many floods for Dalby over the Christmas/New Year period.

We got as far as Narrabri that night. The Newell Highway had only just opened up after flooding. You can see how flat it is out here. The drive was good, the roads were a bit patchy after all the water and we sustained some windscreen damage, but there was not much traffic and the weather was good. Everywhere we went you could see where the water had been.

We stayed the night in a caravan park at Narrabri, next to the river which had only just gone down. We set off early the next day and stopped for lunch at a park in Dubbo at the information centre, again where floods had just receded. The centre was closed as they were hosing it out. The mosquitos were fierce and starving and we inadvertantly took one or two with us. This is what they did to KISA. As a tough old bird, they don't react with me any more.

We spent the next night in Yass. Much cooler down there, and the caravan park was very reasonable at only $64 for the cabin. We met Jdubya at Canberra the next morning at the DFO shops, and we set off after lunch to Narooma.We arrived late afternoon on the 22rd.

Next day was braving woolworths for the christmas supplies, then we relaxed for our long anticipated Christmas destress holiday.

Jdubya, scrooge extradordinaire, lashed out on the biggest tree he could find. We were so proud of him.


Bring it on! We are ready!

Record Breaking Weather

For everyone.
We have just had the wettest November ever recorded. And, just quietly, it pretty much rained all October and September as well. So. No dry season this year. The wet season hasn't started yet and they are predicting at least 6 cyclones this year off the coast.
The new garden copes pretty well with deluges of rain. The soil is sandy so it drains away reasonably quickly. This is the other corner, I don't think I have posted photos of the new plants we added in August yet. They are growing VERY well! No shock there with all the rain and warm weather.

This is the fountain and the herbs, lemon and chillis. This area will be expanded after the worst of the summer.

The side bit, a lot of water settles here, plus we get some run off from the neigbours concrete area and water tank overflow.

This is the view out the back door. These plants are growing like mad, even the maidenhair fern. In the seed starter, there are 9 baby desert roses, grown from seed.

On the other side of the world, they are having some extreme weather too, the heaviest November snow in 30 years or so. We have received a few photos from the small island, far, far away. They are keeping warm snuggled up to roaring fires. This makes KISA extremely jealous.

It is only a few posts ago that I had a picture of us sitting out on this deck in short sleeves.
It was -17 degrees in LLandrindod less than two weeks ago.

Phil's grave under all the snow. It is still a beautiful peaceful place. It will be very quiet there now as the snow mufles all the noise.

Don't you love the way the snowflakes look in a photo? It looks like fairyland.

LMS sent me some pictures from snowy Nottinghamshire. This is her car buried under the snow. No one went to work that day.

LMS went into the yard in her jim jams to....make a cup of tea????

Lord Mallory was not that impressed with the snow. He returned to the fireside where all self respecting English cats have spent the last fortnight.

Sunday Drive

To Bowen.
It has been raining for weeks. Like since we left for the UK. So in order to get out, we decided to drive to Bowen. It was cloudy again when we left but fined up as we drove north. Bowen is part of the dry tropics. We have driven past the turn heaps of times in the last year, but we have never driven in and I was keen for a look.
Just north of Proserpine, we got a text from KISA's sister in Wales, who was settling herself in front of the fire with a stiff drink after spending the afternoon shovelling snow off the drive and cleaning leaves out of her gutters. That it was -10 degrees outside. KISA just clenched his teeth and kept driving towards this. He misses snow and winter the most I think!
One we arrived in Bowen we went to the top of Flagstaff Hill. It was a bit hazy. This would be an awesome view on a clear day, looking over the island.

There is one hill in Bowen really. There are a couple of water tanks up the top where they have written BOWENWOOD. That is because they filmed the "Australia" movie here.

There is a cafe on Flagstaff Hill, so we had a coffee.

We went to look around. Bowen has a few beaches, but this is the best one. It is Horseshoe Bay, quite a small cove, but with a deep draught, and shade and rocky headlands. A caravan park sits on the shore.

Usual crowd taking in the sun.

KISA is still sporting his muttonchops from the Christmas party. He quite likes them! I do to, they are very 19th Century don't you think??

We have just had over 140ml of rain in the last 24 hours, the gooseponds are flooded and we have water in the garage. It is only the first day of summer today. Sigh.