Escaped at last!

Well after six weeks of staying at home on the weekends to show the house and clean it and because it was raining and rainig, we had had enough and decided to get out of town for the day. So we decided to do a progressive bushwalk.
So we packed a couple of sandwiches and yoghurt and water and headed up to Eungella. The countryside was so green it hurt our eyes!
After checking out the dam, which was very full, even our campsite was under water, we headed back to Broken River and did the rainforest circuit. Only about 45 minute stroll. The river was flowing higher than I remember it for a long time. This is the crossing leading to the walk to the sky window, about a 2 hour walk once you get across the river. Looking upstream

and downstream.

Well the bridge wasn't that far under! But the water was really moving and with the algae it looked slippery.

Last time we were here we went on those rocks in the middle of the river. They are almost under water now.

The understory was cooler and moist.

Nice day for a stroll.

Some of the lovely big old trees in the rainforest.

And a little stream.

We had our lunch in the picnic grounds with one of the locals.

We then headed back down the mountain. It was a crisp clear day, hot, but without the usual humidity haze that hangs around.

Even the roadside waterfalls were running hard, we don't see this very often lately.

We headed off to Cape Hillsborough to do the hill climb to the lookout and then to Andrews Point.

Looking over Wedge Island, you can see the islands very clearly it was so clear.

I chickened out of the longer walk. Saw too many snakes on the way up and was spooked.

Rain, Rain, rain

It seems to have beeen raining forever. We had another open house on Saturday, and we couldn't mow the lawn as it was raining. We had to show it with a dirty pool too as it wouldn't stop raining long enough to treat the water to make it clear again.

It is getting very frustrating. While the house was open KISA and I had a coffee at the Eimeo pub. We just got it down before getting rained on.

A drive out to the harbour yesterday after we went to the fish vendor for some prawns. Uber high tides with a tsnumai on the way. It was a blip of course but wow imagine if it wasn't!

All these logs and debri have washed down the rivers with the rain.

More big black ominous clouds looming. We stayed home most of the weekend to stay out of the torrential rain.

Lots of potential firewood if only we had somewhere to store it!! Hmmm maybe they didn't tell him in the boy scouts that it should be dry before you try this???

Bit of baking been happening here. Check out the recipe blog to see.

Hard Labour

First of all my apologies for being so long between posts. Life has been busy here but not in a fun way and it has kind of suppressed the blogging mojo! I have had complaints that there has been no new posts lately! More than one and that thrills me no end. Not only do people read this drivel, they actually miss it when it is not forthcoming! That makes me very happy.
Which is more than I can say for selling a house. It has been on the market for 5 weeks so far and although we have had lots of inspections, no offers so far. It has been supremely neat and tidy during this time. Coupled with the fact that it has rained almost constantly in that time, making the pool be less than sparkly and perfect. This creates work for KISA as it must be constantly mnitored and tended to keep it inprection ready. Usually we just leave it till the rain clears and then clean it up the once. The constant rain means the grass grows 6 feet a week, meaning it needs mowing every weekend. We have had open houses every weekend. Over. It.The rain stopped briefly one evening and we spotted this out the front window. We have been holed up inside in the air con as the humidityhas been just intolerable, high 90s most of the time. The river flooded a couple of times and washed all this debris onto the beach, causing its closure. Imagine swimming and getting hit on the head with a tree! There have also been many many box jelly fish caught in the nets so aanother reason why the beaches have beeen closed. For the last two weekends we have been working at the unit. The land is not big enough to warrant a lawn, so we have been ripping up the turf and replacing it with river stones. Then we will place our statues etc and potted plants for a low maintainence garden we can leave alone for long stretches.
It was very hard work though.

Once the grass was up we were left with the soil. It is sandy so drains well.

The grass had knitted and put down roots. We should have done it earlier it would have been much easier. Once the stones were laid it looks much neater and will survive all this havy rain.

It all looks kind of dull inthe pictures but riverstone is dirty once it is laid. It rained that night and washed the stones all clean so you can see the different colours in the stone now. We did the front bed too. All up 8 ute loads or 4 cubic metres of river stone. That is 6400 kg of riversrtone or 6.4 tonnes. No wonder we were pooped!

Debs Last Week

Our resident backpacker is heading off to Sydney tomorrow for a few days before flying back to an island far far away next Thursday. We will miss her a lot as she has been with us a while and has slotted in here rather well.
So we have been trying to squeeze in a bit of sight seeing in between rain storms and cleaning the house for an open house tomorrow.
On Monday we went to the Sarina Sugar Shed, a miniature working sugar mill, which demonstrates how the sugar cane we are surrounded by in this fair city, is turned into sugar. They offer little tastes along the way. They also show us the distellery and offer little tastes of that too. (hic!) We both really enjoyed that.
On Tuesday, Debs and I went for a long walk at Harbour Beach, one of 32 beaches around our little city. As you can see it was very crowded.
Then we went to the lookout on the hill in North Mackay. Probably shuld have done this the first week, not the last, but there you are. Why I am not a tour guide. This shot is looking east.

And this shot is looking south. Our place is this way. Not far from the hill itself.

Tuesday night we took advantage of the not rainingness of the evening for an alfresco meal of tapas at the marina. Pity the air was so suffocatingly hot and humid. Food was tops though.

Wednesday we went to a western clothiers to check out the Akubra hats and RM Williams gear. Also the shop has not changed since it was set up in 1932 so its a bit like a trip back in time.

Today was another lunch at Eimeo and tonight we are having ravioli and napoli sauce with cheese, followed by golden syrup dumplings. Debs favourite meal as it is her last one with us.

Tomorow at 9am we are having another open house then we can relax a bit. One good thing about these open houses is you get all the house and yard work done up front, then have the weekend free!!

Wish us luck..

Bon Voyage Debs. Thanks for sharing our lives this last two months.

King Tide Flooding

Last night it rained and rained and rained. We had about 7 inches. Finch Hatton, closer to Eungella, got 12 inches!! The pool overflowed, of course, and we got mud in the pool. We even drained it last night before dinner time as far as we dared.
Today we were due a King tide at 11am ish. It was to be the highest tide in nine years, and with all the stormwater added, we figued there would be some flooding. We were right! This is the gooseponds alongside Willets Road.

We thought we would go check out the old hospital bridge, but were stymied by this crossing on the way to the NEW 42 million dollar bridge they built to avoid the problem of the old bridge flooding. This is the only road onto the new bridge. Woopsies!!

This is the river at the old bridge crossing. (We had to go around the long way) They have left a third of the old bridge as a fishing platform, though of course that is a long way under water.

A VERY long way under.

We drove back over the Forgan Smith bridge. An hour later that was closed as well. Lucky it was Sunday or there would have been total traffic chaos!! The goosponds park walking track, mostly under, and a comfy park bench to soak your weary toes!

We had another house inspection around 12.30, so went to the video shop and watched DVDs the rest of the day. KISA spent some time flocking and cleaning the pool.

Happy Australia Day

I just realised that yesterday was one year since I started this blog! So Happy Bloggavesary to me!
Of course today is Australia Day, so it is pouring rain due to a cyclone disassembling to the north of us. We didn't make it to the public celebrations, but invited A&P&Godzilla around for a BBQdinner. We had the special burgers. And Debs learned how to make Anzac biscuits.

So we didn't start running around the house with axes, we went for a drive in the rain. Lots of people were being patriotic with flags etc. Especially these guys.

Ahh, gotta love going to the beach in sunny Queensland...

" If I have to spend one more day shut up in the house with two women watching chick flicks....how far is that down to there do you reckon???"

The rain let up enough so we could use the deck without getting wet.

Good company.

Good cooks.

Quintesentially A!

Quintesentially P! Prizes will be awarded for the best thought bubble for Godzilla.

Pavlova and Anzac biscuits for pud...

Happy Australia Day everyone!