Xmas in North Queensland

Christmas 2014 has just past and we have welcomed in 2015 in typical north queensland fashion - bbq and lots of cold drinks!!

You know its summer in North Queensland when the only time you want to venture outside of the airconditioning is to:

1/ jump straight into an airconditioned vehicle to go to (a) a swimming pool/water hole, or (b) another airconditioned venue, or (c) a place where copious amounts of ice-cold beverages can be consumed, or

2/ worship the rain gods when it finally starts to rain......until there has been non-stop torrential rain for 2 weeks straight in which case you curse the rain gods and pray for the hot dry weather again because at least then you can get some washing dry.

There have been a few storms around recently that tease us into thinking we're going to get rain...but then nothing. The sky goes greyish and we hear the thunder in the distance, we can even see it on the radar heading straight for us. Alas, there is a mountain range in the way and thats often as far as the storm goes. The following day its even more muggy and humid than the day before....

Occasionally, there are cyclones that appear on the radar and make life in North Queensland interesting for a while.  Most of the time they are very mild and just bring a little wind and rain, or peeter out away from civilisation. But sometimes, the big ones come.

The pool and back yard after Yasi - We didn't fair too badly compared to some.

Cyclone Yasi was the last to affect us and that was already nearly 4 years ago.  It aways amuses me just how excited people get when a cyclone is announced in this region. It ranges from the extreme panic (usually newbies to North Qld) to the casually optimistic and cynical (usually long time locals). I'm somewhere in between. It makes a big difference once you have actually experienced a serious cyclone. Cyclone Yasi left us without power for 3 days. I had 2 teenage daughters living with me and so you imagine just how awful it was for them....no facebook lol. With trees and powerlines down everywhere, driving around was not really an option, so we found ourselves sitting in the car for short periods just to recharge our phones to stay in contact. I had a big cook up to try to salvage some of our freezer meat as it defrosted so we ate considerably well for a few days.  We now have a generator on hand in case we get another big one - it may happen this year or it might not occur for another 30 years. Fingers crossed, its the latter.  Although maybe a little one every so often would be good - just to keep us from becoming too complacent.

Aside from this, North Queensland weather is great, you just have to accept that for a short time the weather sucks.  Because for at least 7 or 8 months of the year it is perfect!

My backyard is somewhat suffering though...maybe due to one uninvited, but appears to have settled in, resident peahen! 'Penny' arrived one day and seems to have decided my backyard would be a good place to stay. She has taken a liking to my vege garden, in particular the lettuce and kale which is now bearly existent. She sneeks into the chook pen whenever I let the chooks out and eats their food. At first it was sort of a novelty having a peahen around but now I'm not so sure.....

Whats left of my kale and lettuce

Caught in the act! sneeking out of the chook pen...

"Tilly" the indian runner duck I introduced to our family back in October has settled in, although it hasn't stopped Daisy from being overly amorous with the chooks so they have been separated. I'm going to make a separate run for the ducks because the chooks still get a bit tramatised and go off the lay.  When they are all laying, we get about 4 eggs a day on average. One araucana is still clucky and has been sitting for a few weeks now - must be about time to force her off the nest I think.

Daisy and Tilly

3 regular eggs and 1 blue araucana egg

'the girls'

Our plans for the trip to Lawn Hill NP in April are forging ahead. We have now booked Undara Lava tubes and Cobbold Gorge. We are undecided whether to book anything else or just hope to find plenty of available camp sites. It will be easter school holidays so I am a little concerned but we don't mind where we camp and have also heard there are plenty of free bush camps out that way.

Til next time...

A new family member


As yet un-named, this Indian Runner girl has joined our family today to be a companion for Daisy.  Daisy has reached the point of maturity and had formed inappropriate attachments to the poor chooks. All but 1 of the hens now have a distinct featherless pattern on the back of their heads, caused by one rather amorous drake. Hopefully now he will leave them alone.

Savannah Way to Lawn Hill and back the Overland Way

Gosh almost another 6 months has passed.....


We had almost decided to travel to Tasmania in 2015 but have since changed our minds and are now planning another outback adventure, this time heading west.



The plan is to head to the Undara Lava tubes first and then west along the Savannah Way almost to the Northern Territory border. With a couple of overnight stops along the way (Karumba and Kingfisher camp are likely possibilities) we aim to reach Lawn Hill (Boodjamulla) National Park.  Hopefully staying several nights in the Lawn Hall area before heading east again, this time along the Overlander Way. Probably bypassing Camooweal we will  head toward Mount Isa and take in a mine tour. This is where Brett works so he is keen to show us. I have read that the newish"Outback at Isa" visitor centre is worth a visit and we will probably stop at Lake Moondarra. Cloncurry, Julia Creek and Richmonds "Kronosaurus Korner" might get a look-in but I'm really keen to explore Porcupine Gorge and perhaps even the White Mountains National Park area.


This will be a round trip somewhere in the vicinity of 2800km's so a bit of planning and vehicle preparation will be required. Currently planned for around April 2015 so stay tuned.....

Wow, I can't believe its been almost 6 months since my last post. Alas, not a lot has changed & life has gone on!

Our menagerie of pets has both increased and decreased.  The 6 Araucana chicks I purchased late last year turned into 4 Araucanas and 2 ring ins....One I believe was a Malay game bird, and the other was some other variety unknown (probably mixed breed, certainly not an Araucana). Unfortunately the Malay, the unknown and 2 of the Araucanas turned out to be roosters. Although all nice looking birds, we couldn't keep any roosters so one by one they all met their fate and become chicken dinners.

The 2 remaining Araucana hens are now laying us their blue eggs which was very exciting when the kids found the first one. Although these araucana eggs are only bantam size, they taste just the same as the other eggs we have.

The only issue seems to be that the Araucana have a problem with excess feathers around their eyes and I've twice now had to clip them so the poor things can see where they are going.

The 2 remaining Araucana hens, who are now laying lovely blue eggs

One of the Araucana roosters

The Malay rooster

 

The unknown suspected mixbreed rooster

Then of course, there is Daisy..... named such in the hope of ending up with a female.... well no such luck, Daisy has grown into a very cheeky drake. He is rather regal looking now with the green neck feathers, and just lives for watermelon. We thought about changing his name but Daisy had kinda stuck by then. Daisy, being a now mature male, is starting to get abit amorous with the chooks so I am on the hunt for another Khaki female as a companion. Maybe I'll call her Gus or something very male just to even things out.

Daisy the Khaki Campbell drake

I had grown disshevelled with the chook water system I had previously. It was a Wet-a-chook which is a brilliant product, just wasn't enough for 10 chooks and 3 ducks...duh!  Even though we now only have 6 chooks and 1 duck, I decided on trying an idea I came across on youtube - the chook waterer.
There are several variations on the products and equipment you can use, but essentially it is a water container with a pipe attached and several 'nipple's for the chooks to drink from. Seems to work okay for ducks too (although I still use a small wading pool for Daisy as well).

I used a 25litre plastic container with a lid (to keep mozzies out), drilled a hole through for a pipe connection, then added some irrigation pipe which connects to a section of pvc pipe which has 5 nipples.  The nipples can be purchased online very cheaply, and all the other bits and pieces were either in my shed or easily found at Bunnings. I find I only need to refill the container about every week or so depending on how hot it is, and the chooks learnt how to use it very quickly. Daisy can make a bit of a mess because he likes to guzzle water rather than delicately drink likes the chooks.

Chook waterer

I had ended up with a section of large concrete pipe in my yard. Long story but basically it came from another property we had renovated and my brother had decided it could be turned into a nice pond. He had the vision and I had the trailer and so it ended up sitting in my back yard for several months.  One day, John arrived on my doorstep with a bag of cement and announced he was going to help me make a pond. After several weeks of concreting the base, applying pond paint, and then waiting for it all to dry completely, I filled it with water and some pond plants I acquired and voila.... one concrete pipe pond. It has an edible water lily along with some other plants, a couple of swordtails and a quickly growing population of white clouds and snails.

My vege garden is also finally back up and gaining enough attention to be flourishing again.  It was slow to get going again mainly because I was postponing replanting until I had 2 large trees cut down at the back of our property. I wanted to relocate 2 of the raised  garden beds but unfortunately that was right in the path the tree lopping machines needed to take to get access to the trees.  Once the trees were gone, I relocated the chook run and the garden beds and now its full steam ahead....

In this bed - Celery, eggplant, chia, tomato, basil and comfrey

In this area - Corn, turnips, pumpkin, parsley, coriander, pak choy, tatsoi, lettuce, carrots and more

Another invention - mesh covered frame, sprinkle bag of chook-friendly fodder seeds, water, and voila.....growing plants the chooks can graze on but not dig up.

4WD'ing fun

Although 4WD'ing is still relatively new to me I am very pleased to say I have caught the bug.  My partner Brett has introduced me to this whole other world that the Australian outback has to offer and we just love discovering places where few others can go.  I will admit I was once a 'soccer mum' driving around in a Toyota Prado that never left the bitumen - if only I'd known what these vehicles are capable of!

We recently decided to do a day trip to a place called Blue Valley Weir. You basically follow the Bruce Highway until the turn off to Clare, and then follow the Burdekin River up stream toward the dam. When the public road ends you are met with a gate and a sign:

I'm not certain but I think you enter a privately owned cattle property - they do (at this point at least) allow people on. We follow the basic principle of leaving the place as we found it - close gates after us, don't leave litter behind, etc..... And hopefully if others adhere to this, this beautiful area will remain open for anyone to explore and enjoy for years to come!

It wasn't long before we were experiencing the more challenging of 4wd tracks. Lots of washed out sections and steep declines.  We were travelling with 2 other vehicles, Bretts sisters and their partners.  Deb and Ray with the brand new standard triton were also 4wd novices but we soon discovered they had a very capable vehicle which surprised even them. Diff lockers - makes all the difference!

Photos never do justice but these next few photos show the toughest section. A long steep track with lots of deep ruts. Took us about half an hour for all 3 vehicles to navigate our way up. Some track building (logs, rocks) was required and some precarious balancing acts were experienced.

The challenges continued...... a few wheels in the air and plenty of dust flying

Brett almost came unstuck here - you gotta watch those badly placed rocks...

It was very dry except for one small spot near the river. Nothing to fear. I certainly wouldn't want to attempt this track after lots of rain.

FAST - the only way to get through deep sand....

Rewarded at the end of the track by this beautiful spot. Great for camping (maybe next time), fishing and careful swimming (there have been crocs spotted here).

 

exploring by the river

Of course being only one road in means what you go up, you must go back down.... and so the trek back began much too soon.  Somehow it seemed easier....

You definately need a full day to do this trip - probably around 6 hours just to drive from the gate to the weir and back out. 

Oh and there is another weir just nearby - Gorge Weir.  Next time!!