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...