The birds have it!

 I keep thinking I must take a video with sound on my camera, and put it on the blog because all the birdsong is just lovely.  Our kookaburra friend still comes to visit each day, and several of them greet the morning at around 6am with lots of laughter.  One of them was sitting on an electrical pole today, where the vans connect their cords.  We said hello and he promptly turned his back - he does that a lot.

 There is also a pair of Tawny Frogmouths in a tree nearby and they have been there all camp.  They move around a little bit but not much.  You can hear them at night.

There are also a lot of fruit bats (also called flying foxes) in the trees, and their squeaks and sounds can be heard a lot at night because they are nocturnal.

Yesterday (Monday) one lot of our friends went home.  We took this group photo before they left.  From left to right it is Marilyn, her husband Rick behind, then moi  with Nathan beside me and Peter hidden behind Nathan, then Leona and Ian.  Leona is holding Pebbles, who is the dearest little dog - so placid and friendly.

After Leona and Ian (and Pebbles) left, Marilyn and I sat in the sun and I did a fair bit of stitching while she read.  After lunch we all came into our caravan and had a huge discussion about our Tasmanian trip. We've decided we'll try and book to leave on 2nd February from Melbourne and return on April 30th.  The list of places we want to see is growing minute by minute so both couples will do more research, consult another pair of friends who know heaps about Tassie (Laraine grew up there and they return frequently to visit her mother) and we'll gradually refine our itinerary.  Which will remain flexible anyway, apart from needing to be back in time to catch the ferry back to Melbourne at the end.  We've already decided that we'll probably have to go back another time because we'll not be there in time to see the wonderful lavender farms in December or the wildflowers in October.

Today we went to Scotts Head, which again is close by.  The headland is fringed by several beaches.  We stopped to have a look at Scotts Head beach and as we walked towards it we saw these lovely murals on the public toilets and showers at the top of the beach.  They have been there for 12 years and still look pristine.

This was the largest one, being about 8 ft long by 5 or 6 ft tall.  What do you see in the main figure?  A wave? A nautilus shell? A whale? A seal? A lizard? Or.......

These next ones were about 4 ft long by 3ft high, I think - we've had some discussion about measurements so I wouldn't swear in court about them :)

 And I think that this last one was about a metre on each side.

 The beach is a long one but again showed signs that it had suffered in the torrential rain last week.  It looked as though some of it had been washed away and there was debris on it.

Marilyn and I walked to the end (the opposite end to that shown in the photo above) and there was a lot of debris caught up against the rocks at that end.  Being me, I couldn't help taking my usual type of photos as I went:  I love shells, always take photos of shells and seagulls when we're at the beach (it's a signature of my scrapbooking pages)

 And I love taking photos of odd things - bits of driftwood like this

Or some of the flotsam that was caught up  like this section of quite a large fishing net that was mostly firmly buried in the sand

 In amongst the timber and other flotsam was this Old Man Banksia cone

 When I'm scrapbooking I often print out this sort of photo, crop it and use them as accent points on the page.  I like to sometimes have a frame border with a series of squares cut out and place such pictures in it.

We walked up onto a park above the beach and there was this unusual table, with even more mosaic work.  Note the 'tail' and the front 'fins' on the table that form the legs.

 Each of the seats had a different design

 And the design on the table was really attractive.  I had to take it in 3 sections and I don't know how to stitch photos together yet.

And of course now I can't get them to line up across the page either - and even if I did they wouldn't do so when I publish the page anyway!  So I hope it gives an idea of what it is like.

After I took lots of photos of the waves crashing on the rocks below at the edge of the headland, we walked up some quite steep steps to a lookout.  Apparently (we learned later) it is a great spot to watch dolphins.  Nathan didn't want to walk up the steep track to the top of the headland - fair enough, he would have needed a lot of support.  Peter walked up to the top then I did too, and took a photo of some of the tiny native violets snuggled in amongst the other growth.  They are only little but I really love them - I've bought a heap of them from the nursery and am trying hard to get them growing around my jacaranda tree at home but they are having a hard time because our grandchildren trample all over them when they climb the tree.  Here are some that were growing in areas with enough light to photograph them today.

And here are some that Peter picked for me to press for my scrapbook page (it isn't a National Park so it should have been okay to pick them - I hope!)

At the top of the headland, we looked out over Little Beach on the other side.  Again, damage from the rain was evident.  Some of the sand had just given away above the beach and the seating that had been there was upturned on the beach.

Returning to the car, we found a nice restaurant and had a delicious lunch: A stack with kumara, pumpkin, capsicum, baby spinach, tomato, beetroot, carrot and reduced balsamic dressing.  Yum-meee! Followed by freshly squeezed juice: beetroot, orange, celery, apple, carrot and ginger, served over ice.  Very tasty - I'm going to try and reproduce it at home.

In the carpark I had to take another of my 'texture' photos.  This time it was of a paperbark tree.  You can see why it is called a paperbark.  The bark consists of fine, almost translucent layers.  I held the camera up to the hole and took photos into it to see if anything was living in there but no-one was home at the time.

 Driving back into Macksville we did some shopping then on the way back to the caravan park we stopped to take a photo of this Queenslander house.

It's quite low-set as Queenslanders go, but a nice example of one nevertheless.  If you've read my blogs a bit you'll know that I have a fondness for this type of architecture, found in north New South Wales and as the name suggests, in Queensland.

Traditionally they are set high, to allow air to circulate underneath for coolness.  Today, with the widespread use of air conditioners, many are closed in downstairs to double the living space.  Previously they provided a cool place below, a place to dry the washing in the wet tropical weather, and somewhere for the children to play plus a myriad of other functions.

The wide verandahs - often as much as 12 feet- provided shade from the harsh tropical sun and a cool place to sit or to sleep at night.  Typically a hallway goes from the front door straight through to the back door to allow a through breeze, with rooms going off each side.  These rooms often have french doors allowing access to the verandahs.

All in all this style of architecture is not only practical but attractive.  And one day I will make one of these houses in miniature.  Quarter scale of course.

Tomorrow is our last day.  I might just try and capture that bird song to cheer me when I'm back in the bustle of the traffic outside our house.
Blessings
Sandie

The day after the day before.....

Sunday 26th May
Camp is over....but we are still here: two lots of our friends and us.  We will be staying here until Wednesday or thereabouts.  This morning I started by putting through all the clothes and bedding that had been soaked in the collapse of the annexe - three large loads.  While we were sorting things out and hanging out the washing etc, the the audio-visual men were dismantling the sound equipment and the ministers and Church workers were loading up the chairs and things for storage then taking down the meeting tent.  I noticed that they had started to take down the tent and asked Pete to take some photos - he is much faster moving than I am.  They were just taking down the first part when I saw them but by the time Peter got there they were well advanced, even in those few minutes.

Tent has been lowered to ground level using the pulleys attached to the rings around each pole

End sections are being pulled apart  - each section of the tent is approx 6 metres wide

Rolling up each of the end sections 

 Removing the spring clips that hold the tent around the pole

 Separating the main tent at the joins after it has been released from the pole

 Starting to flatten out the sections of the main body of the tent

 Moving along the line of poles

Almost there.....

At lunch time we finally found out which birds were using the hollow in a nearby gum tree as a nest - it is a pair of pink and grey galahs.  We had seen just a glimpse of tail disappearing into the hollow but hadn't seen what bird it belonged to until today.  Now they posed prettily for us and Peter managed to get this photo before they flew off.

After lunch we all set off and did a bit of sightseeing.  We went up the dirt road on Yarrahappini Mountain to Yarabinni Park and were going to go further but the road was closed off.  We gather that there must have been a wash-out with all the rain.  The road was quite rough and steep and it was good that we were in a 4WD.  we stopped for me to take a photo on a smoother part but it doesn't show how steep it is - in reality the road itself is even steeper than the slope at the side of the road.  It was fun doing some 4WDriving, through water and over the deeply eroded areas where the water from the rain over the last few days had gouged deep gashes into the dirt surface.

So we had to go back down and decided to go to Grassy Point, and look at the beach there, thinking that a walk on the beach would be just the thing.

This involved turning off the highway, going through a caravan park and then on to another off-road track at the end of that road.  We got to the beach and found it covered with a solid pile of wood - some that had been felled and a lot of rubbish timber - that had washed up on the sand.  It stretched the entire length of the beach, was about 6metres or 20 ft wide in front of where we were standing, and although it doesn't look it in these photos because we were looking down at it, it was 1-1.5 metres (3-4 feet) high or more.

A local told us that it wasn't there on Friday, but that it would have washed down the river at Kempsey and travelled all the way down with the tide.  He was going to fetch his mate who has a chain saw and they were going to stock up for winter.  I think there was enough wood there for hundreds of people to stock up for winter!

While we women were taking photos and looking for some pieces of weathered wood small enough for me to use as 'driftwood' for my beachside Petite Properties and Sea Shanty, the menfolk were trying to extricate Rick and Marilyn's car, which had become bogged in the sandy track.  Nothing they did would move it.  Finally the local bloke came back from walking his dog and he offered to pull the car out using a snatch strap.  He got it a certain way forward but it was still in soft sand and he couldn't go any further forward or he would have toppled over the drop onto the beach.  At this point another 4WD vehicle came up behind us and he was able to pull Rick's car out in reverse.  Whew!

So we drove off thankful that we were able to get Rick free.  Though at a pinch we could have towed him out with our car after a bit of manouvering to get it into a suitable position, the risk was that trying to do so would have bogged us too because of where we were parked.
Blessings
Sandie

Last day of Camp - finishing with a flourish

The eight days have just whizzed by so fast.   We are pretty tired, with meetings starting at 7.30am and finishing around 9pm but the experience is well worth it all.  Today the weather was just sublime, with a sky so blue you'd think that the rain had never happened.  The ground is sandy here so the water just drained away and we have bits of annexe and bedding draped here there and everywhere to dry out.  Most of it, including Nathan's woollen doona, dried fine and some of it will finish off tomorrow.

The big tent was full,

The band was in great tune, playing musical 'comments' to the Pastors who were making announcements etc Our friend Richard is clever at stitching together photos and he took some great ones of the full width of the tent - they look really good.  I'm going to see whether I can wheedle a copy from him.  I think he also stitched together a better view of the band.  In this photo of mine you can't even see the organ behind the piano.

Not bad for a bunch of casual musicians who have nothing in common except that they all play musical instruments!  They would practice each day around 4pm and that was it.  And they did an excellent job all through Camp.

And of course Dolly Rose the Amen dog was in excellent voice too.

The dining room was full as usual - we went at lunch time, and at dinner time Peter went up and bought some tea as well since it was the last day.  For lunch we had spinach and cheese crepes, vegies, green salad, and lemon meringue pie.  Not too shabby at all!  Can you spot us at the table?

We had a lovely day, ending with a concert tonight that was really enjoyable and funny too, by a group of musicians.

Some people were leaving straight after the concert - we'd hate to be leaving at night-time.  Animals are on the road, you are tired, and we just don't like driving when we should be in bed.  I'm so pleased that we get to enjoy this lovely spot for a few more days!
Blessings
Sandie