76.) Birds in the bath

A Lovely Lorikeet caught in the act! What do you think--is she saying, "Do you mind? A bath is a private matter--mind your own business!"

We are enjoying the entertainnment provided by the local birds that have discovered the makeshift baths that we put out for them.

Apparently, here it is a better idea to provide the local birds with water, than food--we have yet to see any "Wild Bird Center" equivalent, or any bird feeders or seed like we're used to providing in Colorado. So, instead, we made a trek to the local "Bunnings Warehouse" (a Home Depot equivalent) and picked up some plastic pot saucers and strapped them to the deck and filled them with water.

Our earliest visitors were the Butcherbirds. Mom Butcherbird brought the fledglings for a bath, and several months later, we have a regular juvenile Butcherbird visitor. He/she likes to pull the nylon twine holding the bath onto the railing, and has done quite the shredding job. He also likes to drink the bath water and practice his singing voice.


The sneak, Molly the indoor cat, trying to hide among the vegetation hoping we won't notice her making the escape out of the house... We've planted some catnip and catgrass for her. She just says no to the lure of the catnip, but chows down heartily on the grass. Don't know what that means as she gets hormone-free chicken and Tasmanian salmon in her Natural Choice kitty food (as well as "yucca extract that reduces litter box odours and makes living with cats even more pleasant")!*

Note the stubby parsley and carrot plants in the pots in front of Molly... someone, (not Molly) has a particular fondness for parsley and carrot leaves. We have yet to catch anyone in the act. Maybe the possums or sugar gliders after nightfall?

*Nutro natural choice literature


The lorikeets seem to always travel in twos and are quite gregarious. They are not delicate bathers, either--they're full on! These two were practically snorkeling their way through the bath water, rolling over and dipping their heads in, and making the most of the splashiness of it all!




Noisy miners love taking communal baths--we've seen up to five at a time! They look quite grumpy, but they're having a fabulous time.

Other visitors have been the Currawongs and even an Australian Magpie. These big birds seem mostly to be looking for a drink of water.

Although we think they're beautiful, people seem to think these sulphur-crested cockatoos are pesky. They can create hugh swirling flocks, one of which we saw while travelling in the Blue Mountains down by Sydney. They also congregate in trees, looking like big white Christmas ornaments on the Rainforest trees--they're very distinctively BIG and WHITE. They're only occasional visitors to our deck, and we haven't seen one try to fit into a bath, yet!

A slightly bedraggled kookaburra sitting on the picnic table in the rain after stealing our picnic cheese. Cheeky little buggers! Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra, gay your life must be!

Watching the birds was so much fun, we recently added a "real" bird bath to the deck garden. The noisy miners love plopping into it from the deck railing. Although not captured here, the lorikeets love it too--the plop into it backwards, though. But the little miners are not shy about yukking it up and enjoying the moment!

Nancy at our local favorite esplanade by Burleigh Beach, with the Surfer's Paradise skyline. (That's pronounces "Souffahs" to you non-Ozzies...)

74.) More water; strange alien vegetation

More time out on Moreton Bay learning the fine art of large boat sailing - in what is really a pretty shallow place.




Despite their partial spinnaker, we overtook them. It was really light winds and we were in "Oceans" - a racing yacht that is pretty amazing to handle, and points closer to the wind that should be allowed!








Nancy scooting about in the dinghy after breakfast. We are practicing with all the toys...









Running downwind (note the level horizon) - Nancy says "just keep it on this course."













The world tilts as we head back upwind.












The sun is falling into the sea, the water takes on a visible chill, merely a few glints to relieve an unfathomable blackness lapping alongside...

That means.....






Yes it is time for Dirk to get on the charts, figure out where the hell we are and how to avoid the Amity Banks, and the wreck of the Platypus, and the rocks of Goat island because WE ARE GETTING DARKED ON! (and no, he is not ALLOWED to use the GPS or chart plotter! No electronics in this exercise!)

And he is supposed to navigate us through the islands, around the shoals, up the channel, back down past the beacon, across the forbiddingly dark bay to the lighthouse guarding frothing rocks and onward through the deep and darkening gloom (OK it's dark already - when do we get to eat?)

One mistake, one error, one flaw in his plans .. and we are stuck on an emerging, sucking, and smelly mudbank until daylight.

Sideways....... Like this

But in the cold, lonely darkness.

Oh my!









Of course he could merely hit a rock!
At which point we would sink.....

Oh...

.....what supernatural creatures inhabit this place? What one-eyed beasts lurk among these rocks? How can we escape their clutches to again sail the wine-dark sea?









But all was good, we made it to our anchorage, actually ate dinner, and had a grand time the next fine day tossing "oscar" overboard so we could practice picking him up, tacking about, rigging, derigging, taking fixes, plotting courses, sailing all points of the wind, and generally learning not to spit into the wind. Nancy is now declared Competent Crew and Dirk achieved his Coastal Skipper designation.

Now we just need to talk some friends into coming to visit to sail up in the Whitsunday Islands!


But back in the city... we are occasionally reminded (when we leave our offices) that we are adrift in a foreign land.

These blokes are up in the center of the northern suburbs - an interesting swampy bit they did not drain for housing. It was raining so we only saw 'roos, these wallabies, the odd swamp 'roo and some ducks.
Sadly, this is where some pathetic youth go target practicing with their slingshots - killing four of these guys - I mean they just stand there and look at you!





Home wildlife - VERY happy in the heated kitty-bed as the inside temp drops to 10 C !!!












Exposed boxworks in the rocks down at Currumbin Alley. The big storms shifted a LOT of sand offshore and there are some great rocks exposed. Until next summer when the sand will all move back inshore.









And I promised alien vegetables. This is a naturally occurring fractal cauliflower. Quite the wild looking stuff. Tastes good too!


Hmmm - Nope
we are definitely NOT in Kansas Toto!

73.) The Border Track

After several weekends of being rained out of our planned rainforest hike we managed to find an absolutely stellar, clear, day. This is a good thing, because Lamington NP can get up to 2500 mm (or 9 feet) of rain in a year! And so we fit in our 25 km Border Track bushwalk between the Binna Burra and Green Mountain sections of Lamington National Park.

Dirk found this info about Lamington in Wikipedia:

"The park’s beautiful rainforests include one of the largest upland subtropical rainforest remnants in the world and the most northern southern beech cool temperate rainforests in Australia. The roots of the oldest Antarctic beech trees are over 5000 years old.^[4] The park protects one of the country's largest remaining forests of hoop pine.^[5]

Many of Lamington's plants are found nowhere else on earth, such as O’Reilly's Pittosporum (Pittosporum oreillyanum), the Lamington Peach Myrtle (Uromyrtus lamingtonensis), and the Mt Merino Eyebright and Everlasting Daisy which are subalpine relics from the last ice age. In 2006 it was realised that an old collection of the Eastern Underground Orchid (Rhizanthella slateri) from Lamington was actually a separate species and has been described as the Lamington Underground Orchid (Rhizanthella omissa). This Orchid like the two other related species has no chlorophyll and depends entirely upon a symbiotic fungus for survival. It is also one of only four flowering plants on Earth to complete its life cycle entirely underground. Sadly one of Lamington's more than 100 fern species is now presumed extinct, Antrophyum austroqueenslandicum was known from only a single plant which has since died and no other plants have been found.

The area is an important refuge for the region. Lamington is home to an incredible variety of wildlife including rare and threatened animals such as the Coxen’s fig-parrot, Eastern Bristlebird, Albert's Lyrebird, Richmond Birdwing butterfly. The blue Lamington Crayfish is found only on the Lamington plateau in pools and streams above an altitude of 450 metres.^[6] The vulnerable Large-eared Pied Bat is found in the park". (info from wiwipedia)

(photo of Regent Bowerbird - courtesy of wikipedia)

The pointy peak is Wollumbin, or Mt Warning, the volcanic neck in the center of the Tweed Caldera. The Border Track that we were walking upon runs along the rim of the Caldera. We had a previous post (#28 - Aug 2008) where we spoke about respectfully climbing Wollumbin, a sacred site to the Bundjalung people.

We camped out at the Lamington campground the night before our hike so that we could be close to the shuttle to Binna Burra in the early morning. It was fun to see the little pandemelons grazing on the campground grass, and to sleep snug and cozy in our tent (in the interest of full disclosure, it was really windy and pretty darn cold. Someone slept with her head wrapped in her expedition down coat! So let's not delude ourselves that is was "cozy"!)--it's been too long since we camped out. We slept so well without the "sounds of civilization" of Robina (the remodel construction sawing and nail guns next door, the leaf blower on the other side, the almost everyday lawnmowers on the neighboring golf course, the roar of the highway, the racing anad tire-squeeling of the cars along the local streets), it was glorious. For fun, we took along our lightweight backpack stove and pot on the trail, and stopped along the way where there was this nice view, to brew a spot of tea for refreshment. Fine, indeed! And much more civilized than motor noises...

There was not a cloud in the sky for the entire day! While most of the day was spent in the cool shade of the rainforest, we did see views out to the ocean (That little strip of blue out there is the Coral Sea). Despite it being the subtropics, it is Wintertime here, down under, and we were glad to have our pile jackets, long pants, plus hat and gloves when the wind picked up.

It's difficult to find the birds in the rainforest canopy, but we did manage to identify a white-browed scrubwren scratching around in the leaf litter, and the Albert's lyrebirds taunted us with their remarkable vocalizations. We'd tiptoe forward, thinking we could sneak up on the lyrebird that was surely just around the bend in the trail, only to have them fall silent when we must have been almost on top of them given their noisiness. But we never saw them--they disappeared into the forest when we should have been able to see them, only to start calling again as soon as we shuffled despondently off down the trail. Nancy = ;-(

Having completed our bushwalk, we arrived back at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat where they have a tree-canopy-level suspended boardwalk and viewing platforms. We climbed the ladders to a platform (~20 m or 60 feet off the ground) to get the bird's-eye view of the rainforest, hoping to catch the early evening sunset. We stood our ground in line to climb the ladders, unlike the other "adults" who staidly waited aside to let the herds of kids climb up while they stayed behind.

(note the gloves and hat - the temperate rainforest gets downright chilly!)

Perhaps someday we'll complete the entire "Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk," of which this was a part.

From the EPA website:

"Discover beauty, mystery and history along the 54 kilometre Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk linking the species-rich, Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area of Lamington and Springbrook plateaus via the scenic Numinbah Valley. Walk through the ancient volcanic landscape of the Tweed Volcano, which is still being eroded by rushing streams and plummeting waterfalls, through lush rainforest with relicts of Gondwana flora and fauna.

The walk offers once-in-a-lifetime experiences — where else in Queensland can you walk along the rim of an ancient volcano?

The Great Walk passes through Woonoongoora, the place known to the Yugambeh as “Queen of the Mountains”, whose story tells of the formation of the rivers and valleys of this area. The Yugambeh are descendants of the traditional Aboriginal people whose ancestors walked this land a long, long time ago. They say to you now… Kulli bugoram dhagun nya nya yahngahla (This (is) special land — walk carefully)."

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/parks_and_forests/great_walks/gold_coast_hinterland_great_walk/#walk_highlights