We're back!
The convalescence is done; sort of. Doctor told Pete he could go if he continued to behave himself and make Pat do all of the hard work.
To Bruce, then ... 'ere wig oh.
We set off in search of the Regent Honeyeater, to be found, possibly, in the Capertee Valley at a town called Glen Davis. Our route there took us along the Bells Line Of road over the Blue Mountains. This is where the fires had raged as Pete sat watching TV in his slippers; a number of houses had been lost as Australia now seems begun its return to its more usual poetic state of "fires" rather than that of "flooding rain".
Grim old sights to be had, charcoaled foliage all the way up to the road's edge in places. Indeed, trees as black as the ace of spades with what is left of them. Lots of hand-painted signs along the road though, also, thanking the RFS for saving their homes.
One house stays in the memory; intact, undamaged, surrounded on all sides by burnt out trees and ebony grass.
No honeyeater of the regent variety, however, in the Capertee. Camped one night at Glen Davis where we found other campers who spoke of how many they had seen of that striking bird at a place called Newnes that is not that far away as the crow flies, but a long was as the Bruce flows. Nice mountains of stone, though.
We camped the next night by a wonderful riverside at a place called Sofala; wow, the scarlet honeyeater even if Pat wont allow the spot because she did not see it to photograph.
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| Capertee valley: A house in the spectacular Glen Davis; view of the escarpment from Glen Davis; fan-tailed cuckoo; eastern spinebill; yellow-faced honeyeater. |
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| The valley widens near Glen Alice; red-rumped parrots near the church at Glen ALice; olive-backed oriole; Australian wood ducks. |
Off to Forbes via the scenic route (Bathurst, Blayney, Canowindra and Eugowra) to spend a few days with Pete's brother Wayne and his frenetic extended family (grandchildren!!!). Lovely to see them all again, especially the girls who are growing up, and we do mean UP, breathtakingly fast!
Actually, we have come away from Sydney with a goal beyond getting Pete off his ever enlarging bum and the seeing of hard to find birds. Somewhere in the lead up to Xmas we must find ourselves in Melbourne so as to clean out the shed of our just sold house. The scenic route will get us there too.
The first plan is to go to nearby Ungarie where Kim's (of Kim and Mitch in Alice Springs) mum and dad run the family farm. Harry and Pete had a good old fashioned debate on the 'left' and the 'wrong' of politics once, but they seem to get on anyway!
Kim's mum Lurensa has been nagging us for a few years to come see the place. Laurensa was once a Melbourne girl but never followed an important adage of that town when told "beware of speaking to Collingwood supporters seated next to you at Grand Finals, and certainly never marry them!".
The journey to Ungarie took us via Condobolin and then onto Lake Cargelligo where we camped the night beside the weir on the Lachlan River. Beautiful and peaceful place, but the only birds we saw were a couple of pelicans and galahs by the squillion.
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| Galahs at sunset over the Lachlan; little friarbird and baby; paperbark flowers; white-browed woodswallow on an antenna. |
Lurensa cooked us the biggest t-bone steak ever grown by mankind after giving us the full guided tour of downtown Ungarie. Did not get to see much of Harry, though, he has busy harvesting the crop with both son, Lachie, and Andy the truck driver who, from a distance, calls his wife "the wench" even if he phones home every night.
Men are such kidders!!!
We also got to wander along Humbug Creek with Lurensa and Phil their neighbour but, alas, not a Major Mitchell in sight. Even in the worst droughts, Humbug has water for a couple of years so one can go and sniff the flowers in the worst of dries.
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| Farmhouse at Ungarie; wheatfield; Humbug Creek (2); turtle beside the creek. |
Next stop is Leeton where we saw all the birds at Fivebough last year. This time we visit its twin swamp (well, more like a baby sister swamp) and some of the nearby laneways where there are fields of water being prepared for rice plantings. How nice to be back in China.
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| Red rumped parrots in the Leeton caravan park; black-winged stilts in the rice fields; a duck taking off from the irrigation channel; variegated fairy-wren beside the channel. |
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| Tackerbil swamp; pelican; nankeen kestrel at a railway crossing. |
Definitely the scenic route to Melbourne; who has heard of Burrumbuttock?
Certainly not us!
We camped there for a night and found an unexpected, all be it small, birding paradise. Not only is the tiny hamlet surrounded by roadsides filled with sometimes previously unseen (for us, anyway)birds, but there is also the Wirraminna environmental education centre. This place is a managed environment park type place with many different native species of flora, but which is also known for its many many birds just sitting around doing normal bird type things. Despite that, we did walk around for a couple of hours in the throbbing sun, but, alas, never did find a promised Dollar Bird.
Somewhere, some day ...
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| Burrumbuttock: Lake in Wirraminna; eucalyptus flowers; grey fatail; red-browed finch; blue-faced honeyeater. |
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| Burrumbuttock: White-winged triller; flowers; willie wagtail attacking a kookaburra; grey butcherbird; fairy martins. |
Melbourne just never seems to get any closer. After lunch in Albury, sold by an eager to please young restaurateur recently moved from Sydney, Bruce edged across the border and on to the Gentle Annie camp ground near Whitfield in the King Valley. The King Valley used once to be where the tobacco crop was grown but we all know what happens to socially unacceptable things in the modern politically correct environment. Now they grow food and wine festivals instead.
Our final night before hard shed-cleaning labour begins in Melbourne is spent at Cooks Mill camp ground in the Cathedral Ranges state park.
Ahhm. Bloody cicadas!!!
Ear-piercing!
Luckily, they stop after dusk; but dusk is quite late at this time of year!
Still...
Melbourne, at last.
Two mad weeks of running off from our Five Ways Caravan Park base in Dingley every day to do things. Friends and wine; sheds and packing. Oh, and an old neighbour keen to peg out stolen skybound territory before the new owners get to move in. Oh well, Pete needed to test out whether the operation really had worked when his stress levels are upped.
It hadn't quite, no!
And the dentist; see ya Andrew. Other stuff ... a perhaps final massage from Loco who in any country is exceptional at this task. Wasabi; the haunt of the old South Melbourne foodies set. Supper Inn; the other haunt of the same group. Pat goes to get her hair done. The gala closure of the British Film Festival with Sue. Philomena seemed the retelling of a now familiar story, but the company was good even if the wining was brief.
On our last night we had the good fortune of meeting Ron and Hana once again.
Hana, of course, has a special place in Pete's heart. She is one of the few people alive who has actually seen him working! As for Ron, well Pat has been calling on his technical advice for some years now. This time, though, he excelled himself. She learned from him a whole new method for putting Bruce Ute's tray sides back under the chassis once Bruce Van had been placed back on Bruce Ute.
Praying on one's knees seems to work as the best method!
Goodbye Melbourne, then, fifty years gone by in a rush, a wizzle, and a crawl. The itinerant life now for us forever, or until we buy a new house somewhere else ... say, in Gloucester?
Destination Artarmon, our Xmas house sit in suburban Sydney. Via Wonboyn, though, for some food and fishing with Frank and Marie ... and other bushy parts along that scenic route that takes days longer but adds more days to your life.
First stop Neerim Junction and the home of Pat's cousin Judi and Johannes. We compare photographs of trips done, they are not long returned from a journey through the centre of Oz, and along the west coast.
Similar spirits.
Lovely newly renovated old house they have just bought; food was excellent and the wine good too even if Pete is still limited in his intake.
Off again; the scenic route forever ... to Wonboyn also, eventually.
This day it rains. A lot.
Disaster - the van leaks around the door as we drive along. The air sucks out of the fridge vents and in through the door seals. Water, apparently, behaves the same way as bull dust.
That is Pat technical talk.
As it was, Ron had given Pat advice on this very thing as they had both been kneeling under Bruce on our last night in Melbourne. She repaired as best she could the next day and on we drove to Boolarra where we camped outside the pub after seeing the Big Cigar enroute.
Odd place. Lots of potential tensions in the town; different groups in different camps. Much like most small towns you might guess. The pub was almost empty.
Next day we took on the Grand Ridge Drive along which Pat had once enjoyed many country drives when she wore a younger woman's clothes (apologies to whoever wrote that line in that song). Starting from Mirboo North, we went to the Tarra-Bulga NP and then onto Gormandale where we camped at the recreation reserve and watched the locals come and go. Lovely old dirt road, the Grand Ridge, with just the occasional log truck coming madly up towards us on the steeply descending narrow way.
Eeeeekkk!
On again the next day, scenic routing all the way. Rosedale to Seaspray; and along the beach road; back via Longford, Sale and many back roads, ending up at the Lakes Bushland caravan park on the Dargo road near Lakes Entrance.
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| Gippsland: Seaspray at the beach; grasses; silver gull; vine flowers; female king-parrot. |
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| Juvenile kookaburra; dragon sculpture near Neerim Junction; Tarra-Bulga National Park (2). |
In Wonboyn Frank and Pete sang Riding Through The Dandenong Ranges around midnight one night and drank a little too much as they were doing so. On the next day he took us fishing at that secret spot of his (introduced last xmas and at where we both caught our first fish). This time, however, Frank caught one, Pat three and Pete zero.
Hmmm.
We also met the resident pardalote.
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| Wonboyn: Coastal walk; fishing; superb fairy-wren; spotted pardalote; rainbow lorikeet. |
In another eight days and we need to be in Sydney to begin the house-sit in Artarmon so, still, it is the scenic route for us.
Pete has always wanted to visit Tumbarumba. They grow a feral pinot noir there and the town's rugby team used once to be almost all Goldspinks (or so Marie says, anyway).
To The Alps, then.
Cooma was such an impressive town that we even pondered buying a house there and then but instead we finished our coffee and muffin and went on.
"Keep it in mind, though!"
If only there were no winters (of course if Tony has his way there may not be).
One camping place we used was a beautiful high-country place called Three Mile Dam (because it's three miles from the old mines whose water source it was). Here we did a longish walk on the track across from the campground (Gold Seekers Track) which had approximately one point seven billion flies per square metre. The higher you got, though, the clearer the air was. The bi-product of cows eating grass is the main culprit.
On to a place called Cabramurra for lunch in the Snowy Mountains Scheme workers' canteen; the highest town in Oz. Pretty darn fancy old canteen too, mate! Workers got it good in this country on the whole, but only if Tony leaves our winters alone.
Finally, Tumbarumba.
Never seen so many Africans in one spot, outside of Africa and China, of course, as to be found in the campground there. A United Nations of blueberry pickers waiting for the season to begin. Owner of the place says that tents will be everywhere in just a few weeks. Students, just trying to make ends meet as they do almost everywhere. never knew they grew blueberries here!
There is a very nice coffee shop in Tumba, but not the one that the tourists reading this will think it is. There ain't no bear in there! And, to proffer an expert's opinion ... the finest off the shelf muffins encountered in many a year. Pete forgot to go look for the pinot noir, however, old and doddery as he is becoming now. Instead he watched the cricket in the pub one afternoon where, again, the English were atrocious.
Oh well, how awful ... all them sanctimonious poms put to silence again and we can only hope it goes for ten ashes series in a row this time so we can really hear then whining about how awful the sledging is when they play Australia. The poor little pommy dears!
It is getting close now, the house sit. Still the scenic route anyway. Batlow, the apple capital of the non-Tasmanian universe, where Pete got breath tested at 10:30 in the morning. A wow of a road from near to there. Dirt and not very wide at all, with cliff sides to fall off if he had been drinking, eventually got us all the way to Wee Jasper.
Pat once read that town'snamename in a book and has always wanted to go there. Apparently, their rugby team has ...
Oops. Very bloody hot; two days at the Billy Grace reserve. Many flies, many more than the birds, but we did a lovely longish walk back along the rode we had driven here on and may have seen the Cicada bird as we did so.
Or not!
We had a plan to stay at Gambells Rest in the Morton NP near Bundanoon in The Blue Mountains for two nights before heading to Artarmon to begin our duties, but as you know plans are not for keeping.
Met a Dutch couple on arrival who were wandering Oz in one of those camper van things and they sure looked hot. It was hot. We let them put their beers in our fridge. The beers did not get so cold.
Yep, bloody hot ... and no shade in the camping areas.
We woke in the morning to news of high fire danger in the area; and nasty hot dry winds. We rang Peter and Anna in Coogee.
Peter (in Coogee): Hullo.
Pat (in Bundanoon): It's hot here. And the mountain might catch on fire.
Peter (in Coogee): Hullo. Who is this?
Peter (in Bundanoon, but in the background): Tell them we might die today with no shade, and that we can remember what we saw when we crossed the Blue Mountains on Bells Line Of Road.
Pat (in Bundanoon): We might die today, with no shade.
Anna (in Coogee, but in the background): Tell them to come here immediately.
Peter (in Coogee): Come here immediately.
Pat (In Bundanoon): Ok.
Peter (in Bundanoon, but in the background): Thank God for those two, even if they are atheists.
Off to Artarmon tomorrow!
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| High country: Near Cooma; what bird is this?; a green butterfly; black orchid; pea flowers. |
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| High country: eucalypt at sunset; kunzea; flame robin; another unknown bird. |
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| High country: yellow everlastings (2); view of Cooma; juvenile crimson rosella. |
