North Stradbroke - Queens Birthday Weekend.

We have just returned home from a magnificent weekend on North Stradbroke Island. It is a great spot!

Map of Nth. Stradbroke Island

Our friends Barb and Tim kindly asked us over to join them at their shack for the weekend and we had a ball!

We had to book a return ferry ride, yes it's best to book to avoid disappointment if the ferries are full when you arrive, which is quite likely on busy weekends! There are two ferries, the Moongalba and the Big Red Cat, we used both, the Cat had a cafe and carried many more cars and was determined by the girls to be the better option!

The trip to Nth Stradbroke 

Hilux on the Moongalba

When we arrived on Stradbroke we were immediately breath tested, along with every other car on the ferry, just as well we weren't on the Cat with it's licensed cafe. We then headed to Barb and Tim's shack at Point Lookout. The shack was very well set up, perfect for weekends away and obviously big enough for two families. It was a superb location, right next to the Bowls club meaning cheap beers and a counter meal were only metres away!

We headed over to Amity to do a little fishing, hoping to also see some dolphins and we weren't disappointed! We headed up along the beach, the Hilux had its first taste of sand driving ( I will give it a thorough clean to try to get all the salt and sand off it ). A permit is required to drive on the beaches on Nth. Stradbroke. We dropped the pressure in the tyres to about 18psi and away we went. It is amazing how many people refuse to reduce air pressure in their tyres.

The beach drive to Amity

The jetty at Amity was busy with people who were quietly going about their pastime, hoping to catch a feed, and quite a few were putting anything caught into the buckets regardless of size, it seems as though bag limits and size restrictions mean nothing to some people.

It was peaceful and quiet until some young lad arrived and then spent the next two hours annoying all and sundry by loudly espousing his expertise in everything from catching Snapper (they were actually Bream) to feeding dolphins, cooking and identifying rare and obscure fish species. I am disappointed I didn't get to pick his brains on the Middle East, politics and the stock market. The highlight for me though was when he claimed he knew the name of a colourfully striped little fish that was caught on the jetty, after shouting to all and sundry he knew exactly what is was, he proudly and completely ignorantly proclaimed it a reef fish, yes a reef fish. Brilliant stuff.

Just on dusk a dolphin and her young offspring then started swimming about looking for a cheap feed. Tim encouraged the larger dolphin to come in close enough to be hand fed, all the girls got to hand feed the gentle creature. Rosie summed it up by telling us that this was a better day than her birthday, in fact better than all her birthdays put together, in fact the best day EVER! After watching Tim and the girls feed the dolphins the young and loud teen then set about telling all and sundry how to hand feed dolphins, his knowledge knows no bounds and he was only too willing to share it with anyone in earshot. 

Dolphin Feeding

We headed back to Point Lookout for a feed at the bowls club and along the way we came upon another wriggly stick. The small python was warming itself on the road and would not be moved, hopefully it survived all the traffic before it decided it was warm enough to move on. In the photo it looks as though it is moving, but alas it would not budge, camera flashes, a small tail touch and excited girl squeals could not encourage it to move along

Carpet Python

We had a nice meal at the bowls club, played a little Keno and lost a little on Keno, we then headed back to the shack and had a few quiet drinks.

We got up bright and early Sunday and went down to the beach to build some sand sculptures, a mermaid was high on the list of things to make out of sand so with some help from Karren the mermaid was formed.

Lovely Mermaid Sculpture

We headed up to the SLSC at Point Lookout and were amazed by the weather lashing the eastern side of Stradbroke. The sign at the beach said it all!

Ominous Sign (click for bigger image) 

Point Lookout 

Pretty Heavy Seas

A photo from the sheltered side of the headland, taken only minutes after the one above.

We did a little more beach driving to finish off a busy two days of fun and adventure.

The trip home saw us on the Big Red Cat, a much bigger and better equipped ferry than the Moongalba.

Busy ferry ride home

Bye Bye Straddie

We had a brilliant weekend, thanks to Barb and Tim for inviting us across, we had a ripper time and can't wait to do it again. Even better, when we got home we were relieved to see Charlie hadn't burnt the house down while we were away.

Backyard Citrus Grove

The previous owners of our house obviously loved to grow their own fruit.

We have had a bountiful supply of Mangoes that were eagerly devoured by the girls, we have had Paw Paw, not a huge fan but it was much better than I had expected.

Freshly Squeezed OJ for breakfast.

In the last two weeks we have had a huge amount of Oranges and Lemons ripen on the trees in the backyard. There were many kilos of Oranges so we ended up juicing nearly all of them. It was the tastiest, sweetest juice I have ever had. So far we have produced more than 10 litres of fresh OJ, it is wonderful to have a fresh chilled OJ for Brekky.  The Lemons are proving a little harder to use, I think we will end up making some Marmalade.

The last of this seasons Oranges.

Amazing amount of fruit from a small tree.

Next fruit to ripen will be Mandarins, we have a small tree with a small amount of fruit on it, however it is still quite some time from being ripe. 

Mandarins not ripe yet.

The pool build is still going, it is frustrating to hear from a neighbor that they started to build their concrete pool seven weeks after us and have been swimming in it for a month! That being said, our pool fence has been certified and I have been told our pool will have the pebble applied on Monday. It should then be filled and chemicals added by the end of the week. Hopefully we will have a functioning pool for the change of season and the onset of winter! We will call ourselves the Pullenvale Penguins and we will be swimming in the pool the first day it is ready - come hell or high water we will be swimming in the pool on the first day it is ready! Photos of the first swim will be provided.

The filter, chlorinator and pump set whilst being top notch good gear, is not terribly appealing to the eye. Hardly the sort of thing you want to adorn your backyard to add visual appeal. So how do you screen such a beast? As you can see the filter is a large black orb with a couple of VSD driven pumps, salt chlorinator and associated PVC pipework. Noice different unusual...

Pretty hey...

I had the idea that a stone Gabion wall will give the desired screen and add some visual appeal to another wise pretty ordinary looking piece of kit. The next few photos and notes will hopefully illustrate the construction phase of aforementioned backyard art.

Structural posts in place.

The first step is to add some posts to give the Gabion some stability, it is possible to make them without support but the base width must be one third the height of the Gabion. A 500mm wide base was too much for my design so two 50x50 gal RHS posts provide enough strength to support the wall. The design incorporates three walls with a sloped corrugated galvanised iron roof to keep the sun and weather off the gear. The three walled set up should also allow easy service access to the pool equipment and the AC unit.

With the posts set it was time to cut and set up the wire frame that houses the stone that make the Gabion, I was initially going to wire the mesh frame together, but have since decided to weld the mesh together and paint the welds with cold gal. The welds should provide further strength to the wall. It took a little more time than I had expected but I am pleased with the results.

Mesh frame in place.

I learnt an import lesson very early on in the rock filling process, there were not enough lateral supports to keep the sides straight (as Karren had suggested). We had to remove all rock and add more supports, then start again.

Doesn't look much better yet.

Lower section complete.

I am pleased with the results, there are plenty of different colours in the rock fill that are even more pronounced when the rocks are wet.

About half finished

Getting there.

 It was a pretty successful day, I ran the conduit for the power to control the pool cleaner as well. All is in readiness for the pebble coating. Could really have done with a swim when I finished today...

What is it with the Weather?

The weather over the last few weeks has been great with only the odd shower here and there to settle the dust. Of course now that we are finally up the the stage where I can begin to do some of the work I need to do with the landscaping it starts to rain and I am stuck inside writing a blog instead of doing what really need to be done! Frustrated only begins to describe it!

Anyhow the pool fencing is finally complete, and I reckon it looks alright. After watching the guys install it, I realised I should have bought the fence and fittings and done it myself. Unfortunately I just needed to see it done first to give me enough confidence in my ability that I could have done it myself. Not to worry it looks great.

The view from where I will be sitting drinking my beers watching the kids.

The desired result has been achieved, I can comfortably sit on the back porch and look out over the pool into the bush - view uninterrupted!

View looking west

The position of the pool ensure we have sun shining on it until late into the afternoon, that along with the solar heating will ensure we get maximum usage out of the pool. That is the theory anyway.

In the background of the photo directly above you can see four Paw-Paw trees, we have had our first ripe fruit, it was surprisingly good. The oranges are nearly ripe, we will be picking them over he next few weeks and enjoying some freshly squeezed OJ for brekky!

Strip footings look OK - you can't pick 20mm run out by eye...

Very happy with the results.

The strip footings were completed the weekend of Emily's birthday week, we had her best friend Heidi and her mum Margeux visit us from Ballarat as a special treat for her. The concreting started at 7.30am and it was all hands on deck - Margeux and Karren both made excellent concrete labourers, all they needed was a hat made from a hanky with the four corners tied in knots and they would have been set so to speak.

The weekend trip to Movieworld was a highlight the rides were awesome and Emily really enjoyed the Superman ride after controlling her fear of dying while riding it! Rosie is still frustrated by not being tall enough for the really scary rides but she LOVED the Scooby Doo adventure ride.

What is it with Rosie giving herself rabbit ears?

I had a run in with what I believe to be a Coastal Taipan at the Brookfield Produce centre the other day. To be quite honest if I never see another snake I won't be disappointed! It gave me a scare at the time, but only when I googled images of snakes that call SEQ home and recognised what it was, that I had nearly trodden, on did a true sense of oh shit sink in. The girl that worked at the produce centre who was nearly bitten trying to pick it up should also thank her lucky stars...

ANZAC Day

I hold a special place in my heart for ANZAC Day and the ANZACs.

We have so much to thank them for, so many of them paid the ultimate price, so that we remain free...

This morning my daughters and I awoke early and headed off to Bellbowrie for the dawn service, it was so nice to attend a dawn service dressed in t-shirt and thongs - instead of shivering in beanies, coats and scarves.

It was quite a wonderful service, the sun was rising across the Brisbane river, there was a background chorus of Kookaburras in song, before the service commenced there was a quiet buzz coming from the crowd that would number in thousands not hundreds. Apparently the service in Ballarat was the biggest in a long time as well. It seems that ANZAC day is special for many other people as well.

After we had our own little gunfire breakfast we headed into Kenmore to see the ANZAC parade march by. The crowd again was impressive, people lining both sides of Moggill Rd to clap and wave as the Diggers, bands, Scouts, Guides and students marched by. I wish I had taken my camera to the march!

Sadly the number of veterans is diminishing each year and as they pass by I wondered what horrors they had witnessed, what bravery and courage they displayed and what mateship was forged in their service for country. Above all else I hope that we are worthy of and thankful for their sacrifice.

Both of my grandfathers served in WWII.

Frederick William Stephen was a RAAF Corporal in 452 Squadron which was equipped with Spitfires. Fred received a 1939-1945 Star and Pacific Star for his service in the RAAF, where he was an aircraft mechanic Fitter class (II)E. Fred was part of 452 Squadron when it saw service in Darwin and Morotai, they also flew ground attacks against Japanese island garrisons to support the invasions of Tarakan and Balikpapan.

Fred's Service Medals

Geoffrey Keith was a Private, then Craftsman in the Australian Army, he served in the 37/39th Battalion and was part of the 259 Australian Light Aid Detachment when discharged. Keith received a Pacific Star, Defence Medal, War Medal and ASM 1939-1945.

I know very little of my grandfathers' service, Fred died before I was born and Keith never once spoke to me about the war or his service. What knowledge I do have has come from my parents, uncles and aunts and time spent scouring the hard to read digital copies of Fred and Keith's war service records, which I accessed via the National Archives of Australia.

We plan to spend the rest of the day doing something together as a family, not sure what yet, but a cricket game between the Army and a Brookfield United CC XI beckons me to Brookfield, unfortunately I hold little hope of the girls wanting to watch. Whatever we decide to do you can rest assured that our grandparents, great grandparents and servicemen past and present will not be far from our thoughts...

The following poem by Robert Laurence Binyon which was first published on the 21st of September 1914 is one of my favourites...

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children
England mourns for her dead across the sea,
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again,
They sit no more at familiar tables of home,
They have no lot in our labour of the daytime,
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires and hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the night.

As the stars shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Flanders Fields written by John McCrae is another poem I enjoy each ANZAC day.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Finally one last poem that pays tribute to...

The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels
Many a mother in Australia,
When the busy day is done,
Sends a prayer to the Almighty
For the keeping of her son,
Asking that an Angel guide him
And bring him safely back
Now we see those prayers are answered
On the Owen Stanley track,
For they haven’t any halos,
Only holes slashed in the ears,
And with faces worked by tattoos,
With scratch pins in their hair,
Bringing back the wounded,
Just as steady as a hearse,
Using leaves to keep the rain off
And as gentle as a nurse.

Slow and careful in bad places,
On the awful mountain track,
And the look upon their faces,
Makes us think that Christ was black.
Not a move to hurt the carried,
As they treat him like a Saint,
It’s a picture worth recording,
That an Artist’s yet to paint.
Many a lad will see his Mother,
And the Husbands, Weans and Wives,
Just because the Fuzzy Wuzzy
Carried them to save their lives.

From mortar or machine gun fire,
Or a chance surprise attack,
To safety and the care of Doctors,
At the bottom of the track.
May the Mothers in Australia,
When they offer up a prayer,
Mention those impromptu Angels,
With the Fuzzy Wuzzy hair.

-Sapper H "Bert" Beros NX 6925, 7th Div., RAE, AIF

18 Weeks

It has been 18 weeks since we arrived in sunny/rainy QLD. I have to admit that those 18 weeks have gone very quickly, but plenty has happened.

There has been little done on the pool since the last update, I have completed the form work for the pool fence strip footings, the concrete pour will be completed tomorrow morning commencing at 7.00am. The rain last weekend prevented me from doing the concrete last weekend.

Today the solar heating was installed for the pool, a large portion of the roof has now been covered with the specially designed black plastic tubing. The system we have installed will allow us to heat the pool in the cooler months and cool the pool when it is stinking hot.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the annual deer rut, at the time I thought it was peculiar, I can now reassess that and safely say it is bloody annoying. One particular Fallow stag not too far from our place is annoying the hell out of us his calls go all night from about 9.00pm until 4.00 or 5.00am. It is repetitive, loud and grating. One night Karren and I went out the front and could hear he was only a couple of hundred meters away, he was wondering around calling away. His calls when facing us were much louder than the ones when he was facing away down the valley. I made some very ordinary stag calls to him when his was calling down the valley, each time I did it he would turn and call back. Unfortunately I could not call loud enough or long enough to convince him to come up and have a go at me - so to speak... His was located in the valley just below the house across the road - pictured below.

Early morning

I noticed an rather strange cloud formation and thought it would be worthwhile taking a photo, not sure that the result really highlighted just how amazing it looked but you get the idea...

Weird cloud formation

Emily had her tenth birthday on Tuesday, ice cream cake and Peking duck pancakes were the order of the day.

Happy Birthday

Can't believe she is 10 already

We are off to Movieworld tomorrow, we have had the tape measure out to see if the girls are tall enough to do the rides they want. Rosie is pumped about the Scooby Doo ride and Roadrunner. Emily is still trying to decide if she has the mettle for Arkham Asylum, The Green Lantern or Superman. Should be a great day.

Plenty of Work Completed on Pool Today

What a great day, we can really see the progress on the pool works today!!! The pipework is nearly completed, solar pool heating goes in later this week or early next week. Pool filter and pump should be completed this week.

The earthworks have improved the outlook remarkably. You can finally see the pool sitting as it should surrounded by earth!

We have chosen a pool fence contractor, the fence will be both aluminum and frameless glass. The east and west sides will be aluminum panels, mounted 100mm from the outside edge of the pool deck. The north wall will be fence free except the edges of the pool deck which will be face mounted frameless glass. The edges shown on the bottom right side of the photos above and below show were the edge mounted glass will be

The south facing fence will be spigot mounted framless glass with a glass door, the idea is to be able to look out onto the pool and beyond with nothing interfering with the view. When the pool is finished you will be able to see if we were able to make our vision a reality. Below is a photo of the framless glass fencing.

I am currently setting out the strip footings for the side and front face of the fence. I hope to have the form work ready for pouring the concrete Saturday. Fingers crossed.

All the soil and fill was spread about to make a flattened area on the lower level of the back yard. The Mango, Orange and Lemon trees have finally been freed from the dirt that enveloped them for the best part of 10 weeks.

The fill didn't go that far when spread out, it was however too sloppy to completely finish spreading and compacting the soil and fill. In the next few weeks we will get someone in with a bobcat to do the finishing work.

It is a shame the photos don't really show any real detail with regards to the depth and area of the fill when spread out.

Easter, Gone!

Well that was over too quickly. We were fortunate to have Nan and Pa and Lou-Lou and Noel visit us over the Easter break, it was great to see them.

While they were here we tried to check out a few of Brisbane's interesting sites.

I wanted to check out a fishing spot on the Breakfast Creek junction with the Brisbane River and needed an excuse to visit it. I saw there was a park called Newstead Park at the junction so we took a quick trip in to look around. I am glad we did it was a wonderful spot. Newstead House sits atop a small hill just above the junction of the two tributaries and is surrounded by amazing gardens and lawns.

Newstead House

The girls had a great time running around the gardens, they were fascinated by the old tide gauge cairn, Rosie was particularly impressed when she found a small monument to the Bathurst class Corvettes, it is worth noting the information on the monument varied greatly to the info at wiki. She was even more impressed to discover that there was a Bathurst class Corvette called the HMAS Ballarat.

There were some enormous old Fig trees throughout the gardens. Emily and Rosie spotted an interesting tree and rushed back to tell me how old it was, Emily was certain it was really old cause it was planted in the 1950s. As we headed back to the cars we were startled when a tree started to talk to us! The one shown in the photos below was set up with motion sensors and when triggered told the story of an old tree, well you the look on Emily's face when the "tree" told her it was old in the 1850s was priceless!

Newstead circa 1850

Newstead current

It turns out that the fishing spot was not what I had imagined, not many structures and not great access for the girls.

We have done some more gardening with the help of our gardening gurus, Nan, Pa, Lou-Lou and Noel, some replanting, new planting and garden design work kept us busy for a few days. The scary part is we are only just beginning. The excavator is back on site today and hopefully this afternoon I will be able to post some more photos of the earthworks and pool progression. There is so much more work to do!

Whilst working in the garden we came across what looked like spew, I was wondering what the dog had eaten - thinking the worse and wondering if he had tried some local variety Cane toad, fortunately for Charlie the wonder dog, upon closer inspection it turned out to be some form of interesting fungi/slime/mold growing. No doubt the best way to describe it's appearance is to call it dog vomit, and unsurprisingly images of the slime mold appear when searching for dog vomit slime, thankfully it is a harmless garden oddity.

Dog vomit mold

As I stated previously I have commenced work with Australia Post as a motorcycle PDO. My first day was a torrid introduction, the muscles and bones took a pounding spending 7.5 hours on the CT110. The next few days the muscle stiffness and general soreness began to subside and hopefully in the next couple of weeks or so I will have fully attuned my portly frame to sitting astride a motorcycle, spending my days poking stuff in letter boxes. Getting to know where the boxes are and where the mail run goes is not as difficult as you would imagine and the sheer volume of mail varies greatly from day to day, another thing I learnt is that some people put their letter boxes in the most inaccessible and out of reach hidden away places imaginable! 

We have chosen our tiles for the pool coping and feature wall, it is apparent that most people get their tiles for pools from The Pool Tile Company. We have chosen to go with granite tiles in Mushroom colour, for the feature wall we have gone with a glass mosaic called Sea Green Pearl.

Pool fencing is another Pandora's box, the rules and regulations regarding pool fencing is incredible and over bearing, if you have a few hours of your life you don't need and have nothing else worth doing then peruse the QLD legislation and regs document for all you need to know about pool fencing, or not!

Autumn in QLD brings on the annual rut, the local Red and Fallow deer stags spend the night hours trying to impress the lady folk by hooting and hollering, it is quite interesting to hear one start then hear the others reply as the calls echo through the valleys and hills that surround our place. The calls are quite different and you can easily distinguish between the two, so I am not sure why Reds respond to a Fallow call and vice versa, it is most peculiar. Over the weekend, just for shits and giggles I might keep the girls up a little later and see if we can get the local stags to respond to our calls.