Cania Gorge:: Part 3 - Textures

I love taking photos and have come to realise over the past few days that I love taking photos when I'm out and about. 

Natural, spur of the moment photos are what I love taking and I have a lot of difficulty taking good still life photos.  I don't seem to have an eye for setting things up and taking a good photo of them.

When you're out bushwalking there's so many amazing things to see.  Not just the path, trees, rocks and caves but the little things too.

I loved these tiny little plants about as big as a 10 cent piece, nestled in the arm of a tree root.

The moss on the rocks was springy to touch.

There were so many different kinds of trees.  Some had dimples...

 

...some had sap running out. (The kids were a bit distressed because they thought the tree was bleeding)

Some trees were loosing their bark which made them look half dressed....

...and some trees had rough bark.

The bush flowers were beautiful.

And of course moss on logs is always a favourite.

There's plenty of other wonderful things to see at Cania Gorge too and not everything seen through a macro lens!  I'll show you some of the caves and creeks next time.

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 2 - Wildlife

Cania Gorge is home to some pretty awesome wildlife. 

At 4pm it's feeding time at the park where we're staying which the kids loved of course.

Feeding time for the lorikeets that is.

The resident chooks like to get in on the act too.

There's wallabies hopping around as well as Bettongs which are in resident here as well although we didn't see many of either of these animals.

This lady is not exactly classed as wildlife but wander around on unfenced roads on the farms near the national park.  This one stared us down right beside the road on a corner near the Cania Dam.

We were REALLY surprised to see some emu's in one of the paddocks beside the road as we were driving out to the dam one rainy day.  I had to get the super zoom out for these ones as they were about 100metres off to the side of the road but it was pretty exciting to see them.

The kids loved seeing them in the wild as they've only seen them at the zoo before.

There was plenty of other wildlife we saw when it wasn't raining but the next couple of pictures would have to be among my favourites; mainly because I was so excited to see it.

We were driving into the town of Monto one day when we saw a Wedge Tail Eagle by the side of the road.  We soon realised why he wasn't too worried about us driving past...

...it wasn't until we stopped and he thought we were a threat that he took off.

With him he took his prize of a pretty huge black snake!

We saw a few BIG dead snakes on the road on the way to the Gorge but thankfully didn't see any while we were out and about.

Hope you have enjoyed a snippet of the animals. 

Until the next installment....

xx Susan

Cania Gorge:: Part 1 - Getting there

OnThursday we finally had the car and trailer all packed up and about 10am left for Cania Gorge.

Unfortunately it started to rain just after we left.  We hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come so were happy when after about an hour the rain stopped.

The little town of Kilkivan was our lunch stop.  We gulped down our picnic, headed to the toilets and the kids got to burn some energy in the playground before we headed off again.

There's a lot of brown grass out this way.



We reached the Cania Gorge Tourist Retreat about 4pm and proceeded to set up the camper.  It was much easier and quicker this time as we had a bit more of an idea of what we're doing.

It's a beautiful van park this one.  Very natural but unfortunately the weather is against us and it's been raining the whole time we've been here.

We're certainly working out quickly what to do when it's constantly raining and what things we'll change and do differently next time.

I'm glad we got the storm cover up as we had a storm in the early hours of this morning, just to help make everything even wetter if that's possible!

With all this rain we haven't been able to get anything dry so we've come into Monto to use the laundromat and stock up on some supplies.

Hopefully we'll be able to go on a few more bushwalks in the next couple of days as it's such a beautiful place.  We've already been on a couple of short ones in between and often during showers so I'll post some photos of what we've done so far the next time I'm in internet range.

xx Susan

Rain, rain go away.....

I normally love rain.

When so many people complain about the torrential downpours we have here, I'm secretly smiling and content inside knowing that the sound of the pattering rain on the tin roof brings me happiness.

Not so at the moment.

I'm being a bit torn actually.  When it starts to pour down I have a brief blissful moment before I realise that our camper trailer is still up.

We put it up the other day and that's just one problem with a camper trailer as it's best to have it dry out when you pack it up.  You can pack them up wet, you just need to dry them out when you get home soon after your trip.

We haven't been on our trip yet and as the group we were going to the Cape with left on Monday, it looks like we may have missed the boat and so are planning a some smaller family trips in other areas.

The tow bar is now on the ute (the right one got put on yesterday!) so we can pretty well go when we want.

When will that be?  Who knows!

I'm hoping that it will be this weekend at least and our first stop will be Cania Gorge.  I'm so looking forward to going there.

Will update more when I have an inkling of an idea as to what's happening.

xx Susan

Getting things sorted

This weekend seems to have been one for getting things done.

I've started on decluttering again and have been tossing things bits at a time.  It's certainly a great feeling getting rid of some of our junk.

My car also finally got fixed.  The wheel bearings (or so I've been told that's what it was), were in a horribly bad way and the car was making an awful noise when I drove it.  In fact, I got to the stage where I didn't want to drive it in case the wheels fell off!

So Rian, (hubby's cousin) and hubby got out their trusty tools and spent Saturday morning working on my car and making it all better.

Of course we couldn't have all those tools laying around and not have Master M getting into things.  He decided that he would take the training wheels off his bike and then when Daddy walked away from the car for a moment, he got his trusty spanner and tried to help Daddy 'fix' the wheels.

I was wondering if it was a scene I'll be witnessing more of in future....car parts laying around my back yard!  I really hope not.

What a mess!  At least Little Miss R only wanted to play with the bubble wrap she found.

Sunday dawned very dark and cloudy so we hoped it wouldn't rain too much so we could get our camper trailer up for the first time.

Off came the cover...

...out came the tent...

..and after quite a few adjustments, we got it up.  We did have help from kids and dogs.

(the above picture is especially for Jeff who is away at the moment so I thought I'd put in a photo with his 'girls' in it).

The main area of the tent has quite a bit of space.

The mattress isn't up there yet but we'll put a queen size one up on top of the trailer there for a comfy sleep.

I though we did pretty well considering the dodgy instructions we had (i.e. NONE) and the fact that we've never put a camper up before.   Our marriage is still in tact so it went really well I think!!!  Now we have a better idea of what to do, it should be a lot easier next time.

It started to pour rain just as we opened the tent up so luckily most of the setting up was done on the inside and we didn't get too wet.  Unfortunately it's been raining all day now so we'll have to wait a bit before we can have a go at pulling it down.

The afternoon was spent cuddling up at home because of the rain, then lovely hubby took the kids to visit his mother and I grabbed the opportunity to have a bit of time to myself.

We all know what I do when I have some time to myself!  Can you see where I'm up to in the picture?

That's right..I'm working on the border of lovely hubby's blanket.  Yippee!!  I'm very excited about how much I've been getting done lately and will hopefully be able to reveal the full blanket to you in a couple of days.

Hope your weekend was good wherever you are.

xx Susan

A new addition to our family....

...can you see her there dutifully following along behind the ute?

This is our new off road camper trailer which we picked up yesterday.  It was a pretty stressful day and Lovely Hubby was not happy halfway through the day so I won't go into details of how he was after hours at the Transport Department in the afternoon.

She's finally ours though so all we need to do is put her up a few times until we get used to doing it, pack it up and then go!

Unfortunately I'm not quite sure when that will be at this stage.  We now have the bullbar on the front of the new ute but they ordered the wrong tow bar so we have to wait a few more days until that comes in. 

The rest of the group we were heading to Cape York with leave on Monday but we won't be able to go until Wednesday at the earliest so we have a few decisions to make.

Do we continue to go to the Cape but go on our own and perhaps catch up with the group somewhere in the wilds of the North?  Maybe we should just go somewhere else and spend some family time where the kids can ride, play and have a great time. Lovely Hubby can fish and I can relax, do all of the above and sneak in a bit of crochet too!

Decisions, decisions.

xx Susan

Green thumb....

....mmmmm well I'm not so sure about that.

I have a few pots and some seedlings growing but for me that's a huge achievement.

The seedlings have had a bit of a struggle as they got blown over in the wind a little while back.

I ended up shoving all the potting mix straight back in the pots while having no idea if anything would grow and knowing it was all mixed up. 

I am very happy to say that I do have some rocket, spring onions and spinach growing even if it is all mixed up together.

My garlic is still growing well although I really have to find out how long it grows for and when I can harvest it.  I know it will be awhile yet which is why I'm putting off finding out about it right now.  ( I love the half and half watering job the kids have done).

As for the basil, parsley and tomatoes, they're doing really well.  The parsley is struggling a bit because Little Miss R pulled the whole plant out roots and all when I asked her to pick a little bit to put in dinner one night.  I replanted it but it's slowly trying to get back to health.

We've also finally cleaned up the area where the pumpkin vine grew which means I can actually get into the other garden bed now.  I wonder what and if I'll start to do anything with this garden now.

Hope you all have a wonderful week.

xx Susan

Some side projects

What do you do when you get close to the end of a project?

You start another one (or two) of course.

I'm getting close to finishing hubby's granny stripe blanket and last weekend I just had a NEED to do something a little different.  I didn't want to start another blanket (mainly because of lack of yarn), so I looked through some of my books for inspiration.

I found this.....

...and as anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a bit of a bag lady (he he), then I thought this was the perfect project.

I searched my stash of yarn until I found the perfect stuff to make this with.  Do you remember this...

I started making some African flowers with it awhile ago but to tell the truth, I really don't like working with this particular yarn very much.  I also wasn't really happy with the way the flowers were turning out so I've sort of given up on that particular project for the moment. 

It has left me with some yarn that would be perfect to make a bag though so I picked some colours that I knew Little Miss R would love (this will be her bag), and made a start.

Once I worked out what I needed to do with the bottom of the bag, it all started to flow quite easily.

Then some stripey sides were added...

..and the main part of the bag was completed.  I still need to make the handles, get some waterproof canvas then line the inside before sewing the handles on. 

That means there'll be a little delay in finishing my bag project so I began another one.

It's will be a beautiful, soft stole that's quite open. I'm really loving this one too.

You'll just have to wait until I've finished them before the big reveal.

xx Susan

Sports day

Thursday was Sports day at Little Miss R's school.

The prep to year 3's (5-8 year olds) dressed up in their house colours of red, blue or green.

It was organised chaos and reminded me why I'm NOT and can NEVER be a teacher.

The children participated in running races.

They also did long jump, tug of war, tunnel races...

...and all manner of obstacle course things.

Little Miss R did NOT enjoy her day.  She's not very sporty and hated every minute of being there on sports day.  (Very different from the rest of the women in our family).

Having said that, when it came to one of her running races, a lovely teacher held her hand and ran with her.  She now proudly displays her ribbon for coming 3rd!

We did leave school early and came home to have our own play time which she was much happier about.

xx Susan