A WALK IN THE PARK 6

Another day another park. Actually that is not quite true. This is Underwood Park and we come here often but we took a different path this time. We were heading north towards Rochdale.

 It wasn't an overly interesting or pretty walk but it was flat and that suits TOH. The path wound along the back of houses and on the edge of bushland. This little wallaby came out for his evening feed. 

 The Jacaranda trees are finishing their beautiful display of violet blooms and dropping them to make a purple carpet.

The walk ended at this road
where there was a little creek
boarded by a stand of reeds.

Then we turned around
and headed back to the car.

 The car was parked at the entrance to the park where it is very pretty.

A DARING DAUGHTER

Some people have the best office Christmas Parties. My daughter went on a Sydney harbour cruise on  "Southern Swan". An authentic wooden tall ship built in the 1850's style of Danish oak. 

Carol-Ann (right) and a work colleague.

Guess what she did next?

"Look mum no hands"

MARITIME MUSEUM

Waiting for the train 

At this time of the year our calendar fills with end of year celebrations. We call them Christmas Parties but they are more like luncheons or dinners. I guess that is a sign of our age. We are not into rip roaring parties with dancing, loud music and getting drunk, but we sure have fun when we have our get togethers. Last week we had our Camera Club end of year lunch at the Plough Inn at South Bank after we had a shoot at the Maritime Museum. TOH and I went into town on the train.


Happy II, the little yacht on the left is one of the smallest boats to sail across the Pacific Ocean (13 ft long). Howard Smith sailed Happy I from the east coast of USA and through the Panama Canal. It was wrecked near Noumea, where he built a replica HappyII and continued Australia. His attempt to continue to circumnavigate the world was squashed. 

Ella's Pink Lady, (10.23m long) was sailed around the world by 16 year old Jessica Watson. We saw her sail into Sydney Harbour at the end of her epic voyage.


The HMAS Diamantina, is a River Class frigate built in Queensland in 1944. She is the biggest surviving WWII ship in Australia.

Underneath the Diamantina in the dry dock.




The communications room on the Diamantina. A little different to today's war ships methinks.


The Forceful is a coal fired steam tug built in 1925, which served the Port of Brisbane for 45 years. In 1971 she was donated to the Museum and it was used as a workboat on the river until recently. Now she is a floating museum.



After a few hours of shooting photos it was then a short walk to the Plough Inn for our end of year lunch together.

PARTY TIME WITH U3A

When I retired I wanted to learn more about photography so I looked up U3A to find a course or club. There wasn't a U3A in my locality of Logan so I went to Redlands U3A (a neighbouring city) for a year. Then I was contacted by a friend who was starting up an U3A in Logan including a camera club. I went to the first meeting and ended up being asked to be the leader of the camera club together with TOH's help.  So the two of us have been running the club for 2 years now. All leaders and tutors are volunteers.
I also go to "iPad" classes and I have joined a ''Walking for Fitness" group.
It is a great way to meet people, keep your brain active and have lots of fun.  

Here are some shots of our Logan U3A Christmas Party.

The beginner German language group sing Carols in German.

The Spanish language group sing in Spanish.

The French language group.

The advanced German language group singing with actions.

 Some of the Logan U3A members enjoy Carols played by Richard from the Ukulele class.

  After the little concert, everyone enjoyed Christmas fare and time to chat with other members. Jean on the right is the wonderful lady who started up U3A in  Logan City. She is now finding it hard to do all the organising by herself so a group of us have offered to help for next year's classes and groups.

A WALK IN THE PARK 5

("A walk in the park" is an idiom meaning "Its easy")

Back in April, I started a series of posts on different walks in our city of Logan. It all started because of TOH. One of his many excuses for not going for walks was, "It's boring." He was referring to our closest park which is Daisy Hill Conservation Park, which is actually very big and beautiful to me. So for encouragement I suggested we find different parks to walk in and so we did. This is number 5 in the series. I now want to challenge myself to walk in, and photograph every park in Logan. Then I will start on Brisbane and Redlands neighbouring cities.

This one is Cornubia Forest Park - Bushland Corridor.

 Off we go. As we crossed this little bridge we saw this....

 It looks lush but the creek only has a little water. We haven't had much rain lately.

Mr Kookaburra kept an eye on us.

                                    Another dry creek bed.                                TOH finds a Strangler Fig

A Strangler Fig is a tree which grows on another tree and strangles it to death. Birds or animals drop seeds in a crevice of the host tree. The fig sends down roots to the ground and huge strangling vines up to the top of the host. It is a huge parasite, which lives off the host until it has killed it. By then it is strong enough to stand alone on its big buttress roots. It usually grows in rainforests so it was unusual to see one here. I guess this bushland is a remnant from an ancient rainforest. In the one above the host is still alive.

 Aha I see TOH is "on the home run."

ON THE HOME RUN

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to "google'' Wollomombi Falls to see what they look like with water. I copied the pic from the net and stuck it next to one that I took on our trip there.

After driving along Waterfall Way from Armidale, we stopped at Bellingen overnight. We had been there once before but had gone down the coast road. TOH remembered that there was a very nice Swiss Bakery in the town. It must have made a big impression on him as he had no problems finding it again. As soon as we arrived in the town (I was driving) he said turn here, go left now, drive about 100 metres and there it was. Yet he can't remember where he left his phone.

 We stayed in a cosy B&B we had our own little deck where we consumed some delicious nussgipfel from the Swiss Bakery. (almond rolls)

 There was a lush back garden with a swimming pool which attracted..........

 a water dragon.  Unfortunately the next morning we didn't go for one of the many bush walks here as TOH is like a horse. When he smells home there is no stopping him from galloping on the home run. We need to come here again and stay a few days.

We headed north along the coast road zooming past sugar plantations and beautiful beaches. It was nice to be going home and to be back in the warmer northern climate. We have been home a month now and I'm planning our next trip. This will be next May and we will be going to the northern most tip of Australia, Cape York.

WATERFALL WAY, NO WATER TODAY

Before we left Tamworth we put the car through a car wash for $10. What a waste that was. We weren't far into our journey when we found ourselves behind a cattle truck spraying cow wee and pooh all over the car, then we hit a section of dirt road which plastered dust to the wee. A bit further on we splattered through a cloud of insects. The car was more filthy than before we washed it.

Anyway we headed north east to Armidale situated in the New England Tablelands in northern NSW. It is the centre of a lush pastoral area for cattle and sheep. However, it is more than that. It is an university town and it has a big multicultural society. The residents, 22,000, come from 53 different nationalities. There are many art galleries and museums as well as churches and parklands. It is a beautiful town.

We only stopped for morning coffee as we have stayed here a few times before and I wanted to travel along the Waterfall Way from Armidale over the Great Dividing Range towards the coast before nightfall. This drive has been on my bucket list for a few years.

The Great Dividing Range is a string of ranges stretching from northern Queensland all the way down the eastern side of Australia to Victoria.


Beautiful churches and gardens in Armidale



The drive through the mountains was lovely except that it hadn't rained for a long long time and the rivers and waterfalls were dried up or not running very much.




Wollomombi Falls

However, we still explored off the main road to check out where the falls are when it is wet. There should be two waterfalls above and the second highest ones in the state.

When I zoomed in , I could see this miserable pond at the bottom of where the falls should have been tumbling over.


So we drove on winding through the scenic country and pulled into another park and walked to the waterfall viewing area hoping to see water this time.

We were a lucky, there was a little water still running over the upper and lower Ebor Falls.



It was nice walk up to the upper falls. The weather was quite hot so we were pleased to have shade.


I would love to see these falls when the river is full.

There were many more falls to explore. We still had an hour or more to drive to Bellingen where we were staying the night, so we didn't stop again. I must return here in the wet season and spend a week exploring the waterfalls.