It is pretty well known in these parts that my grandfather (herein after referred to as Grandad) is the coolest man around. He walks the walk, speaks the speak and has the ladies to the left and right sighing as he walks past and he is also a bit of a comedian as well.
Now imagine Grandad looking oh so suave in a cream shirt and trousers with his signature blue hat on a beach surrounded by a group of adoring fans.
This is the man of the hourcentury, throwing back a glass of bubbly at the beach at Raglan. See that man to the right, looking down at the sand? That is the undercover NZ police officer who was in charge of Grandad’s security detail. You can’t take him out anywhere in public these days without a security detail.
When he is spotted by various grandchildren/children with bubbly in hand after a certain grandchild who very much adores her grandfather squeals something along the lines of “look, Grandad has a glass of bubbly”, the paparazzi set their focus on him and the adoring fans look on in admiration.
I had ladies coming up to me left, right and centre at the reception asking me “Is that your grandfather? I was chatting to him before, he is pretty cool. I wish my grandfather was like him”. Ok so I might have made that last little bit up but I am sure people think that after meeting Grandad. He is Grandad after all. In the end, the girls and guys just couldn’t give him a little space and he had to leave the reception with his entourage shortly after the gifts were opened.
This is a photo of one lady who had a chat to Grandad at the reception. The lady is Michelle, of course (you know, the bride) checking in with her new grandfather in law, making sure that he wasn’t been crowded by all the fans wanting autographs and that security was looking after his wants and needs. The pressures of having such a high profile celebrity at the reception. You’ld almost think Shane Warne was at the reception or something…
I’m ready to go
…cause I’m leaving on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
John Denver.
I am heading to New Zealand for a long weekend as one of cousins is getting married. I arrive in Hamilton at midnight tonight and arrive back in Brisbane about 7am on Tuesday morning.
Mum, Pabbi, Grandad, Aunty Margaret and Uncle Max leave in the morning and fly back on Sunday arvo as they all that thing called work. I don’t have that thing yet. I am also flying on a different airline, which means I am about to go pack some snacks as I am not going to pay the prices for snacks on the plane.
Not only will this be my first adult wedding, it will also be the first time that I have been to NZ since I went with my grandparents in 1994 (over half a life ago). I will also not only get to meet my cousin’s bride to be but also his brother’s wife as I was in Germany when they got married in 2003.
I have also made my aunt two little m’henchas, one the traditional almond and orange blossom water and the other pistachio and rose water. They look so cute. I was pretty close to breaking off a bit for arvo tea yesterday as they just smelled so gorgeous.
Well my time is up and now I must head off to the airport.
The robur probably provided the most delight for as their colours were just so gorgeous. So let us have an almost complete flower time line of the Banksia robur. It was also one of the most visible plants of the heath due to its general size and colours.
This green so reminds me of our school uniforms
Then it looses the tips and starts to look like a seedpod though I don’t seem to have a photo of that stage.
I spent two afternoons exploring the wallum behind the campsite. The first afternoon was a botanical “walk” through the heath with 2/3 of our party where we were scratched to near an inch of our life. However, the scratches were relieved with a dip in the river afterwards.
The first plant that I spied were some Christmas Bells (Blandfordia grandiflora). Which were of the yellow variety and not the red and yellow as I am used to seeing.
Just as you entered the wallum from the campsite there is a clearing for helicopters to land when needed and covering the ground there was scores of Trigger plants (Stylidium graminifolium) and baby grasstrees.
Past the clearing we entered the area that you can see in the first photo of the post, the main plants you can see in that photo are the Banksia robur and Grass Trees (Xanthorrhoea sp.)
Banksia robur.
Grass tree (Xanthorrhoea sp) with Banksia robur in the background.
As you started to get to closer to the heath however you could hundreds of other plants from Boronias to Leptospermum to Yellow pea flowers (that Mum has always said there is way too many to be bothered identifying them all) to more Drosera (sundew) to Hibbertia sp and a score to two more but I can’t recall or find the names at the moment. There was at least two species of Boronias and a score of different Leptospermum.
Leptospermum are such gorgeous plants and whilst the various species are similar in many ways they still all look so different.
This is Cathy with one of the pea flowers.
The second afternoon it was just me, however it was relatively still which meant that you could smell the plants and it was the most delightful scent I have ever smelt. It was floral and delicate yet still bushy and oh so very Australian. I wonder when I will see it on the shelves in Myer and more importantly which “celebrity” would they use to advertise it?
I didn’t just go for a walk in the heath but also through the dry eucalypt forest that bordered it and just had to smile at the Scribbly Gums. 99.999999% of all scribbles you see on a Scribbly Gum are made by the larvae of a wood-boring moth. However, in places where humans, generally of the young male category frequent you often see scribbles that were certainly not made by larvae 🙂
One of the other ladies on the trip went to school with Mum and she said that a couple of places reminded her of poems they had learnt in primary school. For me however, there was many places where I just paused and said “This is Australia”, I truely do love a sunburnt country. Which of course comes from my favorite poem, is a poem that many Australians know well and I discovered recently that the author was only 22 when she wrote it. I am 21.
My Country.
Dorothea Mackellar (1907/8)
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Day 1 was filled with logs, branches, tree trunks and more. As we maneuvered our canoes over, under, round the logs in the creek. They had a pretty decent storm in the area a couple of weeks ago which had of course brought more trees down into the river. However, we are all tough and after a handful of hours we made it to the junction of Teewah Ck and Upper Noosa River.
We were extremely lucky that we only had one big log that we had to totally unload the canoes to lift them over for. Whilst at times it felt crowded with 4 canoes in the creek, at times like this you really appreciate having multiple canoes as you have an easy place to unload gear into.
Thinking back now, we did have a smaller log that we had to partially unload for but it was nothing compared to the one in the previous photo. Mum and I took water twice in the space of about 30/45mins on Teewah Ck when we didn’t quite aim for an opening between logs correctly. We of course also took water easier since our canoe had relatively less gear in it than the others since we were the only “couple” on the trip and thus shared a tent, cooking etc etc.
Whilst there were quite a few logs you could slip under by tucking down in the canoe or standing up and stepping over the log, there were still quite a number which you needed to walk the canoes through due to the mess the river was in. The one below is a two huge trees that had fallen across the creek with a lot of branches in between them. I was given the job of photographer up on one of the logs taking photos of everyone as they came through the logs etc.
These two photos also show a pretty good idea of what the creek is like for a fair bit of its path. How fun does it look?
(I should make a note, that along vast sections of the creek, the vertical banks were covered with sundews and I managed to spot a few with flowers still even though their flowering period ended in November. )
Like many Australian children, May Gibb’s Snugglepot and Cuddlepie was a large part of my childhood (coincidently today is her 130th birthday), so seeing the seed pods of the Banksia aemula or Wallum Banksia and then making the link to “Big Bad Banksia Men” made me smile. I also then referred to the the seed pods as Banksia Men whenever I saw them again.
Doesn’t he look bad?
Here is Mum and I paddling in a pretty open section of the creek.
We were extremely thankful when the creek started to open up and the water began to get deeper as that meant we were closer to the mouth and then the short paddle down the river to Campsite 13. Just as we were last time we were “led” down the creek by an Azure Kingfisher (Alcedo azurea). It was cute to see it “wait” for us before flying further down stream.
I shared one of my reflection photos from Campsite 13 in the previous post so I will share the other one now. In the early morning the water is dead still and looks like a large mirror.
Day 2 was a relatively short paddle from Campsite 13 to Campsite 3 which only took 3 hours or so. Just before we reached Campsite 3, we stopped at a little sandy beach for a long lunch.
After we had set up camp, some people had a lazy time and the others explored the Wallum Heath behind the campsite, where we found an incredible range of plants. (I will post photos from here in the next post). Later that night
There is one thing in life that extremely freaks me out and that is cane toads. As far as I am concerned the sooner they find a way to destroy them, the better. Of course, Campsite 3 had to have some of the biggest toads I have seen, though thankfully, they seemed to limit themselves to down near the river and not up at the campsite. That however did not stop myself from wrapping myself up in my sleeping sheet, tucking my quilt round me and moving my thermarest more towards the middle of the fly.
I can report that whilst the cane toads stayed away from me the mozzies didn’t. (Why do I have to be the mozzie magnet?) Though thanks to the magic of the 80% Deet in Bushmans and Fexofenadine in Telfast, I was able to reduce the edge off the bites.
Day 3 was an optional trip up to the Cooloola Sandpatch and then over to the beach and back again. 2/3 of the group went on this walk. I don’t have photos from the trip. Think about that :). The other 1/3 of the group spent the day reading by the river, chatting to those who went past, swimming and napping.
This is the view up the river from the campsite
Day 4
It had rained on and off through the night as it had the previous night and it was actually the rain that sent us all to bed the night before. We got up at 5am, had breakfast, broke camp and was on the river shortly before 6:30 as we aimed to get to Lake Cootharaba as early as we could in the afternoon before the wind and waves would arrive.
In the early morning the river was magical and we enjoyed observing the reflections, animal life and the changes in the vegetation as we changed from fresh to salt water as well as just the general vegetation changes due to the lay of the land. We stopped at Harry’s Hut for morning tea and a chance to take photos of the resident Lace Monitors (Varanus varius). I have to make a mention here of the wonderful morning and afternoon teas we had been provided by Aunty Susan in NZ. When Mum went over for NYE, she brought home a big slab of cathedral cake (stained glass cake/jeweled cake) which was pure heaven in a mouthful. When we go over in a couple of weeks for my cousin’s wedding I am getting that recipe!
We kept up the pace and made our way through the everglades to Fig Tree Point where we went on a short boardwalk that took us through a range of vegetation but mainly through a Cabbage Tree Palm forest.
Then it was another shortish paddle to Kinaba Information Centre where we had our lunch on the decking, relaxed in the shade, watched the mullet swim in the waters below the centre, re-applied sunscreen and decided on the best course of action for crossing the lake.
We were extremely lucky with the lake in that the wind was relatively low and hence the waves were not so rough. When we crossed it the last time I know we walked the canoes over a fair section of it (it is quite shallow in parts) so that we would actually make progress. Stopped in for a quick breather at Mill Point and then made the short distance to Elanda Point. Where we unpacked and throughly enjoyed the hot showers to remove the sand and dirt from the last couple of days. As well as the chance to stay under the shower for that little bit longer than we do in Brisbane due to the water restrictions.
On the way home we enjoyed a bite to eat in Pomona with Cathy and Liz, a visit to a patchwork shop just off the highway near Yandina and a visit to Grandad.
Over the course of the 4 days we paddled the 32km or so from Campsite 15 at the mouth of Teewah Creek to Elanda Point plus whatever the distance is from the Teewah Creek Pumping Station to the mouth of the creek. All in all I think it was a very successful outing for NPAQ with five members and one guest.
Well we are back from the Noosa River and oh what a time we had! Mostly gorgeous weather, good times and no accidents. Everything is now unpacked and washed, photos are sorted, uploaded and tagged to Flickr (well I am missing a few botanical names yet). I will do a series of posts in the coming days providing a write up of our time on the river. However, I will share a photo or two now which sum up the trip.
The upper Noosa River and Teewah Creek both are excellent mirrors. Early in the morning when the water is still or in sheltered parts, it is hard to tell if you are looking at the reflection in the water or the real thing.
This photo is mainly for two girls in my life who would probably be horrified if they saw our sleeping arrangements for the trip 🙂
And to round it out, a photo of Mum and I on the last day at lunch before we battled the waves and made our way across the lake back to Elanda Point.
I am a little sore across my back but other than that I would jump back on the river in a heartbeat as it is the most beautiful place.
