A walk in the Aussie Bush

 Tuesday 22 August

The Gaiter Girls numbered three and chose a return to Daisy Hill Forest Park located in a nearby suburb. The trail was dry and dusty, unlike the colour and green of the Botanical Gardens, recently visited.

Mountain bike trail

An unusually exposed Eucalyptus root system.

The low bushes are wattle. I'm not sure if they are about to flower or finished.

Just one dusty clump of wattle spotted.

The sky was a lovely, sunny blue to look up to when trying to spot koalas. No luck there.

We had parked near the Koala Centre, where these two cuties are being looked after.

The centre is a learning place. I thought you might be interested in these facts.

Postscript - last night I was camping at a friend's private property. In the early morning hours, I was woken by mating koalas in the trees close by. I got up and tried to spot them in the moonlight and with a torch, but to no avail. Very disappointing. My friends have never spotted a koala on their property!

There was a warning sign as we sat down for our coffee at a picnic table, re kookaburras diving for food. The forest was suddenly filled with the loud laughter of an unprecedented number of Kookaburras laughing, seemingly never-ending, which is very unusual.

Rachel is mimicking the laugh!

I couldn't see them in the trees, but a lone one came and sat on a branch above our table. We thought him cute, having forgotten about reading the warning.

The laughter having abated, we settled down to our cuppa. As I lifted my hand to my mouth with half a biscuit, it was taken in one sudden swoop by our friend in the tree. He was so fast, I didn't see it, only felt the brush of his wing on my wrist.

Here he is juggling the biscuit in his mouth.

A dusty dry walk, a worrying sign of the summer to come.

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A morning with the Humpback Whales

Saturday 12 August

My friend Jocelyn and I decided to repeat the small boat, whale-watching experience of last year. A small, inflatable, speedy craft, with a maximum of 12 passengers was again chosen. The seas were more cooperative than last year, so we didn't come back wind-swept and frozen. 

Initially, the whales were staying hidden, so we had to zoom several kilometres offshore to find any activity. When the blow of the first whale was spotted the six "swimming with the whale participants’, quickly jumped overboard and grasped the safety line. 

9.42 am

We weren't the only ones excited, but the whales were soon on their way.

10.08 am - another short-lived sighting. The swimmers were no sooner in the sea than they had to return to the boat, for us to try and follow the whale's direction.

10.31 am - The swimmers didn't have time to leave the boat.

10.53 am - everyone had their eyes peeled to spot a spout. Success!

A mother and calf decided to swim alongside us, about 100 metres away. They stayed with us for a good 20 minutes, with the calf putting on a spectacular show, as he practised breaching. Mum, just gently lolled and rolled in the water nearby.

Our hopes rise.

The calf begins to play. 

Sadly, the swimmers are not allowed to enter the water when there is a calf. This however, meant the boat was able to motor slowly along with the mother and calf, at the required distance.

Mum was seemingly not stressed by our presence.

Our three-hour tour all too quickly came to an end. Thanks to the antics of the calf, we came away exhilarated and planning another excursion next year. We will however make sure that there are only whale watchers on the boat and no swimmers. Too much time is lost while the swimmers return to the boat. The whales were all too easily leaving us behind.

Thanks for everyone's best wishes. I am pleased to report that finally, after 3 weeks, I have regained my energy, if not my fitness and was able to spend a very productive weekend in my garden.

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Sub-tropical Winter Colour

 Wednesday 9 August

August is usually a cold, windy month in SE Queensland. Over the past few days, we have had lows of 10C but the mercury has risen to 28C during the day. Just gorgeous except, one knows that if it is this hot now, summer is going to be a scorcher! Fingers crossed.

Let's not think about that now, but take delight in the colour and beauty of Brisbane's Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens.

I've still very little energy from my bout with the flu, so I planned a leisurely morning in the gardens when I had read that the cherry trees in the Japanese garden were in full blossom.

The meet-up time was 10am. Alas, we all had traffic issues. I had chosen a longer route, but one that didn't have any traffic snarls. The last section used a tunnel that exited just before the entrance to the gardens. Well, so I believed! Imagine our horror when we found that we had exited across the other side of town! Fortunately, both Jenny and Margot, in separate cars, and coming in the opposite direction to us, managed to miss the entrance and also had to travel several extra kilometres before being able to turn around. There was much laughter when we all finally met and sat with our coffee and cake, in a very tranquil setting, surrounded by lovely flowering native shrubs.

After the stress of the drive, we were happy to relax here for quite some time. Eventually, we set off to find the Japanese garden. Our pace was slow as we enjoyed the surprise of each new flowering plant, shrub, tree or cascading watercourse.

A joined pano of the Japanese Garden - It was a delight to wander through this garden, but there was very little evidence of the Cherry blossom. I could only spy one tree with a few stray flowers.

On a previous visit, we explored the back section of the gardens. On this day we meandered to the lake and pond area. A perfect choice!

A seed sculpture directed us towards the vegetable garden.

I was stunned by the prolific growth of, and variety of plants, for this time of year. 

Bush Stone Curlew - When first spotted, I could have sworn that they were wood carvings. There were 5 in this garden.  Can you see three? There were several further on. They stay completely stationary!

A meander around this lagoon took us into the Azalea, Camellia and Magnolia gardens.

Over the years of visiting the gardens, I have always been disappointed in this section. Not so today! It was magnificent. I have never seen such a bounteous, sensational display of magnolias before.

There were colourful blossoms everywhere.

The path around this lake took us back to Australian native plants and some delightful sculptures of our native animals - kangaroo, joey, platypus, echidna and wombat.

Not native, but quite spectacular - single and double Poinsettias.

Yellow Everlasting Daisies

Grass Tree

Wattle

Calliandra

Callistemon or Bottlebrush

Purple Pea bush or Hardenbergia violacae.

Grevillia

Juniper-leafed Grevillea

Banksia with Grevillia in the background.

Landscapes

Grevilleas and everlasting Daisies

Everlasting Daisies.

A Termite nest.

A very musical magpie

Good old Aussie bush

We all agreed, that stopping to 'smell the roses' on this day, was a wondrous, therapeutic and totally rewarding experience. We couldn't have planned the day better. It would have been lovely to have had Joc and Leanne with us, but they were spending the week slumming it in Bali!

I must add that it is most unusual to see as much massed colour as this, other than in the Botanical Gardens or at the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers in late September.

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