Mon Repos, Bundaberg – Turtles and Taking to the Skies

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The opportunity to spend time in the beautiful backwater of Bargara in Central Qld Coast, on the Bundy shoreline, is something not to be passed up. What draws us to the region is the nesting of the turtles. Mon Repos, is a precious mainland turtle rookery, active between November and March. This is truly something special that we enjoy visiting when we can. From the labouring of the mums… to the hatching of the clutches, sprinkled up and down the beach at the National Parks Turtle centre near Bundaberg in Qld.

It Rains in a Rainforest – Oldies at Large

Being camped up in a rainforest brings its own delights, the least of which is the nightly orchestra of bugs and frogs, often accompanied by the steady beat of rain on the caravan roof. This is something that is a particular delight given that we have spent the last 18 months chasing the sun around Aus’. We have been yearning for rain for some time and here up in FNQ, in the tropical rainforests along the Cairns escarpment it has at times been a muddy delight.

If the Croc’s don’t get you … the Trees will

As we prepare to depart the Cairns region, and head west there are a few things that I have learnt and many things that I will miss. While on the other hand there are some things that I am very much looking forward too… actually quite a few things.

Gateway to the Tropics – Cairns

We’ve been living in the sun in Far North Queensland, hiding from the chill weather fronts of winter passing over southern Aus. these last weeks and it has worked well. The tropic is a great place to be in an Aus. winter and there is a heap of things to keep us busy. It is tourist season up here and people abound everywhere you go. I know over the humid Christmas of Aus. this place is largely left to the locals, not many can deal with the high humidity and the strong cast of the sun. We too will be outa here by then but in the mean time it has been a lot of fun.   

Ancient Limestone Caves – Chillagoe FNQ

Millions of years ago in Queensland an ocean covered the vast regions of the Outback plains. The Great Barrier Reef was inland by about a 500 klm and now these ancient reefs and silt beds lay buried beneath a hardened volcanic cap of a later epoch.

Oceans Long Forgotten – Tales of Ancient Worlds

Ancient Australia – Inland Seas

We crossed and ocean today, it was an inland sea once, very like the Mediterranean, but now this one is beneath the silted rock and beds of ancient sands, it is the Great Artesian Basin. We were travelling up through inland Queensland, commonly known as a region of the Outback. A region bordered by the Carnarvon Ranges (Katjarra Ranges) to the west, a plateau section of the Great Dividing Range with the Pacific Ocean to the east. This area is now a vast plain… a flat land.

Oldies at Large – Out on the Tar at Last

We are ‘on the road’ finally! We drove out of the gate and barely looked back.  Though hubby managed to collect the cover for the gas water system and wiped it out… nahhhh who needs hot water in summer, fix it latter … just add it to the list. We will return on occasion, for better or worse, to check up on the home and hearth but mostly our home now will be in our cosy 20 feet of caravan along with two dogs and a solar and gas supply. I haven’t told you much about our caravan but it has taken three years in the organizing… actually longer than that if you count our adventures in the Bitch Box.

The Ancient Legend of the Min Min Lights

The mysteries of the Min Min lights in Outback Queensland have been around since the Dreamtime. When Australia was first colonized two hundred years ago and as the whitefella’s moved into the Outback the notoriety of the Min Min became legend.

But what are these strange orbs of light that bring portend to those who they menace? The jury is still out, but Aboriginal Lore will tell of their legend and their power.

Oldies at Large – The Cradle of the Family – The Bed

About thirty-five years ago now, The Man and I went shopping. I remember it distinctly as a milestone in our marriage. We had been married for several years and by this time had four vegemiters, all welcome and all loved. Money was tight, I had given up work some years since to raise the vegemiters to school age, a decision we had made consciously and the eldest had just reached that touchstone in life.

In the pram was our youngest of the brood and she was to be the last for us and we knew it. Up until that time we had to save diligently for everything we owned or had acquired, mostly we acquired stuff from sales, relatives etc but this day we were out to purchase our third big purchase. A bed. The other two big purchases over the years had been the car and the house, now it was time for the future.

Prehistoric Australia – The Kadimakara

The Roof of Queensland

The Kadimakara is an old Australian Aboriginal word that is used to describe the Dreamtime, prehistoric monsters, or the unique megafauna and/or dinosaurs (not strictly speaking) of the Australian landscape. That the word survives in a culture that has no written text is a testament to the power of storytelling.

No one instructed the Australian Traditional Aboriginal in the existence these animals. The account of them was born of experience and knowledge alone. The creatures were spoken about as having foraged and fed across the lands of Central Australia and other regions. We know also that they actually existed because they left their bleached and fossilized bones in the once great lakes and sea’s of central Australia. They are yet another account of something of which modern man has no practical written record, outside of palaeontology studies, art  and storytelling.