Friday, December 14, 2018

Wet cold and flu

On your marks!


There we were lined up for the off - a bit like the start of the Grand National this. I wouldn't normally edit my blog in such a way that a photo would stray across the page - doesn't look very tidy does it?  However this panoramic snap just needed to be seen in its entirety. No that's not me heaving under the goal posts, I'm at the other end with the green sleeves trying to plot a dryish route through the mud. Vicky is nowhere to be seen - she was hanging back in the trees behind waiting for the mad trampling to be over so she could then deftly thread her way through the field with Skip. It was a grim wet muddy course through Henley Woods at Oswestry. It's probably quite lovely in summer and that's probably the next time we'll be back for this one. Still it was friendly enough - there seems to be a real community spirit here as evidenced by the large number of cheerful volunteers. Plenty of junior runners prepared to get muddy legs on a cold morning so someone must be inspiring them to get out of bed early on a Saturday.

Saltaire - it's not by the sea you know!
Later that week, prior to a pleasant day's work in Bradford, I spent an evening in Shipley a rather interesting suburb. Part of Shipley is a World Heritage Site - how about that! This is the area known as Saltaire, the name is a hybrid word derived from the River Aire and Sir Titus Salt, who built a model village here to house his workers. The houses were a significant improvement on the slums of the time - they had running water! Much survives for tourists to peek at, however it was windy, wet and rainy so I decided not to stroll the mile or so up to Saltaire and I settled for the Wetherspoons over the road for some Goose Eye Chinook Blonde. Last week I was in a pub called the Sir John Arderne in Newark, you might think it fitting therefore that Wetherpsoons would have called this one the Sir Titus Salt. But there was already a Wetherspoons called the Sir Titus Salt in Bradford so they came up with the moniker Sir Norman Rae to commemorate another scion of Shipley. Rae was a wool merchant who gave a parcel of land to Shipley council to use as a park - there's no parkrun in it yet! One curiosity that I gleaned about Shipley is that, until this year the past 14 years worth of councillors from Shipley have all belonged to the Green Party - must be some interesting reason for that but I didn't get a chance to find out.

Or else!
So I have this in writing from the NHS website - "If you have what you think is flu after vaccination it may be that you have caught a flu-like virus that isn't really flu, or you may have caught flu before you had the flu vaccination." I had the jab on Thursday morning, 3 o'clock the following morning what did I have? Something horrible!! I actually think what the NHS suggested is not quite right, the flu jab knocked my immune system out which meant that a lurking common cold, which I would have perhaps normally shrugged off, then grabbed me big time. I could live with that alone but unfortunately this all put my heart out of sync. So no parkrun for me this Saturday. I stayed in bed while Vicky did her volunteering bit as tailwalker at Bodelwyddan parkrun.


Saturday, December 8, 2018

Back to normal?

Am I going the right way?
About 25 degrees cooler than last week's 10k but it had to be done. The Bodelwyddan Castle parkrun had commenced operations in our absence. Its not a bad little run, much of it being off road and in the grounds of the castle. It was never really a castle - built in the 15th century as a manor house it was then rebuilt in the style of a castle in 1832 and is now a hotel and museum. Very attractive it is too but I didn't really see it as I was busy galloping round - Vicky said it looked great.

Well it does look like a castle doesn't it?


You leave my nuts alone!
Not much else to report this month apart from our lovely trip to Anglesey to the Nant y Pandy parkrun the following Saturday. And the reason we have a photo of a cheerful looking red squirrel here is because we spotted a number of them on the course. (Not while we were running of course but we took Skip for a stroll after the run along the Dingle valley where we'd just been running.)

Kit for mending anal fistulas - handle with care!
Changing the subject slightly, here's a selection of suspicious looking surgical instruments from 750 years ago. These belonged to Sir John Arderne who was a well known surgeon of the 14th century, He lived to the ripe old age of 85, no mean feat in those days. He made his name through developing an effective procedure for anal fistulas, something that knights on horseback were prone to as a consequence of long days on the saddle. I thought this was impressive stuff as I read about him at the Sir John Arderne pub in Newark, Lincolnshire whilst quaffing beer from the excellent Milestone Brewery. One of the first pubs I'd been in since we arrived back in the UK and the (very British) beer was exceedingly tasty! Things are back to normal.




Friday, December 7, 2018

If only we'd known!

Show me the way to go!
I love lighthouses and this is a particularly picturesque one situated on the rocky Monterey peninsula in California. It's the Point Pinos Lighthouse and is notable for being the oldest working lighthouse on the West Coast of the US. Not only that but you can also come and take a look round it. If you get the right day that is - it's open five days a week but not on Wednesday when we were there! Next time maybe.

One way to get over jet lag!
Our flight from Brisbane to Vancouver arrived at 7 am in the morning. What we didn't know was the fact that the Richmond Olympic parkrun is only a 10 minute cab drive from the airport. So, if we'd flown on a Saturday we could have done a parkrun in Brisbane in the morning and one in Vancouver the same morning. (Brisbane is 18 hours ahead!) And, rather like two runs on New Year's Day, both events would have been recordable. However we flew on a Wednesday - should have done our homework - next time maybe.

Island in the sun - for some of the year!
I had mistakenly thought that Vancouver Island was around the same size as Great Britain. When we got there we found that it was much smaller and we could have done a bit more exploring in the time that we had. I realised how my confusion had arisen - the capital of Vancouver Island is Victoria. However Vancouver Island is bottom right on the map (just digging into the north west tip of the US.) Victoria Island on the other hand is on the frozen wastes - it's the red bit. Just as well we didn't book a flight there. It's slightly larger than GB (as I'd seen on the list of the world's largest islands), round about 2,000 people live there (in igloos?) and it's notable for having the world's largest island within an island within an island!! Part of Victoria Island is in the recently created province of Nunavut, this includes all those islands surrounding Victoria Island. And here's the real fun fact - the car licence plate for Nunavut is in the shape of a polar bear! Oh go on - here's another odd fact - it's illegal to lock your car doors round those parts. Why you might ask? Well if you're walking down the road and a hungry polar bear takes a shine to you - if there's a car parked nearby - get in the tin can, he's not got an opener!

Got your antit-freeze?

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Florida - turn on that air-con!

The good old boys!
Back in the groove once more, no park runs in southern Florida so we had to find something else to keep us occupied on a Saturday morning. This was the Old Naples 10K a popular event in a fairly affluent town on the west coast facing the Gulf of Mexico. Boy was it hot even at 7:30 in the morning and even the locals seemed to be suffering. However a bit of true grit saw me though to the end - I knew the guy in the yellow t-shirt was closing in on me but I just held him off for the V60 prize. I was in with a slow 47:46 and Vicky was well down on her best 10K times with 80:05. (Incidentally the winner of the whole thing was from Ellesmere Port!)
I can swim quicker than him!
Following the race we had a long drive across Florida on Interstate 75 a road known in these parts as Alligator Alley. Of course we had to take a pitstop at some point and by the car park was a waterway. This young lady decided to take some air right by the river bank. You might just spot something in the water on the right of Vicky's neck in the photograph. This turned out to be a seven foot alligator swimming swiftly towards us. "Quick quick get away from there!" "Not until you've taken my photo!"

Has it got a shed though?
Palm Beach is an extraordinary place. There are more billionaires here than anywhere else in the US. Palm Beach itself is an island very close to the Florida coast and we were very lucky thanks to our host the wonderful Sarah, to be provided with a guided tour of some of the astonishing features including this palatial residence which belonged to Henry Flagel, a captain of industry. He built this in 1902 when he was in his early 70's, but this was scene of his death eleven years later when he fell (pushed?) down a flight of stairs. Very suspicious! Who stood to gain? Why his young third wife of course. Today various Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Trumps all live in various Palm Beach mansions at various times of the year, and guess who has a mansion sandwiched among these guys? Why Rod the Mod Stewart, we drove past his house, he's next door to some chap called Glazer. According to our reliable source Sir Rod enjoys life here and is often seen down at Starbucks chatting people up and signing autographs.

No it's not a masked ball!
Here's Rod and Penny socialising with their mate Donald at the Palm Beach Policeman's Ball at the Mar-a-lago Club which is basically part of Trump's house. At 64,000 square foot it will be relegated to being the second largest mansion in Florida when David Seigel's house is built, this one is called Versailles (a bit if a copy of the French Palace!) and it's taken so long to build that the children's playrooms have been remodelled as 'yoga parlours' now the children have grown up. (Seigel is 83 years old by the way and his house is actually up near Orlando in mid Florida - handy for Disneyland.)

Last night on American soil saw us in Fort Lauderdale, not a particularly distinguished city, but we had to fly out the following morning from the local airport. Now's my chance to post a picture of my all time favourite footballer Georgie Best. Here he is in the colours of Fort Lauderdale Strikers taken when his best days were behind him He played here in 38 games. After leaving United he then became a bit of a journeyman playing for no less than 17 other clubs - the first of which after his departure from Old Trafford (and here's a pub quiz question) was the Jewish Guild Football Club in South Africa!

What a star!





Thursday, November 29, 2018

From Alcatraz to Chicago

An American mug shot!
From the sun and warmth of California to the chill of Michigan and Illinois. Michigan doesn't half get cold in the winter and this was only the beginning of November. We wrapped up well and made it to the Livonia parkrun in the suburbs of Detroit - this was the very first parkrun to be launched in North America as long ago as June 2012. Here's us pictured with another tourist from the UK, John B from Essex (who was here on business - the motor industry of course!) There were a surprising number of junior runners seeing as we saw hardly any youngsters at the San Francisco event. I was overtaken on the home straight by a young lad who'd actually called me back onto the right path just before the end. I came 8th in 23:02 and Vicky was 47th in 36:35.

Ticket inspectors - you've got to hand it to them!
The following day we had to make our way 280 miles from Detroit to Chicago. Rather than take the plane we decided to go by rail seeing as we weren't in a hurry. We hopped into a cab down to Ann Arbor half an a hour away - this was the scene of yesterday's latest US parkrun. They're up to 26 now, six of these being in the Washington/Baltimore area - it's spreading! The station in Ann Arbor was packed with travellers waiting for trains in both directions - there are only a few trains a day through here - which one would come first? The train from Chicago was delayed by over an hour but our's was just about bang on time! Hooray! And what a nice relaxing way to travel. We were at the back of the train so the sounding of the distinctive loud Amtrak horn for each road crossing wasn't too distracting.

Fire and brimstone!
Once in Chicago we quickly found an excellent watering hole, this being the Haymarket Brewing Company which is located in Haymarket Square scene of an infamous riot in 1886. Workers protesting against the killing of rioters on the previous day were demonstrating and a bomb was thrown killing seven policemen plus a number of bystanders. The publicity that surrounded the incident and the subsequent trial of persons suspected of involvement in the bombing did a lot to raise the profile of trade unions in the US. Gosh what violence - and this was well before Al Capone came along.
Chicago is a more peaceful place nowadays and the Haymarket brewery tap is a most relaxing place to sit and sip. Not only was the beer some of the best we'd had since being away from home it was reasonably priced so it went down very well!





Monday, November 19, 2018

California Dreaming

Coming in to land!


































Normally when I point my camera in the air I get a picture of the sky, despite my best efforts at trying to photograph birds flying or planes cruising overhead. This time it worked! These are Brown Pelicans which are in abundance on the Californian coast. Amazingly graceful in flight but clumsy on the ground - we saw them plunge diving into the sea to catch their supper.
First to arrive - all a flutter!
A couple of hours south of San Francisco is the old city of Monterey, we stayed in the quiet suburb of Pacific Grove and looked for butterflies. There's a stand of trees there that is one of the overwintering sites for Monarch Butterflies - these lovely things have been in decline for years and this particular overwintering sites is being carefully managed. From the end of October to March every year thousands of them descend on these few trees and sit out the winter in suspended animation. So we sauntered up to the park and looked and looked - and so did lots of other people and despite scanning all the branches of the tall trees no-one could see anything - not even me with my super duper binoculars. Clearly they were all leaving the big migration until November and this was October 30th. Just as we we about to leave we had a tip off from a local - 'Just over there in tree number 69!' she said. And sure enough about a third of the way up there was a cluster of butterflies attached to a branch - here's the photo!

Let the ale flow!
I'm doing something a little bit cheaty here - this beautiful poster advertises a Californian pub that I went to many years ago, but not this time! Nevertheless I like the poster so much that I just had to include it here. On this visit to the San Francisco region and beyond we visited (not all on the same night) the longstanding Magnolia Brewpub in Haight Ashbury, the Barrel Head Brewhouse, the Highway One Brewing Company, the Fieldwork Brewing company, the Alvarado Street Brewery (best beer!), the pioneering Half Moon Bay Brewery (best pub!) and the Hop Dogma Brewing Company. All very good but unfortunately the only beers below around 5% tend to be their versions of lager, pilsner and kolsch - and they're all pricey! The one major disappointment was the Cannery Row Brewing Company in Monterey. We should have done our homework here but we were so taken by the idea of visiting Steinbeck's Cannery Row that we failed to realise that it's a real tourist trap - Cannery Row Brewing Co brews no beer of it's own - they serve a wide range of pleasant enough beers but they were very pricey and the service was one step away from appalling.


They're both mine now!
Our last night on the West Coast saw us in Barbara's Fishtrap, a rickety restaurant that looks as if it's about to fall into the sea at Half Moon Bay. The service here was great (Vicky exchanged e-mails with the server who sneaked us out some free Key Lime pie as a takeaway dessert) and the fish was wonderful. You might also take note of the Ballast Point and North Coast Brewing Company beer bottles, just two of a fine selection available here.


To finish on a positive note some of the scenery in California is stunning - this was taken from high up on some cliffs south of San Francisco - Vicky was getting a bit worried that I was too close to the edge!

Nice beach - how do we get down?



Thursday, November 8, 2018

Humming in California


Hmmm!
Here's Anna's Hummingbird! We were quite surprised to see one of these buzzing around on a cold winter's morning in Vancouver - in recent years it 's been found that they don't fly south for winter anymore and one reason that's proposed for this is that they survive on garden feeders. We saw more of these humming around down in California on a series of feeders under the eaves of a seaside bungalow as per the picture below - (the close up on the right is not my snap!) Neat fact of the day - a hummingbird's heart beats over 1000 times per minute!

I took this one!

Gotta stay out of his way!
And so to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Only it's not golden it's a rusty red colour - and you should have been able to see it behind my head here except it was another foggy morning. In the other direction is the island of Alcatraz - as I finished the Crissy Field parkrun I could hear someone coming up fast behind me - I only noticed later that he had an Alcatraz t-shirt on - was he on the run? The escaped prisoner pushed me to my best time for a year 20:47 which took the over 65 record by over a minute. Vicky took it bit more steadily for 34:19.

Nelson - here's the rest of your columns!
Impressions of San Francisco are bound to vary according to where you stay and what you see. We found a wonderful Inn in the Presidio area called the Monte Cristo. In the US 'Inns' are a good idea - they tend to be smaller than hotels, often old and very individual. They usually have excellent breakfasts and that's abut the extent of the catering except that here, the South African cook Andre, makes some excellent afternoon snacks such as cookies and chocolate fudge. The Presidio itself is the top left hand corner of the San Franscisco peninsula - it's a big rambling park with some monumental buildings just outside - these were left over from the Pan American Fair of 1914 and were one of the most impressive sights we saw. Not much else caught our imagination though, we think that in some ways this city is a little overrated - we walked down to the Haight Ashbury district where hippiedom took off, it's a bit tacky now and the story about much of the rest about San Francisco is that it's frighteningly expensive!

Gosh she gets in all the best shots!
However when the fog lifts the bridge is pretty impressive - just to prove the fog did lift here it is - it's that reddish structure far away in the background. This was taken close to where the parkrun took place - Crissy Field is the site of an old US Army airport and the actual run itself is flat all the way round. However it's on a gravel track which means that times are not as quick as they might be (well I think I should have been quicker!) On the day things must have looked very confusing to passers-by as there was a Halloween run at the same time with hundreds of people dressed in costume running in the opposite direction to us at anything between a quickish gallop to a shuffle.

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Fall in Canada

How high?
From an Aussie Spring to a Canadian Fall in an instant (well half a day) courtesy of a trans-Pacific flight - we packed the shorts away, put our woollies on and braved the chill air. It was a cold foggy morning but by early afternoon things had cleared up. You'll have to look very close at this photo to see the figure of a man at the foot of this totem pole - the biggest one in the world, or so the plaque at the base would have it. On checking with that font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, it appears that there are several other contenders for the title. Nevertheless at 128 foot tall and carved from a single tree trunk it's pretty impressive. We found this at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria, British Columbia and we got stiff necks looking up at it!


Got a match?
So this is a typical scene at the waterfront on a British Columbia morning - fog and logs, everywhere we went the beaches seemed to be strewn with logs some of them of enormous size. I guess a couple of centuries of intensive logging using the rivers to convey the haul has meant that the surrounding seas have been littered with tree trunks. The rivers are no longer utilised in this way due to environmental concerns but the residue sits on the seashore bleaching in the sunlight (when the fog has lifted!) The following morning we joined a small band of parkrunners at Clover Point one of the first parkruns to get going in Canada - they've been at it just over a year now!
This was another foggy morning but a pleasant seaside run nonetheless.


Where is everybody?
And what's that on the front of my running vest - a number? With all the parkrunning we've been doing (you don't need a number for those) I'd almost forgotten how to pin a number into my vest. Following the Clover Point Parkrun in Victoria we travelled upcoast to Duncan where we ran the Cowichan Classic 10K, a wonderful race through trails and trees. Having run the day before I started steadily but soon found myself picking off the runners ahead until I found myself on my own and overall winner of the 10K event! (I wasn't actually the first runner home, there were two ahead of me who were running a total of 15K on the same course but they showed up in a different set of results.)


And what better to refresh our weary selves with than beer from Red Arrow brewers of Duncan, British Columbia. We had some very hoppy beers and were very happy.

The Arrow hit the spot!



Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Pies and Movies


Among the highlights of our stay in tropical Queensland was a visit to Bowen, a small town on the coast which was the setting for the film 'Australia' a world war two movie which starred Nicole Kidman and was the third highest grossing Ozzie film of all time after 'Crocodile Dundee' and 'Mad Max - Fury Road'. Bowen is also home of the Big Mango - I think I've posted a picture of it on this blog a while ago.

Smell the popcorn!
Talking of films this is a photo I took of the Bowen Summergarden Twin Theatre which is the oldest operating cinema in Queensland. We met Ben who runs the place - he's 80 and still works a 14 hour day as manager, projectionist and general greeter! Movie for the day was Smallfoot, a Disney cartoon film about Yetis which the grandchildren enjoyed - and so did we. Thank goodness there was air-conditioning in the cinema - it was hot outside. Bowen is also famous for Jochheims pies (see the top picture) - they open at 5:30 am for those Aussies who like an early brekkie and are supposed to be open seven days a week. This was not our first visit to Bowen, a year ago we'd passed through at round about lunchtime and called in, but there was a notice outside Jochheims which read "Closed today for redecorating - open tomorrow." Today we thought we'd be in luck but no! Pinned to the front door was a notice saying "Closed - Queen's Birthday!" As we all know back in the UK the Queen has two birthdays, a real birthday (21st April) and an official birthday (second Saturday in June). Most of Australia celebrates their official Queen's Birthday on the second Saturday in June, apart from Queensland where it's the first Monday on October - well why not!

Give us a break will you!
Last few days in Oz - we visited an amazing display of photographs in Brisbane all of which had figured in a world wildlife photography competition. We weren't supposed to take cameras in - which I only found out after I'd already taken a snap of this astonishing shot of lions attacking a giraffe. Usually giraffes outwit lions by giving them  an almighty kick in the you know where. This chaps hooves must just not have been on form that day!

Are we nearly there yet
And our last parkrun down under? We were planning on going to Noosa, home of the famous triathlons but bad weather meant that our camping trip had to be called off - instead we headed up to the coast outside Brisbane and did the Sandgate Parkrun - here's Vicky in fine style chasing down the runners ahead. Some good times here with MC home in 20:49, VC in 34:06 and Lyndall with one of her occasional energetic parkruns supported by Scout in 26:10.

To return to our Jochheims Pie experience, after two failures in two years we were waiting to catch a ride to the airport when a call came through - Liz was passing Jochheim's Pie shop in Bowen - would we like her to pick up some pies? "Of course we would!" and fine pies they were too. (And a final footnotes - by some odd coincidence Bowen's is the name of a fine pie shop in Wigan, Lancashire - Bowen's have been winning awards for their pies for years! We must go and try when we're back home.)




Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Tropical Queensland

And it's not even 8 am!
A brief update on the parkrunning scene - we have been in Airlie Beach, Northern Queensland - not as hot as last year, this being still wintertime so we've some good runs (results below), joined by some younger parkrunners. In fact Airlie Beach is one of the trial locations for the first three Junior Parkruns in Australia - and here are two enthusiastic junior parkrunners!

You can pick a lock with this beak!
Airlie Beach is up in the tropics and there's some exotic wildlife around - this little fellow kept flitting around by the front drive of the house where we were staying. For days I'd been trying to get a photo of this elusive character until one morning it was as if it had lost its shyness and it was sitting a few feet away happily chirruping to itself. Easy enough to identify as an Olive Backed Sunbird - how about that?

Mrs C: "It's a blue sea you see!"
And here's Mrs C at the top of Mt Rooper after a pleasant walk through the bush with some of the Whitsunday Islands behind us. Isn't life idyllic here? And dangerous - we were warned about dangerous stinging plants by a notice at the beginning of the walking track. And those beautiful blue seas behind us? Full of deadly stonefish and puffer fish, lethal sharks, poisonous jellyfish and stinging coral. If you've tread on a stonefish you're in trouble unless you can get specialist treatment, they're called stonefish because they look like stones, not fish! And they can be found out of water on the beach. The Japanese consider stonefish to be a delicacy as long as the venom is removed. Pufferfish on the other hand are poisonous  when eaten. And I've not even mentioned the spiders and snakes!
Mick Jagger?
Airlie Beach parkruns -
22nd Sept: Me 6th 22:37, Vicky 44th 34:32
29th Sept: Me 8th 22:10, Vicky 85th 38:18
6th Oct: Me 43rd 33:58 (ran with Annie who beat me!)

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Utes and Puggles

Outta my way!
Here's an example of an Australian pick up (or Ute as they're called here) fitted with bull bars - actually they're for stopping kangaroos splaying themselves across the windscreen. I've mentioned the damage that roos can cause - when you realise that the largest red kangaroos can be up to 2 metres tall you'll realise what I 'm talking about.

A Wingle? In Australia? You gotta be joking!
Most of the traffic in the outback consists of road trains, utes and enormous SUV's and a vehicle without roo bars is a rarity. Most of these are Toyotas and Nissans with a fair number of Fords and Holdens but increasing numbers of other manufacturers are getting in on the act - this picture features the Great Wall Wingle. The Chinese introduced this to Australia but quickly renamed it the Great Wall Steed! We were being driven round in a relatively rare VW Amarok which is rather a posh ute but works better than most. The trend for big cars even extends to bigger versions of our car back home which is a Mazda CX5 - here they market the CX9 which is a good 20 inches longer - wouldn't fit in our drive!

Hurry, hurry!
If you take a closer look at this photo you can see two emu chicks by the feet of this adult emu. We were tanking along at 70 mph and my camera was on my lap, they were bang in the middle of the road. Surprisingly quickly they trotted off to the side and I was lucky to get a picture before they reached the long grass. Not seen any crocs on the road but we have had two sightings of echidnas crossing the tarmac. Echidnas and platypuses are the only mammals that lay eggs but echidnas live on land, they have pouches and their young are called 'puggles'! The ones that we saw are the short nosed variety, about a foot and a half long they have spikes rather like those of a porcupine. In each case we managed to see the rear end of them as they respectively 1. buried itself under a fallen tree and 2. disappeared into the long grass. So here's a photo I found on the glorious internet:

Am I pointing in the right direction?

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Out in the Bush

Got bottle hasn't she!
The biggest bottle tree in the world! Maybe not, but it's a big one alright. This is the largest specimen of the Queensland Bottle Tree in existence - we found this in Roma some 300 miles west of Brisbane. I started to investigate bottle trees and soon gave up, there are many species in many parts of the world but this particular one, the Queensland version is a stonker. There are 96 slightly smaller bottle trees in an avenue down one of Roma's streets - one each planted for the 96 men who died in the first world war. Why is it called a bottle tree? Perhaps because it's shaped like a bottle - or perhaps because water is stored in its swollen trunk. Who knows? But we were impressed with this one.

Fancy a dance?
We were in western Queensland to visit Carnarvon Gorge (excuse the spelling!) which is a  spectacular rocky valley with hiking trails onward and upward. We did the 11K circuit and encountered plenty of wild life, aboriginal wall paintings, etc. Very highly recommended even if it's a long way out. Close to the gorge, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a couple of big birds dancing in the fields (or 'paddocks' as the Aussies say) in front of some amused kangaroos. These are Brolgas which are a type of four foot tall Australian crane and they're known for their complicated mating dances - which is what we kind of assumed was going on here.


Let the train take the strain.
Driving on the empty long straight roads of Western Queensland has its downsides - Kangaroos for one, they have no road sense at all and their remains can be spotted at intervals alongside the highway - this is why most vehicles out here have a big bumper bar arrangement at the front - those roos can do a lot of damage. Another hazard consists of the fast moving road trains which make overtaking somewhat difficult especially if you don't know how many trailers the truck is towing

Wild west Aussie style.
Close to the Carnarvon Gorge (actually an hour and half away) we stayed at the Injune Hotel, it used to be on the main road through town but now sits on a back street ever since they ploughed a wider road through (to accommodate road trains of course). This place was quite busy with diner, drinkers, folk bobbing in for a sixpack, etc. No idea where they all came from as there were very few houses in town. Fairly basic accommodation but it was an experience - the young lady serving us behind the bar was from Chile - she told us she had no problem understanding English but Australian was a different matter altogether. After a couple of nights here we drove 200 miles south to the next town but one of St George where we had a very pleasant cruise on the wide Balonne River - a very pleasant relaxing end to the day we had too with the sun setting over the tranquil waters.
Peace at last!