Miles from nowhere

Looks a bit milky to me!

Miles is over 200 miles from Brisbane in a westerly direction, i.e. into the outback, there's not much traffic here, in fact there's not much of anything including light pollution which means we got an amazing view of the night sky - this is a picture that Lyndall took outside our wooden cabin.

I'll go for double tops!

A couple of hours earlier, in the diminishing light of dusk, we'd spotted an Australian Darter coming in to land onto a branch very conveniently situated right opposite the verandah of our log cabin. I took a stack of photos but given the fading light only a few were much cop but this one sums up the magnificent bird - they are a bit like giant sized cormorants and often sit with their wings spread drying themselves in the sun. We also saw one on our last visit engaged in its other favourite activity which is fishing - when swimming their bodies are submerged and all you can see is the neck and head - this looks eerily snakelike and explains the alternate name of 'snakebird'.

Ooh that hurt!

Miles is not much of a town (pop. 1746) but it does have a very good example of a 'Historical Village'. Generally this means that the odd small town has decided to move it's old buildings to a site on the edge of town and line them up in a vague approximation to how the town would have looked like a hundred years os so ago. The collection of buildings in Miles was impressive enough, an old post office, a tavern, butchers bakers, candlestick makers, etc., but somehow along the way the local seem to have put the call out for everyone to donate their artefacts, collections of trivia and junk. here's a snap of a bullock that had escaped and lived in the bush. Unfortunately one of its horns had grown in the wrong direction, not having a caring farmer to trim this renegade appendage, it must have suffered a lingering death.

On your marks!

Despite its size Miles has a parkrun! So we had to give it a go. And everybody knew everybody else apart from us - and they soon knew us. Lyndall was first lady (with Scout, 8th in 25:46) and I was second overall (21:42) and Vicky got her best time for ages (33:03)) on a slightly undulating course along the Dogwood Creek.

Swallow that!

Twitter, twitter, tweet!

Time to get the camera out for a bit of twitching. This is a swallow as you'll all have guessed - a friendly little chappie perched on a waterway signpost by the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. But the more observant of birdwatchers from the UK might spot that there's more red on this bird's head than there should be. That's cos it's a Welcome Swallow Hirundo Neoxana which is the common swallow down here - the one we get back home is the Barn Swallow Hirundo Rusticana. But don't swallows all fly across the world backwards and forwards - shouldn't they all be the same. Goodness no! There are dozens of different types of swallows - keep your eyes open.

Made it in one piece!

Finally got our 'Z' - this is at Zillmere parkrun in Brisbane - a curiously poorly attended parkrun considering it's all off road - it's a mad dash round several sports fields and I got lost! Well not exactly lost but I tried to go round one of the fields again - with no other runner in sight I got a bit disorientated and lost 4 places to come in 8th in 27:17. Vicky was assisted by Scout (Skip's mother) and breezed in with a time of 34:59. Just 'J' and 'V' to go with our parkrun alphabeteering. Weather conditions were much more conducive to running - no humidity, no sun, an early morning (7 am) temperature of less than 20 degrees - you'd have thought we'd have both flown round. Let's try again next week.

Road signage in Queensland is often present to state the obvious. Here this indicates a one way street or a highway exit. Other signs warn motorists to beware of kangaroos, (a real danger and we've come close to running one over already!) Various miscellaneous signs that we've also seen include those with pictures of koalas, emus and crocodiles - we've yet to see the cassowary signs or the ones that say beware of falling coconuts but these do exist. Other signs are there to correct possible misapprehensions (see below!)

.....never mind what the satnav says!

Orchids and Durians!

You don't get these in pots!

The weather in Singapore seems to suit some species very well. The national flower of Singapore is the orchid and we spent a couple of sweaty hours at the National Orchid Gardens which are full of hundreds of different varieties of orchids - most of them seemed to be in full bloom and I took plenty of colourful photos.
'Have you got Durians?' We'd just stepped into a hotel lift with a porter and another couple got in with a suitcase, the stern question about durians was addressed to them. They declared that they had just eaten durian but they weren't carrying any - they still looked worried though!

An explosive mixture!

At R5 to the pound - a bargain!

In Malaysia and Singapore durians
are forbidden in hotels, airports, trains (see the above sign) and various other places. But not in McDonalds it seems - here's the ad for a Durian Crunch McFlurry.  Durians are a spiky looking fruit which grow on some South East Asian trees - many people find them unusual but pleasantly tasty but others describe the flavour as overwhelmingly disgusting. The smell? Well it can be detected from miles and lingers for days - hence the ban in hotels, etc. and that pink thing? It's not a McDonald Apple Pie made with pink apples, it's a Taro Pie, Taro being a favourite root/fruit in Malaysia - you can't say that McDonalds aren't catering to local tastes!

Singapore Sling

Yummy!

One of the delights of travelling, as far as I'm concerned, is going into supermarkets and finding out what the locals eat. Here we went into the supermarket more to take advantage of the air-conditioning and escape the humidity. As well as Malays, Singapore is home to large populations of Chinese and Indian people, plus a few Europeans. Hence the huge variety of foodstuffs on offer. And thus at Fairprice Supermarket in Katong we came across this little beauty - Buddha Jump over the Wall. Buddhist monks are vegetarian but legend says that when this super gastro version of shark's fin soup was first devised it smelt so good that Buddhists from the local monastery forwent their principles and jumped over the wall to join in the meatfeast! Not our cup of tea however and unfortunately for us none of the Singaporeans seem to eat porridge so we were out of oats for the few days we were here.

Hup two, three, four!

We had thought that a week in South East Asia would have been a reasonable period in which to acclimatise to the heat and humidity. No such luck though as we found the East Coast parkrun in Singapore just as hard as the Malaysian run last week. This is a very pleasant there and back course through trees parallel to the beach in a busy park full of runners and cyclists - there were large groups of runners in training being paced for the forthcoming Singapore Marathon - as we galloped by their minders shouted "Parkrunners coming - keep to one side!" Galloped is maybe optimistic as far as I was concerned but there were half a dozen runners under 18 minutes so a fast course for some. I managed 27th in 22:13 and Vicky was 92nd in 36:51.

Grand isn't it?

The Bay Marine Hotel is typical of the grand old hotels of Llandudno - strategically positioned on the sea front this fine example of Victorian architecture has hosted thousands of happy holidaymakers over the years. Type Bay Marine Hotel into Google however and you're more likely to be presented with the Marine Bay Hotel in Singapore, an astonishing building that consists of three towers with what looks like a boat sitting on top of it - take a look at the photo below and you'll see what I mean. Tourists who in former years would have been very happy with living it up in Llandudno now travel halfway round the world and pay a fortune for the privilege of staying here in what apparently is quite an ordinary hotel from the inside. Outside it looks good but it ain't half hot!

How did them trees get up there?