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.)

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!)

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?

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!

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!