Christmas 2008

Christmas at home with Tim,Pip and Mackenzie, Nan and Alison. Mackenzie ensured there was a mountain of presents under the tree.After Boxing Day Ali went to Newcastle and the rest of us to Mystery Bay for 5 days.Marc and Kerri came and stayed overnight on New Years Eve.Mackenzie discovered the surf, sand and sandcastles (things you stamp on!).

xmas 2008

MB Project

Getting close to completion, all the internals and furnishing complete apart from a couple of items for later. Deck is finished.Now started on the yard and the boring task of repairing , stripping and painting the perimeter hand rails-big job.

Had a full house on new years eve with 8 adults and Mackenzie!

MB Project

More Mystery bay

Jenny and I drove down Friday afternoon with the new "red" lounge securely wrapped and tied down on the back of big red. As soon as we arrived and got the tarps off it stated raining but we got it unloaded with some use of physics, planks and positioning.

Main job was to continue the deck started by Don and me last weekend. Finsihed getting the posts levelled and bolted and all the joists in place. Next step to finsih handrail posts and nail down the decking. Also finished putting together all the flat pack furniture - dont want any more of that!

Mum was intent on seeing a whale after Don and I saw lots last weekend. Thought she was going to miss out but spotted one solitary water spout.

Monday morning we drove up to Sydney and picked up a bed base from Ali's garage and then Mum dropped me at the airport and I flew out to Malaysia for a two day conference. Writing this from the REX lounge Thursday morning having just returned overnight from KL.

Came back to Sydney via Batemans Bay, Braidwood,Goulburn which confirmed Don's experience last week, further than going directly up the coast but much faster and easier!

MB081108

Update on Mystery Bay

We had a big week starting with David and Jenny flying up to Taree on Saturday to see Nan and how her knee replacement is going - she is now walking very well. Flew home Sunday morning and drove both the car and the ute to MB as Jenny had to return to Bathurst for work Tuesday. David took a weeks leave and was joined by Uncle Don on Wednesday for 3 days.

The new roof and downpipes are complete, carpet was laid on tuesday, timber floating floor is down in the lounge room and we have made a good start on the deck.

Continually being surprised by our curious kookaburras, often turn around to find one a metre away perched on something watching what were doing, or swooping from 20 metres away to snap a worm or spider near my feet. We saw lots of black wallabies in the N Park but the highlight was on each of our two beach visits to see lots of whales passing. Water spouts were appearing over a wide area of ocean and occasionally a whale would leap out of the water creating a big splash.

Uncle Don went home Saturday morning and I stayed till after lunch,hanging a drier on the laundry wall and doing a clean up. Brought some tools home as we are running out of room to have tools lying around. Back in Bathurst by 7pm

8 Lloyd Place

Eurobodalla

Last weekend was number 6 in a row that we have been to Mystery Bay- now thoroughly sick of painting etc but happy with the result.We now have carpet and curtains on order so the place should get a lot more civilsed in a few weeks time. We have replaced the laundry tub, the bathroom vanity and removed the shower screen to be replaced with a larger unit. A new sliding door has arrived to replace a large window in the family room and give access directly on to the deck (not yet in existance).

Taking a break to walk and explore makes it all worthwhile. Eurobodalla National Park, which is right at our back boundary, extends north and south along the coast. This weekend we explored north from Mystery Bay, drove a short distance to the north end of the camping reserve and thence a walking track takes you to Billie's Beach. Going on from Billies the track winds over a low headland and reveals a series of beaches towards Narooma. The track descends to the entrance of Corunna Lake which only occasionally joins with the sea. Here we found another parking area but havent yet found how to get into it by car.

We werent quite up to driving the round trip for weekend number 6 so we flew to Moruya on Friday afternoon and hired a small car for the 35minute run to Mystery. Planned to go home Sunday but atrocious weather intervened and we waited till Monday morning. Got airborne at 7am after checking cloud cover at Bathurst and hoping the headwinds may have moderated a bit - wrong- above scattered cloud at 8500ft the flying was smooth and when we normally cruise at 120kts we had a ground speed as low as 55knots!, 65knots of headwind. Soon became apparent that fuel would be less than 45minute reserve at Bathurst so landed at Goulburn with a strong crosswind for fuel. After waiting 45 minutes for the refueller to arrive we got going again. A total of 2.5hrs flying time plus an hour on the ground so we didnt get to work till about 11am.

We get regular visits and a wakeup call at daybreak from the Kookas that live over the back fence. They are very adept at pulling worms from the backyard. I was surprised to see a possum watching me when I went to the car after dark and later heard it going for a walk on the roof. After dark the wallabies move in and while they remain invisible in the darkness you can hear them thumping away when disturbed.

Long weekend at Mystery Bay

On saturday we met Ali at Penrith Railway station and drove to Mystery Bay via Hume Highway and Kangaroo Valley. Bit of a long way but great to have Al with us. Lunched at Ulladulla and arrived at Mystery Bay in time to open the paint tins and start work!

Ali cooked great pizzas for tea, served at our ritzy dining table.

Wasnt all work though, a tour of Narooma (including Mitre 10) on sunday morning and after lunch a walk out the back "gate" and through Eurobodall Nat park to pooles Beach and then back along the bays to Mystery Bay - tide was uppish and had to clamber over a couple of rocks to get back on to MB beach- startled a couple of tourists talking photos who thought we had come out of the sea!
I went back to work (installing a new laundry tub ) and Jenny and Al took the 5 minute drive to Central Tilba. They came back with a token rocky road to cover the ice creams they had.

Monday morning Jenny and Ali went to the carpet joint and brought back the usual samples and I finished rolling the bedrooms and hall. Ali and Jen finsihed most of the trimming. Also found time to get round the outside with the water blaster and stir up some spiders etc and then sprayed. Headed off for Sydney at 2pm with a stop at Batemans Bay to order a new sliding door. Long drive up the coast but had a great chines meal at Hurstville (we were the only non chinese in the restaurant).Ali then caught the train home and we headed west and home.

Well, thats weekend number 3 and perhaps we are starting to get somewhere. Last two weekends we had the TV with us for the Olympic games but couldnt get the aerial to work-looks like the previous owner took the power supply for the masthead amplifier!

Mackenzies trip to the Park

My first post on Dads blog, I figured it's easier to keep track of things if I post here rather than creating yet another blog to keep track of

I had Mackenzie on Saturday so before settling down to share an apple juice in front of the Olympic Road Cycling race the Moo and I went to the park and found some ducks to chase.

Click on through to the album below to have a gander.

Katies 21st

Home Run

First photo shows grasslands which run south from Normanton through Julia Creek to Winton.
Second photo is Julia Creek and the third photo a hoestead south of Julia Creek.

From Karumba Jenny flew a long run (4 hrs) direct to Longreach.

The following day we went from Longreach to Taree in about 6 hours, stopping at Charleville and Moree to stretch legs and topup fuel. Tailwinds on this day saw us zipping along with a gound speed up to 160 knots (see photo 4).

Had two nights with Jenny's mum and then home to Bathurst.

Karumba

Photo 1 - view over the gulf


Photo 2 - Tavern from rear of motel

Photo 3 Karumba airport with the tavern and motel centr of picture on the waters edge.


Photo 4 Karumba has two parts, the point next to the airport (photo3) and the main town on the river as shown on photo 4.

Heading South

The very strong weather system bring snow to home continued to bring easterly winds, rain and cloud onto the east coast so we decided to alter our plan and return via the inland route, back to Karumba and then over Julia Creek to Longreach.
Departed Bamaga and flew one hour south to Weipa at 1200ft above ground level because of the cloud - gave close views of the landcsape. Refuelled alongside the flying doctor at Weipa and then weather progressively improved. After the first hour skimming along over the beach we climbed above the now scattered clouds and had a good run to Karumba.
As always in aviation plans keep changing, the fuel bowser at Karumba wouldnt work. We decide to call it a day and found a room at the "End Of The Road" motel, about 300m from the end of the runway. A very modern establishment with a new Tavern next door. A great place to have a couple of drinks and dinner watching the sunset over the Gulf.

Jacky Jacky Airfield

The bush surrounding the aiport contains thousands of rusted out 44gallon drums, presumably empty fuel drums left behind at the end of WWII.

The traffic through Jacky Jacky to New Guinea during the war was huge so it is not surprising their are some wrecks (many scattered further afield in Cape York).

Jenny looking at the remains of a bomber, perhaps wondering whether she can get it working again.


The bottom two photos relate to a DC3 which crashed near the airfield with the loss of all on board. The wreckage is still largely intact and well preserved.

Cape York

Punsand Bay is the northern most official camping area and extends along behind the north facing beach, Cape York is visible to the east from the beach. Importantly it has a bar/deck/open air restuarant which is good for campers who travel light ( ie no cooking equipment).

Temperatures were up to 30C however it was cloudy nearly all the time with very low cloud and strong south easterly winds - these never relented and eventually frustrated our plan to fly to Horn Island and even worked hard at stopping us flying south.
Took the "short cut" to the Cape, should have known that a road shown with small dots at Cape York would be a serious 4WD track and not a short cut. Nonetheless arrived at Cape York and following a walk through a rain forest and a scramble over rocks, arrived at the tip. Two large islands immediately aff the tip detract somewhat from its status as the northern most extremity.

Also drove to the Somerset house ruins (site of home of early Cape pioneer Frank Jardine). Apart from this not much else to do except relax on the beach waiting to see if any of the kids fishing along the edge got taken by Crocs!

Our next door neighbours, five families, had driven from Brisbane with their well appointed 4WDs, campers etc and we shared their large campfire one night.

Seems that signs of any sort relating to Cape York are considered fair and just reward for many of the pilgrims who have made the long journey, accordingly was difficult to be sure where we were at times!

On our last night we booked for dinner on the deck, the waitress was a backpacker from Paris but she seemed to have assimilitated the culture very well. It was seafood night and there was stacks to eat including crocodile - didnt have much taste but smeared with mayonnaise was quite acceptable, more or less!

Weipa to Bamaga Injinoo

Departing Weipa's red vista we bounced along at 2000ft for an hour and arrived into a gloomy looking Jacky Jacky Airfield -now called Bamaga Injinoo airport. Jacky Jacky airfield was so named after the exploer Kennedy's aboriginal guide. Kennedy was speared to death near here and Jacku Jacky completed the exploration on his own despite hostile local aborigines. Jacky Jacky airfield was also a very busy location during world war 2 and is surrounded by some wrecks and other debris (more later).
The passenger terminal at Jacky Jacky airfield is basic but some nice artwork (me standing next to) inside. Outside the terminal is a large granite memorial to the people lost in the Lockhart River air crash 18 months ago which depated from this airfield- a warning to all who enter here!

Tied down BLF and were picked up by Bamaga Resort who we had booked a four wheel drive. Very good sealed road into Bamaga, 5 0r 10 minute drive.

Loaded our camping gear into the 4WD and after inspecting camping areas at nearby Sesia and Loyalty Beach not to metion a visit to the Bamaga supermarket where we were followed around by a group of hopeful native kids, headed up the 34 km red dirt road to Punsand Bay

Karumba to Weipa

The west coast of Cape York is a never ending strip of deserted white sandy beach broken by the entry of meandering estaurine Rivers (no doubt crocodile infested) such as the Staaten, Jardine and Archer to name a few. Between Karumba there are three small settlements on the coast, of which Aurakun (pictured with air strip) is probably the best known. After about two and a half hours Weipa comes into site. A mining town where the red bauxite (raw material for aluminium) is obvious - mining is by scraping away the surface and directly exposing the bauxite. Also just south of Weipa we start to see the stationary weather trough ahead and cloud starts loweing and looking more gloomy. Oh well, half an hour on the ground, a meeting with the fuel truck and into the air again-last leg to Bamaga Injinoo.

Burketown Karumba

Adels Grove Burketown

First photo is Adels Grove and the second is the nearby Lawn Hill National Park. Swimming, canoeing and walking are all prime activities at Lawn Hill.

Departed Adels Grove, braving the kite hawks again and tracked to overhead Burketown. Saw the first of many spectacular river " art scenes".

Adels Grove Riversleigh Fossils

Early start to strike camp and load the plane before catching the 8am tour to Riversleigh.

Up here wedgetail eagles and kites seem to congregate on the runway and then take to the air when a plane lands or takes off - oh well cross your fingers!


Visited the Riversleigh "D" site and saw fossils of ancient crocs, big birds, turtles and so on.



Followed by morning tea next the the spring fed Gregory River (our bus seen here crossing the river).