Night Photography

Cotton Tree

We've had great weather, and had lots of fun kayaking, boogie boarding, collecting shells and taking photos with our weekend visitors...

Vietnam

If we haven't posted for a while it's usually a sign of being busy with work, and not doing anything interesting... in the last few weeks this has only been half true. Dazz has been EXTREMELY busy with work, but also doing very interesting things. I, on the other hand, have not been terribly busy, or doing anything particularly exciting.

There had been talk of Dazz doing a teaching intensive with the Masters program in Vietnam earlier in the year, but we weren't sure that it was actually going to happen. All of a sudden it was on, and he was rushing to get visas and travel organised. After much discussion we decided that I wouldn't go. He ended up working 10hour+ days for the two weeks, with the middle weekend to catch up on sleep, class preparation and do a few hours of sight-seeing. Although it was exhausting it was a great teaching experience.

We spent a lot of hours on skype, often while he was eating at restaurants. Seafood figured prominently. He tried a couple of different tropical fruits, including the famously stinky durian. Although he had told the other teacher they would definitely not be hiring motorbikes, he ended up on the back of the bike of one of his students when they took him sight seeing and shopping! And where do they park all their scooters - in the scooter park, of course...









Now we're up at Cotton Tree having a 'holiday'... oh, and doing some marking, and beginning to prepare for on-campus teaching that begins in December. Of course, doing all that is hardly a chore when the air conditioning is going in the heat of the day and there are views of the beach. Being able to kayak, walk and swim in the early morning and late afternoon is when we are really on holidays.

What!?!?!?

We had a quick trip over to the coast to get a few things done to the van at the factory. Since we had to be there early (7am) we thought we'd put up with a noisy night at the Landsborough turnoff. What we didn't bank on was a seeming 'park and ride' that started about 4am. By the time we decided we'd leave at 5am we were almost parked in...

A special weekend with Ellie

Since her brother came to the gem fields for the July school holidays, we had promised Ellie a special three-day weekend away. A pupil free day provided the perfect opportunity. Our first stop was the rest area at Ravensbourne. This giant worm was found in a bit of an explore after breakfast.

The main destination for the weekend was Somerset Dam. It turned out to be great weather for kayaking, and after being a passenger for a while Ellie decided it was her turn to paddle. We called her Captain Zig Zag, but she did a great job!

We saw a pheasant coucal, invented a new dessert - The Taj Special, had perfect morning tea marshmallows and spent Sunday afternoon at the mountain cousins where we learnt about bee keeping.

Reserved

The perfect campsite is hard to find, and everyone wishes they could reserve their spot for next time... so we did. Our favourite Brisbane bush block, with power, water and meals (including morning & afternoon tea!!) is officially reserved.

Lake Coolmunda

We stayed in Toowoomba long enough to get new tyres, go shopping (it had been a month since the IGA in Coober Pedy!) and do some marking and then we were off again. We took the kids with us and they were super excited (they were picked up the next day, but we're here for a week). Last time we were at Coolmunda there was so little water that we were kayaking in the old creek on the eastern side of the dam. Now it's almost full and absolutely beautiful. Great waterfront views, kayaking, clean lake water, yellow-belly courtesy of our neighbours (thanks Bob & Toni), great weather (once the wind stopped on Monday), internet, TV... this just about has to be the perfect camp spot.

An uneventful trip home

From Lake Bindegolly we did a lot of driving to get home. The only photo worth putting on the blog was the sunset through the trees at Westmar.

Lake Bindegolly

The Camps book only showed a day-use area at Lake Bindegolly, east of Thargomindah, so we decided we'd stop there for lunch on our way to Yowah (opal fossicking!). When we picked up a brochure at the Visitor Information, however, it mentioned bush camping on the southern side of the road. We didn't get our hopes up, thinking it might have been a parking area on the side of the road... but it wasn't! Our one night stay has turned into four. The kayaking is great and we've seen some interesting water birds (Great Crested Grebes, Pink-eared Ducks, Baillon's Crake & Black-fronted Dotterel photos are below) and other wild-life.

Cooper Creek

We had crossed the Cooper Creek at Windorah, and flew over it running into Lake Eyre, but at Innamincka we finally put our kayaks in it.









Not long after leaving Innamincka we did our first tyre of the trip. We had stopped to look at something and Dazz noticed the front tyre had started going down while we were there. When he took it off there was a fairly pointy rock underneath, so we may just have stopped in slightly the wrong spot...

How mad is a cut snake? Not very if it has its front end run over enough so it can't see with its eyes or feel with its tongue. We couldn't quite stop fast enough to miss this one. Dazz did put it out of its misery once he realised it wasn't long for this world anyway.

We did a detour to the Dig Tree of Burke & Wills fame. This time Dad went kayaking with Dazz.

The Stzelecki Track

The Strzelecki doesn't actually start until Lyndhurst, but we started the day in Leigh Creek. Dad got a bit of a 'move along' at the Leigh Creek Coal Mine Lookout.




We had to keep stopping for lizards. Their camouflage is amazing once they leave the road.











Montecollina Bore - an oasis in the middle of nowhere







Another great meal, another great camp fire, another great day in the outback.






Moomba








The gibber plains gave way to small sand hills for a while.







It was back to gibber plains just outside Innamincka.