Rare Visitors

 Just recently a new species of bird has encroached on our garden and local neighbourhood. The bird is the yellow-tailed black cockatoo and I cannot remember seeing it in our district previously. However, our field guide to the birds of Australia has a map showing that it occurs locally. 

Maybe the recent drought, or the extensive bush-fires at the end of last year, have driven the species to seek out new and safer areas. During their search, they discovered Armidale and its kind residents who have bird-feeders (we have no less than three, each filled daily when we are here.

Until recently, my many long walks often encountered small groups of maybe 6 to 8 such cockatoos, but until this week our garden was deprived of their presence. Yesterday a pair discovered us and this morning we found 4 in the garden. I quickly took some photos, some shown below. They're very large birds compared to our other local species - perhaps 50% larger in size than the other species we keep feeding.

 

Alas, as I tried to capture them on film, they kept far away - almost hidden in the shade. Oh well! They gave Dot and me some fine as we tried to capture their movements.

AS

A Monumental Trip

 With little to do at home today I decided to go on a long drive. My destinations were the villages of Ben Lomond and Llangothlin. I did a quick Google search for the distances to these locations, which would help me work out my exact itinerary. According to Google the total return distance is nearly 33,200 km. That's a long way! I can drive about 800 km OK within one days, so I had to plan for a 41 day journey!

Just joking! Those places are in Australia's New England Region, which has many towns and villages named after UK locations. Armidale was founded by Commissioner McDonald and named after the clan seat of the McDonalds - Armadale - on the Isle of Skye. Northwards on the New England Highway are Llangothlin, Glencoe, Glen Innes and Dundee. Glen Innes bills itself as Australia's Celtic capital. And Ben Lomond village is named after the mountain on the eastern side of Loch Lomond. The original is 974 m high (3196 feet), but ours is higher (1400 m; 4593 feet). This is the 'mountain' adjacent to the village of the same name. 

Alas, however, both settlements are tiny and decaying Ben Lomond settlement is home to just 152 people, most of whom live on adjacent farms or small-holdings. Llangothlin is even more sparsely settled, with just 129 residents, most of whom again  are on rural properties rather than in town. It is slightly lower than Ben Lomond village, with a height of 1289 m (4229 feet - and higher than UK's Ben Nevis.

Here are some views of the two places:

This is the most impressive building in the 'town'. It is a memorial hall to local soldiers killed in the first world war.

As you can see, the main street is almost empty. In fact, I didn't see a single shop or service station!

Here's a little timber house - typical of the district.

The rural fire service has this more modern building, but since there are no fires around right now it is in lock-down.

And here's a view across to Ben Lomond.

Believe it or not, one used to be able to catch a train from her to either Sydney or Brisbane. However, the line closed north of Armidale maybe 30 years ago and this, like others locally is empty. One possible avenue to open it up is the removal of rails - which are still in place - and convert the line to a rail-trail bike track something like 60 km long connecting Ben Lomond to Armidale. I'd ride this great  high altitude scenic route.

This picture show some of the great pastures and views in the high country as I drove eastwards to connect with the New England Highway.

And, after a while I arrived in Wales ... well, not really

This is a view of some of the village's high density housing ... just joking again!

At least this barely surviving place has a service station (petrol) and shop, but the notable shortage of traffic in these COVID-19 days meant that this facility was closed!

Half way between here and Guyra - the main little town in district - one comes across a massive collection of glasshouses. Have a look at these picture, one taken afar and the other closer. You are looking at part of the biggest tomato farm in the southern hemisphere. This and the other nearby location covers no less than 60 hectares (c. 150 acres) and produces tomatoes hydroponically servicing the entire eastern seaboard of Australia. It is owned by a large corporation (Costa Brothers) and will ultimately employ as many as 750 people.

This development is energising the whole district, but alas will unlikely salvage the two settlements dealt with here.

So, my trip only took me about 120 km and lasted about 2.5 hours after I spent some time walking around taking photos.

AS

Solar Powered Cycling

 I went for a long bike ride yesterday and part of it went along Armidale's bike path that runs alongside Dumaresq Creek from the town centre to the University of New England. Imagine my surprise when I saw that our local council had installed solar powered lighting along much of the route. I suppose that some riders use the path at night, although I myself have never ridden after dark. I suspect, however, that I'll now give it a try.

I apologise if you thought this message was about the use of solar power to propel bikes in real-time!

Here are some pictures of the path, its surrounds, and the light-poles with their solar panels. By the way, yesterday, when the pictures were taken, was Wattle day ... the first day of Spring. And the weather played along nicely - not a cloud in the sky and a maximum of 18 C (nearly 65 F).  However, the many deciduous trees have yet to spout their leaves.

AS

Preparing for War?

 The world is becoming a very dangerous place for a host of obvious reasons. Some Armidale residents are seeking to respond in an encouraging way, as I found out this morning at our Sunday markets in the Mall.

How do you rate these guy's chances in any emerging combat with, say, China, Russia, or for that matter Trump?

AS

Puddledock Exploration

 I'm getting tired of hanging around town permanently and need to get out into the countryside and see interesting rolling landscapes. Today was no exception, but aided greatly by the fact that my car is a lot warmer than my house and the weather, though sunny, was also frigid. A gay was blowing and the frontal system that's just gone through swept up cold air from Antarctic regions. The 3 pm temperature, supposedly the day's maximum, was 9 C, but -2C after factoring in wind-chill.

Today, I decided to drive the nearby Puddledock Road, a route rarely if ever travelled by me. It is deeply rural and accesses only farms. No shops or other services appear on the roughly 25 km journey after leaving the New England Highway just north of Armidale. The route zig-zags north-east climbing much of the way. I am typing this message in my study at an altitude of c. 1012 m (3,320 feet). The highest point I reached today on my drive was 1,344 m (or 4,409 feet) so with me standing there my head was just a bit higher than UK's Ben Nevis, which reaches 4,413 feet. By the way, I once climbed that peak from Fort William when I was about 22 years old. It took about 3 hours up.

The following pictures accurately report what I saw on my way uphill! I love the New England countryside with its rolling hills and valleys, extensive high country plains, green paddocks, forested slopes, rock formations, frequently engaging cloudscapes and so on. It often looks rather 'English'.

One frequently sees piles of rocks occurring naturally - much of the countryside is underlain by igneous rocks and one pile south of Glen Innes is called Stonehenge!

Here are more rocks, but this time in a green paddock.

This picture looks south-west towards Mount Duval - covered in forests. It is 1,393 m high (4,570 feet). 

The patch of water I spied turned out to be impounded by Puddledock Dam, which I gather once supplied water to Armidale.

A flatter piece of ground was occupied by a farm surrounded by nice green pastures.

Dense Eucalyptus forest.

Lovely rolling pastures dotted with trees and with a farm dam in the foreground. Our countryside has hundreds of such man-made dams. The gravel road I was travelling on snakes to the left. I never passed another vehicle during the 30+ minutes it took me to drive up Puddledock Road and its extension - Springmount Road.

I loved this view southwards. Mount Duval can just been seen in the mid-right, but the horizon in the middle must be close to 50 km away and Armidale is hidden by the slopes to the left.

More greenish pastures below. For a change, I found myself driving through a herd of cattle and I was intrigued to see how the mother protected her calf from my not particularly aggressive driving.

Does this landscape look rather European?

Well, the picture below marks the end of my drive northwards and I am standing at precisely 1,344 m. It focuses on the road-house at Black Mountain and the road in front of it is the New England Highway connecting Sydney and Brisbane via the inland. It had hardly any traffic today.

I joined the highway for the trip home, but suddenly had a bright idea. After just 100 m I turned left off the highway to see Thunderbolt's Cave. I must have driven 3-4 km down a dirt track when I saw this sign, parked my car and went for a walk down a steepish rocky path.

And this is what I found: a rock shelter that must have been a hiding place for Thunderbolt. He was quite an accomplished thief who held up stage-coaches other properties and robbed their occupants. He was ultimately shot by a policeman and buried in Uralla, a small town c.22 km south of Armidale on the New England Highway.

The spot was very lonely - even today - and heavily forested

I very much enjoyed my drive, albeit alone because Dot wished to stay at home. That's the way things go in this COVID-19 ridden age.

Friends and relatives please come and visit Armidale when you can and enjoy our high amenity environment.

AS

Itching to see the Countryside

These days we spend most of our time at home, even though COVID-19 has barely emerged locally. Well, today I decided on a short drive and went to the nearby Dumaresq Dam. It's a pleasant spot that the Armidale Regional Council wants to upgrade to a tourist resort, although in the past it was constructed to supply water to the city. Apart from providing accommodation, better roads, tracks and so on, there's also talk of raising the dam wall.

Anyway, it was a cold and imminently wet day, so I didn't want to stay long apart from looking at the mountain view and the dam wall. By the way, it only took an hour or so to move from Summer temperatures (c. 19 C) on Friday to a chilly maximum of about 10 C today (Sunday).

You can see the great view from the shore-line where I parked my car and, despite the intense 2019 drought the water level was high. Here's Mount Duval in the background - maybe 3 km away. Existing paths cover both sides of the lake providing ever changing visions of water, forests and water.

From this spot, I took an image of the dam wall and, as you can see, the water is nearly lapping the top of the wall.

The wall worried me a little as it seems so thin. Still, it has been in place for a long time and shows no wear. Nevertheless I recalled the Dam Busters movie I first saw in about 1960 when my grandma took me to the pictures in Brighton. And the mess that British bombers did to Ruhr Valley communities when the dam walls were demolished was massive. I'd hate to think of the same thing happening locally!

I took the path that leads to the bottom of the wall, and this is what I saw - a rocky valley.

After looking around a bit more I headed to the car for the c. 14 km ride home. En route I took a detour to the back of the University to have a look at the solar farm it has constructed to power the campus.. As you can see, it's massive and has hundreds of closely aligned solar panels. By then, the dark clouds that had seemed threatening at the dam had largely cleared. However, when I returned home it was only an hour so before torrential rain started. At least it wasn't snowing!

AS

Bizarre weather pattern

 I'm not posting any pictures today because they would be soggy and dull. But I have a whole lot of remarkable numbers. In the 24 hours from 9 am yesterday (7 August) until to 9 am this morning our outside temperature barely moved.

Here are the 24 hour hourly numbers in degrees C starting at 9 am yesterday: 5.2, 6.1, 6.4, 6.3, 6.2, 6.9, 7.3, 7.3, 7.3, 7.0, 7.4, 7.2, 7.4, 6.5, 6.7, 6.0. 7.1, 7.0, 7.7, 7.1, 7.3, 7.0, 8.7, 9.0, and 8.5. So the numbers barely changed all day but, if anything began to rise a little through the night - which is very strange for winter! Perhaps the cause was other thing happening. There was heavy cloud throughout the day and it started raining at midday and barely stopped until 6 am. During that time we received a welcome but fairly modest c. 10 mm of rain (or just under half an inch). 

Have you heard of the term "a flat day"? Well yesterday was the flattest day I've ever remembered. But it looks like we may be in for another similarly boring experience. Right now at about 10 am the temperature has soared to about 9 C, which is what it was 2 hours ago! And the sky is still he same boring colour.

Maybe our problem isn't global warming but temperature stability. Mm! Maybe I shouldn't have said that stupid thing. Psst. Don't pass my remark on to Donald. If he heard about it he would explain how firing guns into the air would bring about climate stability. However, if that conclusion were true, it would least cut down on America's murder rate!

AS

Relocation of our Farmers' Market.

Armidale has no less than 3 farmers' markets a month and one of those was today. However, for the first time the markets shifted about 100 m west from Curtis Park to Civic Park. The reason for the move was simple. Part of the former location is now the site of a new children's play area which is under construction.

Well, the new site has twice the space with ample room to enlarge the event. However, due to the impact of COVID-19 the number of stalls / vendors has shrunk in recent months so we had a bit of spare space today. But due to the ultra-warm weather for the start of August many people turned up to inspect the site and many stalls seemed to be doing quite well. I purchased some Portuguese tarts and French-style pastries for Dot and me and I also stocked up on some bottles of delicious Kombucha produced locally. I like to visit these markets regularly to help local producers

I also took several pictures like these of the new spacious location. By the way, it was a gorgeous day. Despite an overnight frost (c. - 2 C) the morning rapidly warmed up to reach about 15 C at lunch-time and a maximum of c. 17 C (63 F). When did it last reach 63 F on a British winter's day? Blokes like me were wandering around in shorts!

AS

Dangar's Falls

After my trip to the Gara Gorge, Bec, Max and his friend Ryan came to stay for a couple of days en route to Canberra after some time on the Gold Coast and its hinterland. To keep them occupied, and taking advantage of the still remarkably warm winter weather, we decided to go out to Dangar's Falls out in the Gorge country. By the way, our extraordinarily warm winter means today has reached 16 C (or 60 F) as I attempt to post this message. On arrival, we started our visit by looking into the pool at bottom some 200 m below us (about 660 feet).

The second picture below show the flattish New England Tablelands landscape beyond the gorge and close to the full height of the falls - themselves hidden from view.

We then trod the path to the top of the falls, a route that is picturesque and exciting in its own way. En route we witnessed the rocky landscape through which the river flows. I didn't take a picture of the falls from the top because they we were essentially invisible.

We turned around to walk back to get a great view of the falls as Salisbury Water plunges over the top of the gorge. At this point I noticed that Max had disappeared, only to told that he was rock-hopping his way back towards our car. Part-way back I took a side trip to a look-out in the hope of seeing him. Guess what! I was lucky. Here he is trying his luck  jumping from one boulder or platform to another - see the next three pictures.

Miraculously, he didn't get his feet wet. That encouraged Bec to also try a bit of rock-hopping, something she accomplished with aplomb. We met up at the attractive lake near the parking lot.

It was then just a short uphill hike to the barbecue area where people can cook and eat meals and admire a full view of the falls. The first image below shows the full extent of the falls - and we were at  the top earlier. The drop you see is c. 183 m ( or exactly 600 feet).



You'll have to agree that it's a great view. Fortunately, our improved rainfall recently has led to a substantial flow. After heavy rains, the views on either side could be swathed in mist.







One more item! Max decided he wanted to toss a boulder over the platform he was standing on and see where it landed! He searched for a boulder, found one, and here he is about to toss it. Don't worry, there was no-one below - I made sure of that. And the boulder landed without any serious damage to the ecosystem.

That's it! An enjoyable trip was had by all.

AS