Pictures for Hope.

This blog is for Hope, she is a very talented young lady who lives in USA. I promised I would send her some pictures of Charlie our little bull calf that doesn't have a mum to feed him. Firstly we have to go find him because tonight he couldn't hear us call him for dinner.

 

Then it is a race up to where he gets his warm bottle of milk.

 

He is a little nervous of me being there with the camera becauses it flashes and it scares him.

 

Another picture of him "guzzling his bottle.

 

And then after he drinks his milk he gets half a bucket full of lucerne chaff and crushed oats. He also likes to suck on fingers if we let him (especially if they have a little molasses on them)

 

He is growing very quickly, soon he will be able to go without milk and only get the dry food in the bucket.
I hope you liked looking at our Charlie, Hope

More Coober Pedy

This first picture is at the turn off to the Coober Pedy township Where we stopped for fuel and a quick bite to eat.If you have the time to spare there are a few mines where you can "noodle" in their mullock heaps for opal pieces. Some people have been lucky enough to find quite worthwhile chunks of opal. As far as I know it doesn't cost anything to do this but we didn't want to stop here and I am not a lucky person anyway. Ha-ha.

 

There are thousands of these heaps of dirt piled up from the digging. People live underground here (as well as in normal houses) They dig an extra room when their house gets too small. Living in "dugouts" keeps the temperature at a liveable level without air-con. There is even an underground motel.

 

 

In one of the pictures, if you click on it you can see the dust rising from one of the working mines.

 

Another one of those that I'm SURE must have been islands when there was an inland sea.

 

Its a BIG beautiful country we live in. We drove from the South to the North and back again, never tired of the scenery. I think my little Panasonic camera did a good job considering that nearly all of my pictures were taken from a moving vehicle (flying low at times,lol)and through the window.

watch out, watch out.........

..........Jack Frost is about !!

This is what greeted me when I went out of the back door at 8.30 this morning.

 

I was going to dig this patch today in readiness for the new broccoli seedlings, maybe in the afternoon would be a better idea, lol

 

Here are some more pictures that.......

.......didn't make it into the other stories about our holiday to Darwin. First is of a small Wallaby taken at Katherine Gorge. These little creatures live around this area in their hundreds, completely un-afraid of humans, they seem to enjoy nibbling on dry twigs. We saw many dead ones on the roadside too, hit by passing traffic and laying there until their carcass is eaten by some of the many different birds, the biggest of them being the wedge tailed eagle (which in itself is in danger of being hit by cars while having their dinner) One of the things that I watched while sitting in the passenger seat was the whistling kites and hawks circling a spot fire on the side of the road, waiting for small rodents and lizards to flee the flames only to be swept up in the birds beaks for a tasty breakfast. Talk about "out of the frying pan and into the fire" Which would be the worse fate ??

 

The next picture is fruit bats sleeping during the daylight hours. This is also at Katherine Gorge (you may have to click on the picture to see them) We were told that they stay for about 2 weeks and the move on to Mataranka when the food supply runs out at Katherine. The odour of the "droppings" is terrible (to put it mildly) and if you are unlucky enough to be in the line of fire one could drop right down on your head. I'm so glad we don't get them in S.A.

 

Last but not least, another of the huge termite mounds.

 

Lake Hart and surrounds

This picture is of Lake Hart in the far north of South Australia, one of the largest salt lakes, a remnant of the inland sea that once was. One of the things I would have liked to do while on this trip was to visit Lake Eyre the largest salt lake in our state, it is again in flood from the water that has made its way down from the Queensland floods. It takes the water 5 months to reach Lake Eyre, thousands of water birds migrate there from all over the world to nest and feed their young with the many fish that miraculously appear from the salt crusted surface. Just how do they (the birds) know that this Lake has filled with water ? It would have been wonderful to see but...we couldn't take this extra journey off road, didn't want to take Madge the Mazda over the pot holed road, (bad enough to drive her down Croft road at home when ever we need to go out) For those overseas readers this lake is HUGE..Donald Campbell set the land speed record there in 1964, obviously while it was dry (lol)

 

As far as the eye can see, for hundreds of kms. this low growing bushes that I think maybe some type of salt bush.

 

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A great place, this country of ours.

Nightcliff Rocks

The night before the wedding we all (groom's family) decided to go to Nightcliff and have fish and chips on the seashore for a casual get together dinner. The redeeming feature of that idea was the sunset. The WORST fish and chips I've ever eaten. I mistakenly thought we were in for a treat as my son, daughter-in-law and family had lived in Darwin for 20 years prior to moving to Canberra about 2 years ago, I thought they knew all the "good" eating spots, well maybe it was OK once, but not any longer. We wont hold it against them. lol.

 

Anyway, this picture was taken while we waited for the men to go to the shop for our dinner and because I didn't have another picture to put with this story, I've decided to tell this boring story.

Beautiful spot though....dont you think?

Its a long way home

There doesn't seem to be much to look at but the long road ahead, it seems like you're never going to get there. The Outback looks very green at the moment, there has been a LOT of rain. The spinifex however doesn't look green, when it "flowers" this plant has long silvery yellow spikes. I love to look at a great expanse of spinifex on awindy day it looks live a white wavy sea.

 

It shows where more rain has fallen by the change in the "greenness" of the native shrubbery growing by the roadside. This second picture was taken nearer to Pt. Augusta. There is no change in the height of the bushes though, for about 100km. it appears to be no taller than about 12 inches. Did someone come along with a whipper-snipper and trim it all? (In my thoughts) The only variation is where the terrain is lower and the water runs off, the few straggly trees grow.

 

 

First sign of the Flinders Ranges in the distance tells me we are nearly in Pt. Augusta which sits at the top of Spencer Gulf, only about 350 kms. to go and we are home.