Tuesday 2nd December

Happy Birthday to our granddaughter Olivia Tretheway, hope you had a great day O.

We are now into our 2nd to last week at Caboolture South, and we need to sort through clothing to bring with us and some to leave behind. Brian has lawns to mow later next week and I will do the main house clean at the weekend so that next week it will only need a touch up. As we only use about 4 rooms in the house that’s all that has to be cleaned. Brian will drive down to the airport at Brisbane and collect the home owners next Thursday in their car as ours will be loaded. I will stay behind and do the last minute cleaning washing floors etc. Once they are home we will stay for a cuppa then drive down to Brisbane to stay the night in a motel that we have booked. We hate the drive down the highway in the early morning to get to the airport in time it's crazy, you only need to get held up with a smash on the highway and you wont make it in time for the flight. So this will be the last posting here for now. We will see you next week.

For those who don't know we will be staying in a motel at 219 Johns Road from the 23rd December until the 2nd January 2015 for 11 nights.  Boxing day will be a family get together at the above address from around 1100ish bring left overs to share and your own grog, perhaps a chair also would be a good idea. Prior to and after these dates we will be staying with Yasmine, Adam and Rory. Brian flies back on the 7th January and I fly back a week later on the 14th. So Boxing day would be great to see anyone who wants to make it over to us, its too hard to try and get to see everyone individually no matter how hard we try there always seems to be someone who is not happy but unfortunately we are not made of rubber. Also we don't always have Yasmine's car available to us as she does need it herself for work etc. Christmas Day we will be at Yasmine's.

Below photos are the "Babbler Bird" 

 

 Below photos show the every colourful "Rainbow Lorikeet"

And these ones below are the "Scaly Breasted Lorikeets" you can see the yellow scaly patches on their underneath.

Brian and Raj playing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lunch and loads of laughter with good friends

Sunday 31st November

Today we had a fabulous day with our very good friends Helen and David Waldron and Bronwen and Sonny Johns (who used to live in Nelson) they came down for lunch which was a shared lunch always good makes it so much easier. We had salad, cold roast chicken,cold silver side, hot chicken kebabs and potatoes, along with Turkish bread which we had warmed. The lads had beer and the girls had some wine along with Grapetise all very nice. For dessert we had birds nests with whipped cream and strawberries. Later in the day washed down by a cuppa before the travelers returned home. A great day of fun and laughs. All of us are heading back to NZ for Christmas and New Year. And a lovely Sunset to close off a great day.

Yep its storm season

Friday 28th November

And last Friday it came in so fast caused so much damage in Brisbane it was peak hour the hail was the size of cricket balls and the damage it did was dreadful. Thankfully we never go the hail here we did get 1 very strong wind gust around 4.30pm and then the rain. It was so wonderful to get this we got 30ml here on the Friday evening and another 10ml on the Saturday it is amazing how the lawns have greened up that fast.

The below photo captured a couple of Sulphur Crested Cockys trying to escape the incoming storm.

A Drive in the Country

Thursday 27th November
Wamuran/Dayboro trip:

Last Thursday 27th we decided as it was a much cooler day we would get out and have a look around the area, I had been told about a nice drive through Wamuran and up over Mt Mee to Dayboro. We packed up a picnic lunch and headed off around 1100am as it was not a long drive very close to where we currently are staying. We drove through onto the D'Agular highway and found our way to Wam or Wamuran where we stopped for fuel for the car, posted some mail and made a loo stop. Nothing really at Wam other than the servo a bakery,post shop and a few other shops all on the main highway. From here we drove up over the Mt Mee range stopping at the lookout for the obligatory photo shots, what a pretty valley the lookout over looked, we could see as far as the Glasshouse Mountains, which are not mountains but large distinct volcano plugs. From here we drove through the range coming to the delightful country township of Dayboro. By now it had warmed up a bit as we were inland, we found a nice spot with a picnic table next to the local swimming pool where the school kids had just finished their swimming sports, great for us as no noise, all the rugrats left with their parents in tow. We had a nice peaceful lunch and cuppa, before heading for a walk along the main street. We took some nice photos before heading back toward Caboolture. We drove the inland road not wanting to head onto the highway. We drove past Lake Kurawonga carrying on through Petrie which is a very nice leafy treed suburb and onto Narangba which is equally as nice having never been through here before. From here we realised we can drive all the way back to Caboolture South without going on the highway which was great. We had a nice drive seeing some nice areas that we had not been to before always good to see what's around locally.

Garden Photos

The garden here is very large and there are alot of small separate areas, each with a different kind of plant, I am in my element pottering around, just have to be aware that there are snakes around infact Raj the dog has killed 3 now. All 3 were Yellow Headed Whip Snakes - slightly venomus, sorry this one he had chomped in half.

Tawny Frogmouths, Sulphur Crested Cocky,Willy Wagtail

They have now flown off. They were so big that when sitting up in the tree on the so called nest they were actually sitting on the tree branch. They look very like a tree branch when resting through the day that you have to really look hard to see them. She did have two young ones we saw her come back only once with two after that there was only the one. See what I mean they try to hide themselves with the branches.

I looked out the kitchen window one morning and saw the beautiful Sulphur Crested Cockatoo next door feeding on the dandelion heads, he wasn't afraid of me either.

And the delightful Willy Wagtail, playing happily among the hanging baskets. And yes they are very like a Fantail.

It's been so bloody hot

All I can say is thank goodness for the pool. When we came to visit these folk we spied not one but two aircons and a great pool, so we though oh well that's good if it gets warm we will have aircon - NO
the large one in the main area will not power on. So way down the back of the house to the area that used to be the garage did I spy a smaller air con - aha it goes, so we turned it on full bore to cool the back area down and went and sat in there in the afternoons. Other than that we have 3 old pedestal fans which do the job and if we hadn't had them goodness knows, we would have gone and got our free standing air con unit out of the caravan in Caloundra. We have made do with what we have and the pool has been the best thing out for leaping in and cooling off. The hottest day we had was 42.8c in the back area in the shade, there was not breeze it was dreadful and to add to that the humidity was a shocker. Much cooler now thankfully however meant to heat up again at the weekend.

So what's been happening

I thought it was about time to up date the blog before we arrived for Christmas/ New Year.

Not alot has happened actually since the last post and photos. Out time here at Caboolture South has almost finished, It has been extremely hot and we found out that the main air con in this house does not work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! bummer thank goodness for the pool and the small air con in the back room and old pedestal fans, without these it would have been awful. The home-owners here are due home on the 11th and Brian will take their car down to Brisbane Airport about 45mins drive collect them and bring them home. I will stay behind and do the last minute cleaning and packing. Once they are home we will stay and have a cuppa with them hand back the keys and then we will head to Brisbane where we will stay the night in a motel before dropping the car off on the morning of the 12th at the off site airport parking and the company will take us and our luggage to the airport for our flight. Usually we leave the car at the airport however this time being away a bit longer it was going to cost too much. Brian is coming back a week earlier and he will ring the car parking company on his arrival and they will collect him from the airport he will collect the car and drive back to our friends the Waldron’s where we will be staying until they arrive back from NZ. I come back a week later and will get a shuttle bus back up to the Sunshine Coast to save Brian having to drive the hour south to collect me then have to drive back up again - saves all the faffing around. Brian will then collect me from the drop off point on the Sunshine Coast which will be the Ettamogah Pub about 4min drive from the Waldron’s house. We had a cancellation of a house sit that we were to do in February as the lady lost her job and they are unable to go away to Tasmania as planned. They felt really bad having to ring and tell us however we have actually gained another lovely home for 3mths at Kallangur, so we have gained a month on the one that was cancelled, one of my craft friends Keryn knew of a lady whom I have met who wants a house sitter for when they go away at the beginning of February, I rang and spoke to her about it and we are going down to see them next week on the 10th, so it looks like is going to be better, Kallangur is only about 20mins south of where we currently are so it will work out well when we head south in May next year, that will be a shock to the system heading south in the winter????