Into The Lion's Den!

I slept like a log last night after all the work we did yesterday. We were still up early but had an easy morning. We 'skyped' Josh and Helena before our lovely neighbours came over. Jarrah (6) and Nate  (2) came over first. Jarrah was ringing the bell and calling a loud "Cooee!' It is a standard warning since we might be standing out at the back of the house under the shower! Then Kyle (10) arrived on his motorbike before Mum and Dad, Dave and Jen arrived. They brought a bag of peaches and apricots that they had just harvested from their fruit trees and a large home grown/home made salami!We had tea and apricots and a good chat while Will got the bottles ready to bottle the beer he has been brewing for three weeks. It should not normally take that long to be ready but it was made from a 6 year old starter kit. The first lot of yeast he used did not work so he got new yeast and since then it has been glugging away merrily. He has named it 'Zombeer' because it has never really stopped fermenting.After the neighbours left we bottled the beer and then packed and tidied up and headed home back the way we came along the Mount Lindesay Highway. It really is a lovely drive and if you ever come out to see us it will probably be the way we take you to Frogknot.Back in Brisbane, Shirl was up staying with her Mum. The cricket was on and England were losing again.After tea Will suggested a game of Euchre!....not just the usual game I am used to...no, the game you play with a partner! Talk about being intimidated...these guys have played this all their lives. Will learned to play sat on some old welshman's knee when he was 4! Just watching them shuffle made me break out into a nervous sweat!For the first game I was Dulcie's partner. Eek!Shirl and Will soon took the lead. We still had no points after about five hands. Dulcie tapped our score cards which showed zero and said "Come on Nick!" I felt it was all my fault! It probably was!Luckily I got us a point the next hand but Will and Shirl won the game.For the next game we changed partners and this time I was Will's partner. The pressure was off...phew! I am not as bothered about messing up the game for him! As it turned out though...we won!Will is off to work tomorrow. I will be home alone with Shirl and her Mum. Once the second test finally goes to Australia in the morning I feel more card games will be mooted. I might just go and practise my shuffling!

Bitten by a Bull Ant!

I forgot to say that yesterday whilst clearing cassinia yesterday I was bitten by a bull ant. There was a bull ant nest nearby with a small cassinia sapling growing out of it which I pulled out.  It damaged their mound of earth and they all went mad, scuttling all around in a frenzy. They then appeared to send out other ants, away from the mound, that roamed around looking for the culprit. I kept well away but one must have found its way onto some of the cassinia I was carrying to the fire pit. I felt a sudden stinging burn on my arm and looked and saw the inch long creature on my arm. I shook it off. It hurt quite a bit for a few minutes. I put my trusty 'Stingose' on it and expected a large red lump to come  up but it didn't. While on the subject of bites...I am touching wood...I have not been bitten by a mosquito this Frogknot trip!

Nice!

Busy Day at Frogknot.

Many thanks Ros and Otto for all your hard work and help this weekend...and you were supposed to be on holiday too!

Fire!

I cannot believe I was up just after 6.00am this morning. It was a lovely clear, blue sky so we had great hopes of the solar panels finally filling the battery with power for the lights, pump, our laptops and phones.After breakfast we started on clearing all the fallen branches around the dam. I found a snake skin. They are out there somewhere!

To Frogknot via Yowie Country.

Cunninghams Gap is presently blocked by a huge boulder that fell onto the road so we had to find a different way up the Great Dividing Range to Stanthorpe. We went via Beaudesert and Rathdownie on The Mount Lindesay Highway.

We passed close by Mount Lindesay. It looks very ‘Lost World’ ish and is now my favourite Australian mountain to date.[gallery ids="897,898,899"]There is apparently one scrambling track up it but you have to have climbing experience and should go with a guide. It has claimed a number of lives over the years, the latest in 2011. After passing the mountain we headed up through the rainforest. Will likes to wind down the windows to fill the car with the scent of the rainforest. I like hearing the bellbirds dinging and donging to each other as we drive past...actually it is more of a ping than a ding or a dong.Halfway up we noticed “Yowies Cross Here” written on the road in white paint, and a series of large white footprints were painted across the road.A Yowie is the Australian equivalent of the American Sasquatch or the Himalayan Yeti. It is a large hairy humanoid beast that roams the rainforest on the Great Dividing Range. One of the prominent Yowie hunters is Rex Gilroy, who hails from Gympie, where Will was born and Dulcie’s maiden name is Gilroy...so perhaps they are related!We didn’t see any Yowie’s until we got to Woodenbong!

The Woodenbong Yowie!

The next bit of the road was a bit rough. Tenterfield Council had put signs up saying they were seeking funding from the Federal Government to upgrade it. It was obviously a sore point by the number of handpainted signs I saw outside people’s houses: “This road is rubbish!” “This road kills cars!” The same council, I noted, also had put up signs pointing out that they had rebuilt a number of bridges along the route.The road turned to dirt at one point and on a corner we came across a number of police and fire rescue vehicles. As we slowly passed they were wheeling someone into an ambulance and the car they had been in was on its side down an embankment.Finally we arrived in Stanthorpe. The journey took just over three hours, only an extra 30 minutes longer than the Cunninghams Gap route.We got supplies at the IGA and then headed on up to Frogknot. All was as we left it. Will set up the new regulator but as the sky was overcast there was very little chance of us getting any charge that day.Ros arrived later in the afternoon to spend the weekend with us. She was amazed at the changes since she had last visited. The vegetables we had planted last week were growing well and had not been nibbled.We went out to the rocks to watch the sunset before tea and spent another candlelit evening before an early night.

There was a fabulous moon tonight.

I awoke in the night to hear something nibbling, right by my head, at my packet of heartburn tablets. I banged on the bed and it scuttled off, whatever it was. I don’t think it was Rambo because there were no other noises all night and definitely no rattlings in the kitchen. Will thinks it was an Antechinus, a marsupial mouse.