Al forgets his head - uh, camera

Well we were out and about again today.

It was raining again so after a slow start we followed our noses and ended up down on the Nymboida River which starts not far from where we live.

The river descends 1,250 metres (4,100 ft) over its 165 kilometres (103 mi) course. We stopped at a section called Platypus Flat, which is a favoured spot for launching kayaks and white-water rafts. Some raft trips follow the gorges for three or four days.

Now for some reason my brain was not working this morning and I left my camera behind :-(
So these couple of shots were taken on my smart phone, which is just not up to the job.

This first piccie is looking upstream from the flat. You can see why this spot is used for launches,
a nice sandy beach and a slow moving pool


This piccie is looking downstream to where the first white-water starts around the bend.


 The eagle eyed among you might notice a little white dot in the water near the gravel bank on the far side of the river.

As I said I left my camera behind so this next piccie is the best I could do with the phone of the mysterious white dot.

It is a platypus!
 
It seems Platypus Flat is well named, In fact there were two platypus cruising around while we were watching.

Platypus are actually quite common, but they are so shy it is usually really hard to spot them.

These two were actually only the fourth and fifth platypus I have seen in the wild in my whole life!


 A special moment only slightly dampened by the fact my camera was sitting at home.

  So unfortunately there was no chance of shots like this one I got a couple of years ago

 

Head in the Clouds

Well we have our baby Lu visiting us for a few days. (You may remember that when we moved north from Melbourne she stayed behind moving on campus at her University)

So today we went for a drive instead of working on the cottage.  We headed along the Waterfall Way (one of the local highways) before turning off to drive up to one of the highest places around here - the 1,564 m (5,131 ft) Point Lookout in the New England National Park.

In clear weather you can see around 100km (around 60 miles) right down the Bellinger Valley to the coast.
But as you can see it was raining. So all Lu got to see from the lookout itself was the clouds.

Truth be told of the dozen or so times I have been up there it has probably only been clear twice.

Moist air coming in from the coast is pushed up by the mountains and condenses in to rain.

So much rain that it nurtures a sub-alpine rainforest.

Given the wet and cold we didn't hang around long... but behind this mossy rock
 
we spied a critter

to be precise she (and I know she is a she) is a female Superb Lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae).
If you think she has a fancy tail it is nothing on her husbands!
Male Lyrebirds have a tail that is spectacular in its finery but perhaps more amazing they are fantastic mimics copying the sound of any thing from bird-song to the sound of a chainsaw. I once heard one making the sound of a camera shutter and film drive! 

Back on line!

Well finally our new internet modem arrived today.

Then to my dismay it would not connect. :-(

After retrying six or seven times I phoned tech support.

THREE HOURS on the line being shunted from person to person!

Finally it turned out that the modem listed on our account was not the one sent out to us!

But after all that we are online.

Fingers crossed that I will be able to resume more regular posting.

My piccie of the day is a dawn I shot 3 or 4 years ago

Native Violet

My piccie of the day is of a delicate Oz violet

Full Moon

Well our internet saga continues, after umpteen calls to tech support our ISP have finally agreed to replace our modem.
Hopefully that will solve the problem.

For tonight we have patched through using a mobile phone as a hotspot which kind of works but sooooo slowly.

Speaking of tonight, those of you who have clear skies will notice we have a full moon.
It was gamely trying to break through the clouds down this way...
Hence my piccies of the day, taken off camera tonight

No internet = no WIIW

Well our internet has been down again... and again... and again.

With no explanation yet provided by our service provider.

This means I was unable to post WIIW for I think only the second time since I started posting them :-(

The net is live at the moment so I thought I would post a piccie of a mountain view near here.
 

Internet Woes and a Cottage Update

It seems that all I ever do lately is grumble about our internet issues.

We seem to have internet connection for about 24 hours, then it goes down again...

Ah well, at least we have more positive things to focus on.

We have 80% finished the cladding on the outside walls of the cottage. So now we are going to turn to the interior.
As you can see the place is a shell at the moment this is the lounge room. The grey sheet is tile underlay for the bathroom floor.

despite the  incompleteness Deb and I are hoping to move in soon.

You see at the moment we are boarding in my Mum and Stan's (my step-father) house down at the front part of the farm. As lovely as it is in many ways, Deb and I are ready for our own space again.

This next piccie is of what will be the bedroom, as you can see there is a way to go!

Thank goodness my new job means I will be able to spend four days a week here soon...