BEACHY WEATHER

Officially, today is the last day of Summer in Australia.
Tomorrow, the first of March, means we are heading towards the cooler weather of Autumn so we thought it was time we took you to the beach again.



We set off for the Gold Coast to pick up Sally who was on a RDO (Rostered Day Off - many workers in Oz get one of these days every month ) and head for the beach.
She took us to her favourite - Currumbin Alley - where Currumbin Creek empties into the sea.



We couldn't have asked for a better day - the sun was shining, the sky was blue with a few fluffy  clouds and a gentle breeze kept us cool while the temperature was about 31C.

Because it was midweek there were not many people around but a few young surfers were out catching waves as usual. 

Tony was on a mission to take photos of   "soft water"  - a new technique he is trying to master so the water crashing over the rocks was just the thing.

He set up his tripod while Sally and I pottered around on the rocks.

Me, taking photos .....

.. and Sally doing what all kids do when there are rocks at the beach - even grown up ones !!!!

I was intreagued by the beautiful patterns the elements had etched into the rocks

.
and the colours that had been exposed by erosion.

Photos taken, it was time for lunch.
Sally took us to her favourite cafe and lunch was a delight.

Mine was a concoction of smoky ham flavoured beans on sour dough bread - YUM !

Sally's  was  roasted pumpkin, fetta and rocket on sour dough toast - She said YUM too !

Tony said that was Yuppie food and opted for a (Yuppy-style)  burger !

A healthy one - no chips but still very tasty !

We finished up with a little sweet treat and coffee. Sally says it's the best coffee on the coast and I have to say it was very good.

Next we headed inland following Currumbin Creek for about 15 miles until we came to a well known cooling off spot - the Currumbin Creek Rock Pools.

Plenty of running water for Tony's photos.

Sally declared that the water was colder than the sea ....



and it was cool in the shade by the water.

A little further down there is a small cascade  - sort of a natural spa - where a few young people were having fun



then the creek widens out to a large, deep pool.

It's a very popular place on the weekends but today there were only a couple of people there enjoying the peace and quiet.

Behind us the lush hills of the valley crowded down to the creek ......

and here are two of those "soft water" photos Tony took today.

An interesting effect isn't it?

Cheers.

FEBRUARY SCAVENGER HUNT

I really enjoy my take on these Scavenger Hunts.
My method is to search through all of my photos looking for photos to fit the requirements.

That's fun on two levels:

1. revisiting old photos                                                        
2. finding ways to fit what I have, into the categories needed


I only had to take one photo to complete the set this time !
Here they are :


1.  music



Delivered with gusto not far from Notre Dame in Paris.

2. food

Once again through a shop window in Paris !

3. love

My all time favourite photo taken near Muker, Yorkshire Dales.
Love doesn't have any age limits !!



4. in the sky

Taken recently over my back fence around 6:00am

5. leap year

Boring I know but all I could come up with !!


6. black and white

A fine example of the architecture in a village on the Black and White Trail not far from Ludlow in England.


7.  train

An old steam train in Minehead Somerset, England


8.  crowd

Crowding around the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, Paris


9. empty

Early morning on Easter Sunday along the Champs Elysees in Paris.
All the street cafes were empty!

10. heritage

The man largely responsible for our close ties with Britain - Captain James Cook.
He sailed along the east coast of Australia in 1770 and recommended it as a fine place for a convict settlement.
An icon in the history of Australia.
This statue is at one end of Pall Mall in London.

11. five

Only 5 ingredients in this super cake !!
Here's the recipe.

5 Cup Cake.

This is a gem when you hear that visitors are on the way and the cake tins are empty.

There are only 5 ingredients:

1 cup of sugar

1 cup of coconut

1 cup of self-raising flour

1 cup of mixed fruit - your favourite combination of sultanas, apricots, dates etc

1 cup of milk

That's it!!

Mix them all together and cook at 180C (350F) for about 45 minutes. Test with a skewer to make sure it is cooked

12. cupid

This one resides on the autotray in my lounge room.

Well that's it for another month. Thanks to Kathy for organising it.

Cheers.

WHO NEEDS AN ALARM CLOCK ?

I'm a bit weary to-night.

You see, I had a very early wake up call this morning.

About 4:30 am to be exact!

It was the local Kookaburras.

They decided to have a bit of a dawn chorus in our neighbourhood.

One of them on its own sounds

Like this!

But when a group of them gets together

and they decide to stake out their territory by flying from tree to tree and performing a chorus at each stop,
 it can be very noisy indeed !!

Like this !!

So I'm off to be early in case they decide on an encore performance tomorrow.

Cheers.

MOVIE REVUE - Red Dog

This film has been out for a while in Australia and I have been debating with myself whether to review/ promote it here.

My reluctance stems from the image of Australia that it portrays.

It seems that people see these films set in the Outback and think that the whole of Australia is like that, which of course is quite wrong.

 

It's a story about a red kelpie dog and is based on fact.

It is set in the 70s in the Pilbara region of Australia - a remote region of North Western Australia where huge mines (usually open cut) remove some of Australia's huge deposits of iron ore.

Life in those mining camps was hard with few facilities and comforts in a very difficult climate, yet it appealed to people (mainly men) who hated city life and loved the freedom that can still be found in these remote places ( and the pay was/is very good too !!).

 Into this setting came a red kelpie dog that soon won the hearts of almost everyone in that Outback community.

It's another of those stories that have been documented in the form of a children's story then made into a film that appeals to all ages - a bit along the lines of " War Horse." ( My Year 6 class loved the story under the name of "Broome Dog")

Here's a little sample for you.

Tony and I loved the movie.

(The sound track is not bad either.)

Hope you have a chance to judge it for yourselves.

Cheers.

WORLD WAR II BOMBING OF DARWIN REMEMBERED

This piece of Australia's history has largely been kept quiet for many years.
 Very little was publicly known about the air raid attacks on Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory during WWII. In order to minimize panic about an imminent invasion, the official line at the time was that it was a minor raid with only 17 lives were lost.

Here's the real story:

On 19 February 1942 mainland Australia came under attack for the first time when Japanese forces conducted  two air raids on Darwin. Four days earlier Singapore had fallen to the Japanese leaving the British demoralised and about 10 weeks before that Pearl Harbour in Hawaii had been involved in a devastating attack.

I imagine Australian citizens were feeling isolated and fearful about defending themselves when the majority of their troops were far away helping to defend other parts of the world leaving Australia severely undermanned.
The Japanese it seemed, were quickly sweeping southwards.

 The two attacks on Darwin, led by the commander responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour, involved 54 land-based bombers and approximately 188 attack aircraft which were launched from four Japanese aircraft-carriers in the Timor Sea.

In the first attack heavy bombers pattern-bombed the harbour and town; dive bombers escorted by Zero fighters then attacked shipping in the harbour, the military and civil aerodromes, and the hospital at Berrimah.

The attack lasted about 40 minutes.
The second attack, which began an hour later, involved high altitude bombing of the Royal Australian Air Force base at Parap which lasted for 20–25 minutes. The two raids killed at least 243 people and between 300 and 400 were wounded. Twenty military aircraft were destroyed, eight ships at anchor in the harbour were sunk, and most civil and military facilities in Darwin were destroyed. 

 More bombs were dropped on Darwin than on Pearl Harbour !!

The belief at the time was that the Japanese were preparing to invade Australia and there was a wide spread belief that the government had a plan to abandon northern Australia to the Japanese should they invade from the north.

The so called "Brisbane Line", a line drawn from Perth across Australia to Brisbane, was to be the defensive line. The government denied that this was true, but comments by General Douglas MacArthur make it seem likely that it had at least been discussed as you can read here:
"On 16 March 1943, General Douglas MacArthur held an "off-the-record" talk to the Press from 12:15pm to 2:15pm at his General Headquarters in the AMP building on the corner of Queen Street and Edward Street, Brisbane. General MacArthur caused quite a flurry of interest from the press members present when he mentioned the infamous "Brisbane Line". It was reported in the Brisbane "Courier Mail" on 17 March 1943 that MacArthur had indicated that the Brisbane Line ran from Perth to Brisbane. When further questioned by the Press on his statement he then distanced himself from his earlier statement."

As you can imagine those who lived north of this line were fearful of being abandoned and many of those who lived in Darwin immediately fled southward.

The air attacks on Darwin continued until November 1943, by which time the Japanese had bombed Darwin 64 times. During the war other towns in northern Australia were also the target of Japanese air attack, with bombs being dropped on Townsville, Katherine, Wyndham, Derby, Broome and Port Hedland.
So now, 70 years later, we are finally remembering what happened in Darwin during World War II with memorials and ceremonies.
About time !!

It is interesting to acknowledge that no invading Japanese serviceman ever set foot on Australian territory in Darwin or anywhere else despite midget submarines managing to penetrate Sydney Harbour.

Cheers.

Edit: I have no idea why the last section is in a different font and size and I can't seem to do anything to fix it !! @#$*%

SORRY

Blogger has changed the word verification and what was previously a simple spam filter

is often now very difficult to work out and very time consuming.

I've been giving it three attempts and then giving up,

 so if you don't hear from me and you have this new word verification, I'm sorry.

 I'll come back to your blog later when I have more time and give it another go if I can.

Cheers.