NT Trip Day 2

Well, I'm stuck at home sick today, with the nasty cough that is doing the rounds, so I thought I might as well get back into blogging about my trip.

On the second day, I drove down to Uluru, and joined a Ranger guided tour along the Mala Walk (the first section of the Uluru basewalk). The walk included discussions of some rock paintings. The paintings are very faint these days. The ranger said that during the early days of Uluru tourism, guides used to throw water over the paintings, to make them stand out more clearly. Sadly, this has washed away a lot of the paint. The ranger also told us about the geology of the rock.

Warning: my non-expert interpretation follows: Uluru is made up of a "conglomerate" of different types of rock. A long time ago, there was an inland sea in the centre of the landmass, and different types of rock were washed down by rivers. The rock settled in locations where it became compacted. Once the sea drained, the surface was gradually worn away. Three large sections were left raised. These are now Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Mount Connor. At some point an earthquake was involved, which tilted Uluru to an angle. Hence the lines of sediment are no longer horizontal.

Up close, Uluru is very irregular, with obvious color changes in different sections, particularly in the areas where depressions have been worn into the rock. Overall there is an orange coating over the whole rock, which is apparently rust.

The Mala walk splits off from the base walk towards the end, and heads in closer to the rock for a view of an area where a waterfall from the top of the rock (only active when there is rain) feeds a waterhole. The waterhole is the second most reliable source of water at Uluru, but is currently dry.

After viewing the waterhole, we returned along the Mala walk to the carpark. I stopped by the cultural centre to have lunch. I then drove back to Uluru to do the base walk (9.4 km accoding to the maps). The first part of the base walk involved retracing my steps along the Mala walk, to the point where the trail splits off. This time I continued around the base of Uluru.

What can I say about the base walk? It was exhausting. The surface of the track was sand, varying from soft packed to hard packed. The soft packed sections were very hard to walk on. It was beautiful. The different views of the rock from different angles were fascinating. The color of the soil (orange) against Uluru (dark orange) against the vegetation (gray green) against the sky (deep blue) made for an amazing color palette. I had always seen paintings of Uluru and wondered if the colors were exaggerated. They aren't. If anything, the colors in real life are even more vivid.

The rock looks very different from different angles. In some places it is very serene, in others almost threatening. The surrounding terrain is very flat, with low lying vegetation. Closer to the rock there are taller trees, and in a few places the vegetation is almost lush.

The air temperature was in the mid teens, which was perfect for the walk. The sun was fierce, and I was very glad of my sunscreen, long sleeves and hat. I had water and trail mix with me, and I was glad of both. Along the trail I was mostly by myself, although every now and then I passed another walker, or was passed by someone else. There were enough people to make me feel confident that if I got into trouble someone would find me and go for help, but few enough not to interfere with my enjoyment of Uluru. I was very glad not to be walking in summer.

The round trip took me about three and a half hours (including several stops to rest). I was exhausted by the end of it, but very satisfied. I headed back to the resort for dinner, and then fell into bed.

NT Trip Day 1

The first day of the trip was the Friday. I flew into Ayers Rock Airport about midday, and picked up the hire car. The car was a Toyota Camry Altise automatic, and very nice to drive.

I drove to Yulara (aka the Ayers Rock Resort) and checked in. By then it was early afternoon, and I drove down to the National Park to see the Rock. I bought my 3 day park ticket, then drove to the Cultural Centre, which has a number of displays about the traditional owners, the Anangu, and their religious beliefs about Ularu (aka Ayers rock). There are signs up requesting that no photos be taken in the Cultural Centre, so no photos of this section.

I then followed the Liru walk, from the Cultural Centre to the base of Ularu.

This is a photo from the Liru walk, looking away from ularu. One thing that I was really struck by the whole time that I was in the Red Centre, was the colors. The ground was often a very intense orangy red, and the sky was a very intense blue.

By then it was getting late, so I walked back to the Cultural Centre, then drove to the Sunset Viewing area to watch the sunset.

The rock started out as a pale orange color, then became an amazing golden colour, then a deep firey red, before fading to brown, as the sunset progressed. I have photos, but they don't do it justice. The Anangu have requested that photos of the rock not be published without a permit, so I won't be posting any in my blog.

Northern Territory

I've just returned from a trip to the Northern Territory.

Last time I travelled, to Tasmania, I did a lot of very detailed posts, and I reallise now that I never did wind up blogging about the final days of the trip. So this time I will start with a brief overview, then follow with more details.

Day 1 (Friday): Fly to Ayers Rock Airport. Pick up hire car and drive to Yulara. Check in to Lost camel Hotel. Drive to Ularu. Stop at the cultural centre and look at displays. Follow Liru walk from cultural centre to Ularu, and back. Drive to sunset viewing car park and watch sunset over Ularu.

Day 2 (Saturday). Drive to Ularu from Yulara. Join ranger guided walk on Mala walk. Stop lunch. Ularu base walk.

Day 3 (Sunday). Drive to Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). Follow Valley of the Winds walk (full loop). Follow Walpa Gulley walk. Return to Yulara.

Day 4 (Monday). Drive from Yulara to Kings Canyon Resort. Check in. Drive to Kings Canyon and follow Canyon Rim Walk. Return to Kings Canyon Resort.

Day 5 (Tuesday). Drive to Kings Canyon and follow Creek walk. Drive to Kathleen springs walk and follow walking track to spring. Drive to Alice Springs. Check into Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge.

Day 6 (Wednesday). Morning - Wash clothes. Midday. Lunch in Todd Mall. Afternoon. Alice Springs Desert Park.

Day 7 (Thursday). Drive to Glen Helen Gorge and walk to Gorge. Attend Ranger talk about animal signs (tracks and droppings). Drive to Ormiston Gorge and walk to waterhole. Drive to Ochre Pits and walk to pits. Drive back to Alice Springs.

Day 8 (Friday). Drive to Simpsons Gap and follow Ghost gum walk, then Cassia Hill Walk. Continue on to Gap, and walk to Gap. Drive to Standley Chasm. Follow walking path to first Chasm. Return to Alice Springs. Visit Reptile Centre. Get to hold snake and several lizards.

Day 9 (Saturday). Drive to Telegraph Station reserve in Alice Springs and visit original site of Alice Springs. Drive to airport and take plane back to Melbourne.

It was a great trip, but I am glad to be home :).

Duct repair

Since the start of the cold weather, i have been using the ducted heating, but finding it sadly ineffectual. I suspected there was something wrong with the ducts (a suspicion supported by family and friends who told me that the heater should be working better), but I hadn't geared myself up to crawl under the house to have a look.

This afternoon I finally got myself organised. After gearing up with tough jeans, shoes, long sleeved top, heavy work gloves, dust mask and torch, I crawled under my house to see what was happening. Sure enough, there was a problem. One of the ducts leading to the far corner of the house had pulled loose from the joiner, so the warm air was all flooding out to heat the underfloor space. Two rolls of duct tape later (plus some rope to hold the duct off the ground a bit, the old support had broken), and the duct was rejoined.

I am also a bit amazed by the sheer amount of rubbish people have dumped under the house over the years, although given how much broken glass and bottle caps I keep pulling out of the garden, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

2 rolls of duct tape: $5.
Heavy duty torch: $5.
Savings on wasted heat over winter: $100s.
Finishing a dirty unpleasant job I had been putting off: PRICELESS.

I have spent a fair while over the last few months painting the back of the house. Here are some progress shots. On one day the air temperature was OK for painting, but the sun was fierce, and was heating up the window frames and walls too much. So I pegged drop sheets to the guttering to act as sun screens. It worked very well.


And here is the final view. I won't try to paint the section covered by the awning at this stage, it is just too difficult. When I get rid of the sleep out that holds up the other side of the awning, it will need to be taken down, so I will paint that wall and gutter section then.

How my garden grows...

This is the raised garden bed I put in about six months ago.

And here it is now!

The wooden edging has weathered a bit, but the plants have really taken off.

Productive weekend

I have just had an exhausting but productive weekend. I have just finished painting half of the eaves on the north side of the house. The remaining section is hard to reach and I will leave it to later. This weekend's effort involved about 6 hours of climbing up and down an extention ladder to sand, wash, and apply 2 coats of paint. My arms and legs hate me, but it feels good to have the job done.

Also this weekend I finally got around to removing hardened putty from the base of a window frame and replacing it with fresh putty. I applied another lot of woody weed killer to the privet stump which had started sprouting again, and mixed up a batch of glyphosate to poison back the kikuyu in few places where I can't mow and it is getting out of control.

House Stuff

Hmm. I haven't really blogged a lot lately, I just haven't been in the mood. I have been doing a bit around the house.

Over the last month or so I have:

• Painted another window frame and section of wall.
• Put the benchtop dishwasher onto a bench sitting over the washing machine, instead of sitting it directly onto the washing machine.
• Painted the toilet (or rather the room the toilet is in!) and installed a mirror over the hand basin.
• Had the house rewired.
• Steam cleaned the carpets (myself, using one of those hire cleaner's from the supermarket)
• Made a start on a new garden bed.

Not bad for a couple of months!

Yesterday removed a cracked pane glass from a window and removed the surrounding putty, then painted the frame with metal primer. This is the second window I have replaced the glass in, and before starting I spent some time looking on the net for a better way to get the putty out. Last time I used a hammer and chisel, which worked but was very hard and made a lot of noise (my poor neighbors!). I found a number of suggestions including:

• Paint over the putty with linseed oil. Let the linseed oil soak in, to soften the putty again.
• Use parafin oil to soften the putty.
• Use paint stripper to soften the putty.
• Use oven cleaner on the putty to soften it.
• Use a heat gun to soften the putty.

Well, I have been using paint stripper to remove the paint from the window frame, and while it had a noticable affect on fresh putty, it didn't seem to make much difference to the old, hardened putty. So I thought I would give the rest of the suggestions a try, starting with the easiest and least dangerous, the linseed oil.

I put the linseed oil onto the putty, and waited a couple of hours to see what happened. The top layer softened a little bit, but it was not a significant improvement.

Then I tried the new heat gun that I had picked up from Aldi a few weeks ago. This worked amazingly well! The affect on the oldest and hardest putty was less than on the softer putty, but it still made a noticable difference. By using the heat gun, I was able to get the putty off using a putty knife. It was still a lot of work, but compared to the hammer and chisel it worked like a charm. I can't remember where I found the recommendation, or I would post a link, but to anyone who has made this suggestion on a web forum, thank you!

Today I installed the new pane of glass. This was a much larger pane of glass than the first one I had replaced, and getting it up the ladder without dropping it was a bit of a challenge, but I got there. I had a bit of trouble getting the glass into the frame, as it turns out the window frame has warped slightly and is a bit out of true. So the glass fit, but is pressed firmly against the edge of the frame on the top left and bottom right corners. This is probably what cracked the first pane of glass, so hopefully I will not be repeating this job in a month or so. Fingers crossed.

Nice neighbors

Monday night was bin night. I was sick and a bit out of it, and I must have put the wrong bin out (we alternate between green waste and recyclables). The next morning I was on my way to the doctors when I noticed that everyone else had the green waste bin out, not the recycleable bin. Oh well, I thought, I'm feeling too sick to care. When I got home a couple of hours later, after picking up my antibiotics (turns out I have a sinus infection), one of my neighbors had swapped over my bins for me. It was a very nice thing to do, and really improved my mood.

Happily, the antibiotics are working fast, and I will be back at work tomorrow.

Silky Oak trees

Over the last week or so, some trees in my garden have started to produce lots of orangy yellow comb like flowers. They look pretty spectacular and I was curious about what type of tree they are. Well thanks to the magic of google, the search string "tree yellow comb like flowers" eventually lead me to pictures of the same variety of tree. They are silky oak trees (grevillea robusta). I have four of them, two along the front fence line and two along the back fence line.

Here is a shot of one of them in the front garden:

One of the sites I found says that these trees can grow to 35 meters in the wild, but usually only get to about 14 meters in suburbia. I sincerely hope these ones keep to the lower estimate, 35 meters is a bit high for a tree in a backyard!

Trip to Ballarat

Last Friday I drove to Ballarat, to visit N and S and their new baby T. S had just started back at work, so N and I went to lunch in Ballarat, with T in his pram. T was just two weeks old, and very gorgeous, and very small! He is big for a two week old though.

It was great catching up, and N is recovering well from the C-section and seems to be coping very well with young T.

When S got home from work, we ordered Indian take away and caught up a bit over dinner. After dinner I had a ticket for the "Blood on the Southern Cross" light and sound show at Sovereign Hill, so I said my goodbyes and headed off.

The show was fun, and the special effects were often very impressive. I now have a much better understanding of the Eureka Stockade and the effect on Australian history, so that was worth while. Then I drove back to Melbourne and collapsed into bed. Good day.

Otways day trip

On Tuesday, I decided to go on a day trip to the Otways. The drive down (via Colac) took about 3 hours all up, including a couple of short breaks.

Otway Fly
My first stop was the Otway Fly . The Fly is a raised path, which takes you from ground level to treetop height and back. To reach the fly, you walk from the ticket office, down about a half kilometer track to the entrance to the fly.

Here is a view of the walkway construction, looking down through the walkway.

The walkway curves around. Halfway along, at the highest point, is a tower. There is a very narrow spiral staircase to the top of the tower. The views from the top are pretty spectacular.

Looking down from the tower, here is a view of the cantilever section (left) and the continuation of the walkway (right).


After finishing the Fly walk, the path takes you back to the ticket office. On the way back, I saw a black snail on the path. Apparently this species is only found in the Otways, and is carnivorous, eating small insects.

I really enjoyed the Otway fly, it was worth the trip.

Triplet Falls

After finishing up at the fly, I decided to head on to the Triplet Falls walk, which is near by. The walking track has been upgraded recently and is in good condition, but involves a LOT of stairs. I was a bit daunted on the way down (worrying about the walk back up!) but the view of the waterfalls was well worth it.

The waterfalls have three viewing platforms. Here is a view from the lowest, where the falls are reducing to cascades.

Up the track (and more stairs), a short distance is the mid level viewing platform. This is probably the best view of the falls. The main section of waterfall has a forrested section in the middle, creating two main streams of water.

Finally, the uppermost platform gives a view down to the falls through the trees. I don't have any good photos of this, as the camera kept focusing on the trees.

The path back crosses over one of the streams feeding the falls.

When I came around a corner and saw this walkway, my first thought was "wow, that's quite artistic!". Then I realised that I was looking at a section of the walkway that a tree had fallen on. The chopped up remains of the tree trunk are next to the walkway.

Further up, there was an old abandoned steam engine, with it's load of wood left near by.


Once I made it back to the carpark it was getting late, and my ankles were a bit sore after all the stairs. So I decided to head back to Colac, then do the "Red Rock" scenic drive. To be honest, I suspect the "loop" of the drive was drawn on the tourist map by someone in Melbourne, who has never been there, and wanted something else to add to the map. The roads were very narrow and poorly maintained. However the drive to the Red Rock lookout was worth while. These are two views from the lookout. On the left is a view of the countryside, showing the volcanic nature of the scenery. On the right is a view of Lake Corrangamite. The sun was breaking through the clouds over the lake, which is why the foreground looks so dark.

After this, I drove north to Cressey, and then home. All in all a worthwhile trip.

Let there be shade...

Today I finally got around to finishing a project I started months ago, installing a new awning.


Last February, once I had finished replacing glass in a cracked window pane (see Window Repair Part 3 ), painting the window and the wall, and painting the eves, I was ready to install the new awning I had purchased. I drilled the first couple of holes with no problems, following the directions with the awning, put the supplied wall plugs in, and tried to screw in the screws. I then discovered that the supplied screws would not go into the holes! After stripping the heads of a couple of screws, to the point where I had a lot of trouble getting them out, I compared the supplied screws and wall plugs to some from my toolbox. Although the instructions called for 7mm holes, it was very clear that the screws and wall plugs were the right size for 8mm holes. No wonder they wouldn't fit! I then started to drill out the wall plugs, so that I could make the holes bigger. Unfortunately, in one of the key anchoring holes, I broke the drill bit off in the hole. After a number of attempts to get the drill bit out of the hole, I was forced to buy some filler ("builder's bog"), fill the holes, paint over them and start again. By this time I was completely sick of the whole project, so after putting a single hole and screw in (to the right of the original set of holes), so that I would know where to start from next time, I put the whole project into the "when I find the energy" bucket and left it there.

Well, it is now spring, the hot weather is on the way again (and I wanted the awning installed before it hits), and I was feeling enthused again.

This time everything went very smoothly. The only part I had trouble with was tensioning the blind (it is still not quite right), but I can have another go at that later. In the mean time, the pelmet and guide rails are fully installed, and the blind is in place. Yay!

New garden bed- In which there is much digging

This project really started some time ago, before the new fence was put in. The pile of grass in this photo actually has a raised garden bed under it.

In clearing the fence line to allow the new fence to be built, my parents helped me to remove the grass, plus the sleepers that made this a raised bed.



When I decided I wanted to put in a lemon tree, I decided that this would be a good spot. To remove the Kikuyu (the really hard to get rid of grass), I decided to dig out the garden bed, and sift the soil to get rid of the grass roots ( and also the large amount of broken glass I was finding in the garden).


Once I dug down about 200mm (to below the level of the grass roots), I discovered that the underlying soil was pretty much solid clay. Lemon trees require good drainage, so the best option seemed to be to build up the garden bed, and fill it with non-clay soil.

I decided that I wanted the raised garden bed to be deeper than the existing area. So I dug out a section in front of the original space. This required a lot of work with the mattock, as the spade wouldn't cut through the Kikuyu roots. I was able to reuse the sleepers that had been removed from the area during the fence clean up. I also bought a couple of redwood sleepers, to accommodate the larger space. I used a bow saw to cut the sleepers into the required lengths.


It took several weekends of hard work to dig out the existing root infested soil, sift it, and put the soil back in place with roots, broken glass and general rubbish removed.

I was finished with that piece of work eventually, but then discovered that I didn't have enough soil to fill the new enclosure, even after mixing in a large amount of composted lawn clippings. I decided to mix the lawn clippings, the sifted soil, and a bag full of fertiliser through to make the bottom layer of soil in the garden bed. Then I ordered a delivery of topsoil from a local garden supply place. I decided to get 2 cubic meters of soil, as I will need to build up garden beds elsewhere in the garden as well.

Here is the big pile of dirt that was delivered.

And here is the remaining dirt, once I had filled up the garden bed with a section. Still a lot there!

I watered the topsoil in thoroughly, using grey water from the washing machine (with Planet Ark washing powder) and left it for a week. Then, this weekend, it was finally time to buy the lemon tree, plus some garden herbs to plant. I bought a Eureka lemon, because they have strongly flavoured lemons, and are supposed to fruit year round.

I dug out the hole for the lemon tree, and filled the base of it with citrus planting mix. I used citrus planting mix to fill in the hole around the lemon tree roots. I made a kind of basin around the tree, to hold water, and watered the tree thoroughly. I then topped up the soil in a few places, from my big pile of dirt. Next step was to plant the herbs. I planted oregano, lemon thyme, marjoram and feverfew. I had wanted basil, but the weather is not warm enough yet, so I will add that in a month or so. Finally, I added some pine bark mulch, to keep the water in the soil, and the weeds down.

I am very happy with the outcome :)

Gardening - In which there is much weeding

A few weeks ago I decided that as the weather was getting warmer, it was time to get stuck into the garden. The first step, was to weed and mulch the front garden, in preparation for summer.

I ordered a cubic meter of pine bark mulch to be delivered and then got stuck in. Here are the before and after pictures for the front garden.

Before:


After:

Broccoli recipe

I'm stuck at home sick today, so I thought it might be good to cook up something healthy, as I can probably do with the vitamins.

The ingredients:
Broccoli (chopped into large chunks, about 2 cups)
bacon (low fat), (about 50g), chopped.
toasted almonds (approx half cup)
dash of olive oil
pinch of salt

To prepare:
If you don't have toasted almonds, then put some raw almonds on a non-stick tray in the oven (at 150 degrees C) for about 15 minutes. open the oven and shake the pan around a bit every 5 minutes.
Put a large pot of water on to boil, with a pinch of salt.
In a second saucepan, heat the dash of olive oil 'till it is just starting to run more freely, then add the bacon. Cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add the almonds and continue to cook until heated through.
When the water in the first pot is boiling, add the broccoli. Allow the water to return to the boil, then drain the broccoli (should be just cooked, but still a bit crunchy).
Put the broccoli in a large bowl, mix in the bacon and almonds and serve.

Very tasty (even if my sense of smell is a bit below par right now).

Daffodils

Dad came and planted some daffodil bulbs in my front garden a while back, to try to revive some bulbs that weren't doing well in the spot they had been growing in. They have grown nicely, and now a few of them are flowering. Spring is starting to... spring!

Let there be (working) light!

Recently, I turned on my living room light, and it started to hiss and spit and make popping noises and sparks. Needless to say, I promptly turned it off! Removing the globe (long dead) from the socket that had been causing the trouble just moved the problem on to the next globe. Time to get a new light fitting.

I had been planning to spend a while finding just the right fitting for the room and updating the light when my budget was in better shape. Suddenly the issue was a bit urgent, so I went with the first reasonably affordable fitting I could find that I liked. Fortunately, while I am not deeply in love with the new fitting, I quite like it, and can certainly live with it for a while. And it has a great feature - it works!

Here is the old light.

And here is the new light.