Bush fires - aftermath

I recently joined my parents up at their block of land, north of Buxton and Marysville. The landscape is pretty bleak, after the fires went through. The trees that were not burnt all the way up (leaves still there) all have scorched brown leaves. On the drive up we passed burned out buildings at the side of the road. Not much was left.

However by the time I went up, a couple of weeks after the fires, grass had started to grow on the open ground. A few trees had tiny green sprouts on them, high on the trunks, where new growth had started. And my parents dam has tiny frogs living in it. So the ash washing into the water hasn't killed all of the life. In a few years it will be green and lush again.

My parents were very lucky, they didn't lose the shed they had up on the block, with all of their stored stuff. This is partly because they put a lot of work into ember proofing the shed, with shutters over the windows and steel wool stuffed into all the gaps, but other people had the same precautions and still lost everything. So good management was involved, but so was a lot of luck.

Almost everything outside the shed burned though. It is a bit surreal seeing coils of wire, where the insulation has burnt off. The tires on the trailer were steel belted radials. The "steel belts" are still there but the rubber has gone. Lots of stuff like that.

I spent the day helping mum and dad to pile branches from fallen trees into piles, so they can be burnt in winter. Keeping dead wood from buiding up is a constant task up there, and may be part of why the fire didn't "crown" (burn up to the tree tops) over my parents land.

It was a fairly sobering day, but the signs of new life are encouraging.

Victorian Bush Fires

It has been a strange and horrible week. The Bush Fires that ripped through Victoria have devastated large areas and killed so many people.

My family and I have been very fortunate. Although my parents have a property up near Marysville (where the destruction was at it's worst), they live in Melbourne, so they were safe from any physical harm. Even better, the friends they know best up there seem to have escaped with their lives and with their horses and dog. They have lost their home though, which is pretty devastating. So, we haven't lost anyone, and the losses are only property. So many people have lost so much more.

One frustration, for me and from what I can tell for most other people in Melbourne, is that there is so little I can do to help. I have donated money and blankets, but it doesn't seem like enough. But really, I don't have the skills or the fitness to fight fires, and if I went up there I would only be in the way. So, my thoughts and admiration go out to the CFA and all of the other experts who are up there helping.

Car cleaning

This morning I decided to clean my car, using grey water for the washing part of the job. I needed to clean my curtains, to reduce dust mite load, so I used the rince water from that.

Alas, I discovered that a large number of the dirt spots on the car bonnet were actually stone chips. So I have just spent about half an hour with a bottle of touch up paint, filling in stone chips. The bonnet now looks a little bit blotchy, but at least is now protected from rust.

New Year

So, it's a new year! And I finally finished blogging about the NT trip :) Only about seven months after the fact.

I have been on holiday last week and this week, hence the increased number of posts.

It has been a productive break. I have caught up with family and friends for Christmas and New Years Eve.

I have finished painting the eaves along the east side of the house. I still have glass to replace in two of the windows, and the wall to paint, and that side will be finished. I have replaced a window pane on the south side of the house. I have taken up four curtain drops, so they now are the right length for this house, instead of the last house I was living in. I have drilled holes in four pieces of wood that I need for installing a drawer in the kitchen, and have painted them. I have finished the tiling in the bathroom, including painting around the edges of the tiles, and coating them with tile sealer. I have made a start on installing a new awning on the north side of the house.

I did a day trip to Werribee Park Mansion, which mum tells me that I have been to before, but I was so young I don't remember. If I feel enthused then I may blog with more details over the next few days.

Either way, welcome 2009!

NT Day 9

On my last day in Alice Springs I drove to the Telegraph Station and visited the original site of Alice Springs. This is a photo of the original Alice Spring, located on one side of the (dry) Todd River. The original surveyor who first explored the area was hired to survey a telegraph route from Darwin through to Adelaide. Mid points were needed near water sources. At the time of the survey, the Todd River was in flood. Water was running into a small cave and rushing out, giving the appearance of a spring. The surveyor named the spring "Alice Spring" after his bosses wife.


The Telegraph station was eventually built near by.

This is a picture of the evapourometer, which was used to measure evapouration rates at Alice Springs.

Once the telegraph station was closed, the site was used to house "half-caste" aboriginal/european children, who had been orphaned or taken from their parents. The guide was one of those children. His memories of his time there were very positive, although from some of the stories on display, others of children felt differently. There seems to be general agreement that the women who ran the centre cared for the children, and tried very hard to give them a good life, but that the center was massively overcrowded and underresourced.

After seeing the Telegraph Station, and reading about some of the early history of Alice Springs, I drove to Alice Springs airport, returned my hire car, and took a plane back to Melbourne. It was a great trip, but I was very happy to be home.

NT Day 8

The next morning (Friday) I drove back to the MacDonnel Ranges, this time to Simpsons Gap. On the road leading into the gap there was a walking trail called the Ghost Gum walk, leading tot he Cassia Hill walk. I followed these and discovered that Cassia Hill was a small but steep hill on the surrounding flat landscape. There was a great view of the gap from the top of the hill, as well as some signage explaing the geology of the area.

On the way back to the car I crossed over the Larapinta trail bike track, which cyclists can use to ride from Alice Springs along a large section of the West MacDonnel ranges.

Simpsons gap itself had very little water in it compared to the previous two water holes I had visited, but had a lovely sandy beach. It was a very pretty spot.

The next stop was Standly Chasm. This was the first of the MacDonnal Ranges spots with an entry fee, used to maintain facilities in the area. I paid the fee, at the kiosk, then followed the really lovely walking track to the Chasm.
The walking track was through some of the greenest plant life I had seen in the Red Centre.

The Chasm itself is very striking. The red/orange color is magnificent, and the tall, narrow break in the mountains is remarkable.

After visiting Standly Chasm I had seen all the sites I wanted to visit in the West MacDonnal Ranges, so I returned to Alice Springs.

My next stop in Alice Springs was to visit the Reptile Centre. The Reptile centre is fairly unimpressive from the outside, as it is housed in an old suburban house. However inside there are two largish rooms with many snakes and lizards in enclosures. The back yard area also has snakes and lizards, as well as a crocodile. Two of the lizards in the back yard area, in a large enclosure, were Perentie, a kind of giant goanna. The were easily a meter and a half long.

After looking around the displays, I returned to the main room for a talk and demonstration of some of the reptiles. At the end of the presentation, the audience were able to handle a few of the lizards and one of the snakes.



The snake pictured is a black headed python, and was very placid. The scales were surprisingly soft and warm. Because snakes are cold blooded, I expected it to be cold to the touch, but of course snakes are actually room temperature, and the room was kept fairly warm.

I really enjoyed the reptile centre, particularly the chance to interact with the reptiles.

*Edit*

That evening I bought some Possum food from the place where I was staying, and fed the rock wallabies that come down for a feed at the back of the motel. They were very tame, and would even eat food from my hand.

NT Day 7

The next morning (Thursday), I drove out to the Western MacDonnal Ranges. The sealed road only runs as far as Glen Helen Gorge, so I stopped there, with the plan of working my way back to Alice Springs, seeing the accessible sites on the way.

When I go to Glen Helen Gorge I stopped at the guesthouse there, and walked to the Gorge, a short distance away.

This was the largest open body of water I saw on the whole trip. The tourist attractions along the West MacDonnel Ranges are mostly a series of waterholes, which attract wildlife, and allow plants to grow. Glen Helen gorge is fairly small, but with a large waterhole.

After seeing the gorge I headed back to the guesthouse for lunch. After lunch I was able to attend a Ranger talk about animal signs (tracks and droppings). The ranger had a large mat with stencilled animal tracks, and a series of plastic containers with sample droppings. He challenged us to match the tracks and droppings to the animal that left them. Very interesting. He also had a few bones and skulls from animals, which he handed around and asked us to identify. Some of the animals were wallaby's, dingos, emus, a large lizard, and kangaroos. After the talk I found myself keeping an eye open for tracks and droppings, and was able to identify a number of them over the next few days.

After the walk I drive back towards Alice Springs and stopped at Ormiston Gorge and walked to the waterhole.

The waterhole here is smaller, but with a kind of sandy beach. It is apparently a popular swimming spot in the warmer months.

I then drove to the Ochre Pits and waked down to see them. The Ochre pits were a source of Ochre used for ceremonies by the indigenous peoples of the area. Ochre was traded up and down the continent, so good sources were highly prized.

By this time it was getting late, so I headed back to Alice Springs.

NT Day 6

On my first morning in Alice Springs I took it easy, getting some washing done, and generally taking a break.

In the afternoon, I headed out to the Alice Springs Desert park. This is effectively a Botanical Gardens, with sections devoted to the types of terrain found in Central Australia.

There are also a number of large aviaries, with local bird life, and a nocturnal centre. This building houses a number of nocturnal animals, as well as some reptiles.

The final display I visited was the Birds of Prey demonstration. I sat with a number of other visitors in a small amphitheatre. After a while, a large owl flew into the amphitheatre, and a ranger gave a talk about the owl. The owl was fed, and flew out, and one by one several other large predatory birds flew in, and were fed. It was a great experience, and one I recommend. I have some photos somewhere, but I need to dig them out. I will upload them to this blog when I find them.

NT Day 5

The morning after doing the King's canyon rim walk, I checked out of the King's Canyon Resort, and drove back to King's Canyon. This time I did the Creek walk, down the centre of the Canyon. This walk is much easier going than the Rim walk, but still well worth while. I got a completely different perspective of the Canyon.

Here is a shot from the end of the creek walk, plus a shot of a large rock that has fallen off the canyon walls, into the creek.

After finishing the Creek walk (an hour, rather than the nearly four hours for the rim walk), I drove back to the highway and continued South. I stopped at the Kathleen springs walking track, and walked to the springs. The walking track is less spectacular than King's Canyon, but still interesting. The waterhole called Kathleen Springs is very lovely, well worth the relatively short walk.

I then continued south, stopping at King's Creek station for lunch. The hamburgers there are excellent. I filled up with petrol, flinching a bit at the price ($2.18 per litre), but for such an out of the way place it was probably very reasonable. I enquired about the helicopter flights, but was told that they needed at least two people to make it worth while to go up. As I was travelling alone, that was not possible, so I headed back to the highway.

As I was in a 2-wheel drive, I needed to stick to sealed roads, and was therefor unable to take the round trip to Alice Springs. So retraced my steps south, back to the Sturt Highway, (only a couple of hundred kms!) and then drove east to Erldunda, then North to Alice Springs. The drive took nearly 5 hours, so I was pretty worn out by the time I got to Alice Springs. I was staying at the Heavitree Gap Outback Lodge, on the outskirts of Alice Springs, which is located right next to the Heavitree Gap. This is a pass through the MacDonnal Ranges. I checked in, and had a very early night.

Northern Territory Day 3 (Evening)

The final night of my stay at Yulara, I took a short star-watching tour. We were taken to the Yulara observatory, and given a guided tour of the constellations above. The stars are very clear from Yulara, without all of the light pollution of a major city.

For the final part of the star-watching, we were set up with a couple of telescopes, and given the chance to see some of the highlights of the local sky. I got to see Alpha-Centauri, as a binary system (I think I managed to see the third dot of the trinary, but I may be kidding myself there). I saw Jupiter, and the four largest moons, and Saturn and it's rings, which were amazingly clear. Friends tell me that you can see this stuff from out in country Victoria if you have the right equipment, but it was new to me, and an amazing experience.

Northern Territory Day 4

The morning of the fourth day, I checked out of Yulara, and headed towards Kings Canyon. I stopped briefly on the roadside, to look at Mount Connor in the distance. Mount Connor is located on private land, so the only way to look at it up close is with the camel tours run by the owners. I decided to skip the camel tour and make do with a distant view.

I drove on to Kings Canyon Resort (about 400 km from Yulara by sealed road, and about 7 km past Watarrka National Park, which contains Kings canyon), and checked in. I then grabbed some lunch from the local milk bar, and headed back to Kings canyon.

I decided to do the Canyon Rim walk that afternoon, and started out from the carpark.

This is a view of the canyon from the trail from the carpark.

This is the initial steps up to the canyon rim. If you look closely, you can see the line of people making their way up.

Because I have an injured knee, I used a walking stick to take some of my weight, and made my way up the steps very slowly and carefully. I followed this principal for the whole walk, and only needed to stop once to put an ice pack on my knee. I highly recommend the use of a walking stick as a cheap hiking pole, it made a real difference to how secure I was when scrambling across uneven footing.

The top of the canyon rim is covered with mounds of stones, almost like giant beehives. These mounds used to be sand dunes, millions of years ago, but have been compressed over time into rock.

Some of the rocks show wavy lines, from being at the base of a water way.

One section of the canyon rim contains a "miniature" version of the landscape, called Liliput.

At the back of the canyon, the path descends down stairs, into an oasis called the Garden of Eden. Permanent rock pools here are filled with water that sinks through the sandstone, then hits a layer of waterproof shale.

The path then continues back up to the other side of the canyon rim. There are some amazing views from here of the canyon.
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Finally, the path heads back down to the carpark. The descent is not as steep as the ascent.


All up the walk took me about 4 hours. The guide books list the walk as taking between 3 and 4 hours, so they are pretty spot on. The walk is often a scramble over rough ground, and it is sometimes hard to spot the next route marker, even in broad daylight. I wouldn't want to be on the walk after dark.

It was an exhausting walk, but also beautiful and amazing. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Update on DIY projects

I haven't posted for a while, and several projects have continued. I have been painting the side of the house. Two of the window frames had sections with putty that had not been over painted by the previous owners, and hence there was rust starting on the frames. I cleaned out the old putty (not too hard in this case,as the putty was still fairly soft), sanded back the frames, painted with metal primer, and then with two coats of solargard. Finally, I applied fresh putty. This was about a week and a half ago. The instructions on the putty say to wait two weeks for the putty to skin before over painting, so I can finish painting the window frames next weekend.

I had a couple of cubic meters of pine bark mulch delivered, and I have mulched the new garden bed. I also weeded the back garden bed (along the back fence line) and dug up the sleepers edging it. I have moved the sleepers out by about half a meter, to widen the garden bed. Previously, the edge was hard up against the trees and shrubs, which made mowing difficult, and didn't look too good. I am gradually mulching the bed, as time and energy levels permit :)

While cleaning up the back garden bed, I decided to severely cut back a plant that was looking pretty ratty. When I got to the roots, a cluster of rhizomes, I discovered that the plant is a form of ginger ( the rhizomes smell gingery when I cut into them). I left some of the fresh shoots alone, and gave the plant a good watering with seasol, so now I will wait to see if it comes back strongly or not.

The plants I initially planted into the new garden bed have all survived, except for one of the platylobium seedlings. It was pulled out either by a cat or a bird. I went back to the native nursery to get more tube stock, and planted some more shrubs and ground covers. I am not sure what the new plants are, as the labels at the nursery were all worn off, so I went by section (ground cover, small shrub). If they survive and start flowering then I will be able to tell what they are then :).

Over the last few days, I have been finishing the tiling preparation in the bathroom. I finally spent the time with a cold chisel and hammer, to remove the last of the old tiling cement. I then washed down the wall with sugar soap, rinsed thoroughly, and let the wall dry. This morning I put a line of silicone sealant down where the wall meets the top of the bath. Once this has cured, I will have a go at putting fresh tile cement on, and re-tiling the first section.

Now, back to cleaning the house ... :)

Northern Territory Day 3

The third day of my trip, I visited Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). A number of friends had recommended it as being as good as, or better than, Ularu. I didn't feel that it was better than Ularu, but I agree that it was just as good, but a completely different experience.

I started out in the morning with the Valley of the Winds walk. The walk starts as a single section of track heading in between the rock mounds of Kata Tjuta, until you reach the first lookout. From here there is an amazing view of the Valley of the winds.

After the first lookout the walk becomes a loop walk, down into the floor of the valley, through a steep section between two mounds, to the second lookout, then back down and around to the valley floor, then back up to the first lookout. The path is rocky, uneven footing, and often quite steep, but I still found it easer to walk on than the sand of the Ularu basewalk. I had a walking stick with me, which was invaluable both for reducing the stress on my bad knee, and for helping me to keep my balance in some of the trickier parts.

The valley floor was probably the easiest part of the walk, until the steep scramble up to the second lookout.

The view from the second lookout was the highlight of the whole walk.

And here is a view from the track, looking back up to the second lookout. There are some other walkers, coming down the track.

The continuation of the loop walk after the second lookout gave me some great views of the some of the other mounds of Kata Tjuta.

Finally, the loop section of the walk was finished, and I returned up to the first lookout, then down to the carpark. Then it was time to eat lunch, and put an ice pack on my knee and ankle. After lunch, I did the much shorter and easier Wulpa Gorge walk, through another area of Kata Tjuta. As this walk was much easier, it was also a lot more crowded, with a lot of tour groups. Wulpa gorge is greener than the Valley of the Winds walk, with relatively more dense vegitation.

After all of this I drove back to Yulara and collapsed for a while!

Ballarat/New garden bed

Well, it has been a busy weekend. Yesterday (Saturday), I drove up to Ballarat to visit friends. It was wonderful spring weather, a bit windy, but otherwise warm and sunny. We ate lunch at a restaurant on the shore of Lake Wendouree (which has water in it again!), and then just hung around chatting. Eventually we watched the sunset over the lake, before heading our separate ways. I was a lovely day.

Today, I planted plants into my new garden bed. I have been working on the garden bed gradually for months, starting with using a mattock to dig trenches to lay sleepers in, then laying down cardboard to kill the grass, then filling the bed with soil. Finally the bed was ready for planting. One of my friends in Ballarat (one of the people I had lunch with yesterday) had sent me a list of plants that are indigenous to the area I live in, and this morning I visited a native nursery that stocks some of them. The nursery is a not-for-profit organisation called Greenlink, which relies on volunteers to grow indigenous plants in tube stock. The goal is to make sure that the species that are local to the area continue to be grown in the area.

I was lucky enough to find three of the plants on my list in stock, and another type that one of the volunteers told me is definitely indigenous to my area, and one that they are trying to push people to plant. So I got 2 of each type, for a total of 8 plants. The varieties are:

Epacris Impressa (common heath)

Platylobium obtusangulum (Common flat pea)

Dianella admixta/revoluta (Black Anther Flax Lily)

Anthropodium strictum (Chocolate lily)

I planted out the tube stock, except for the platylobium, which the nursery volunteer told me was a bit small to plant yet, he recommended that I keep it in the tube for a couple of weeks before planting. I have put the tubes in the location I intend to plant them, and if they survive the next couple of weeks then I will plant them in. I also put some clear plastic tubing around the plants, to give them some protection for the first week or so.

And now, I wait. Hopefully some of them will survive, and maybe all of them will. Time will tell :)