They might be giants

First day of school 2012:

No matter how much you want to deny it, Liam is a freshman in high school this year. 14 years old, 6 feet 1/4 inch, with a size 13 shoe!

Abbie Rose is in fourth grade this year. 9 years old, 4 feet 11 and 3/4 inches, and a size 9 shoe!

The Blows

After we left Warroora, we drove to the Tropic of Capricorn and

(Alaska Grown at 23° 26′ 16″ south of the equator!)

a place called the blows. There is a big blow hole there, but the sea was really calm so it was more of a gurgle hole for us :P

The sign in front of the Blows, dumb tourist have a tendency anywhere to do stupid things to kill themselves. Australia is on of the few places willing to put up clearly marked warnings to try to save them from themselves. So be warned...King Waves Kill.

Wild Warroora

The rest of our time at Warroora was spent exploring the 4x4 trails, bogging the utes, sitting on the beach, admiring the wild life, and of course eating! We had some awesome meals while out, beef skewers, prawn cocktails, and several kinds of sausages just to name a few. I really wanted to share with you some of the cool animals we saw. A big change for me from moose, geese, and beavers.

A stick bug, we used to keep some of these in a tank. Here they live outside, this one was outside the homestead house.

A bush turkey, it is big, but not as large as an emu and they can fly.

Giant termite mound, it was taller than the truck and hard like rock. The bugs are nocturnal so none to be found in the bright sun.

Sheep and a roo in the backyard of the homestead.

Look how close this guy came! We could hear them most of the evening coming in to drink. They make a funny coughing sound.

Warroora 2

There was a big coral shelf on one section of the beach. There were several pools with cool stuff in them. I also went with Justin for a walk out across the shelf. the water was so clear you could see bunches of fish, live coral and seaweed off the edge of the shelf in the deeper water.

We got to the beach late, and so decided to stay past sunset. It was amazing to watch the colour develop over the water. Slightly dark shot of Jessie and I, but I couldn't resist posting it for the smiles.

"Hi" from sunset on the the Indian Ocean!

So amazing, a perfect day :) We drove back on the wild 4x4 roads in the dark and tried not to cream too many Roos. Terry's ute got stuck and had to be pushed off a 'curb' on the side of the road. We came back to make supper and found a 'welcoming committee'!

If I remember correctly this is a huntsman spider, and not a very big one either. But it was giant to us Alaskans! Luckily Justin saved us and knocked it down and smooshed it. It was the scariest bug we saw, besides the wasps that stung Mom and I, not too bad for visiting a land that grows lots of scary bugs!

Warroora

Pronounced "warra" was where J&J and Terry took us camping. It was amazing! We love to camp, but I was a little worried about the wildlife while roughing it. Warroora was closer to glamping than truly roughing though, about perfect for us Alaska newbies. Warroora (LINK to their website) is about 190 K (118 miles) from Carnarvon. It is a large working station, we mostly saw sheep but the website says they have cattle too. Our family had rented out the old homestead for us, it sleeps 12 so we had plenty of room and is fully furnished with everything from beds and linen to BBQs and dishes.

On the drive there, still so flat! This is after turning onto the station road, I think, we saw lots of sheep and dead things on our drive.

The sign out front of the office, if you would like an idea of where things are layed out, click the map on the homepage of their website.

The view from the kitchen onto the patio, there is a water hole where you can see the sheep in the background. It is a short(ish) drive through the bush to the beach, of which there are several.

I'm not sure which beach this is...but notice the lack of people or even foot prints. Let alone trash, other people camping, annoying dogs or any other sign of humans. I could get used to this kind of camping!

A cool crab on the edge of the surf. More in the next post....

one more from 24 May

I just had too many good pictures to share from this day!

This is the antenna by Jessie and Justin's house. It is 29 meters, even bigger than the biggest one where Kyle works. It is very funny to me, but they re-dedicated the thing the month after we visited and even had Buzz Aldrin come to town for it! Link

Our collection of goodies from visiting plantations (not pictured, a pumpkin)

For dinner, Terry invited all of us over. I had flashbacks to watching Gram Garnet and her sister Auntie Opal cook when I was little.

Yum! We had antipasti pasta with salad and bread, with cookies and paw-paw with lime for dessert.

Harvesting Bananas

Justin used to harvest bananas when he was younger, so he gave us a run through of how they are grown.

Carnarvon is known for their variety of bananas, they are smaller and sweeter than the ones we usually see. These pics are all a little blurry, is was very dense and dim in the rows of naners and I didn't take the time to re-set my camera.

So the banana bunches grow from flowers that look like this. The bananas grow in a spiral down the stem from the flower. The flowers are broken off the bottom when the bunch is long enough.

When the bananas are big enough the harvesters walk through the groves hacking down the trees bringing the bunches closer to the ground, the next guy shoulders the bunch while another guy chops it from the tree. The naners are still green at this point and have to be stored in sheds to ripen. The new banana plant will grow from a sucker at the base of the tree, you can see some small ones on some of the trees already.

Very cool and interesting to me! Not something I have ever seen growing on a tree :) I will say it is a little scary in there, there is a lot of dead leaves on the ground and lots of live ones over your head. Also Justin delights in telling stories of the bad snakes and spiders you find in bananas!