Rambling At Mt Arthur

I've been hankering to do some walking in the bush for a long time now. I developed a love for the Australian bush from as young an age as 5 years when I used to wander around on the bush tracks near the caravan park that we lived in when we came back to Australia. I've continued to follow tracks through the bush for the rest of my life and it's always been a way for me to relax and just be myself without the worries of other people or the stresses of day to day life. When I moved to Dubbo I moved away from the bush that I love, and I had no idea that I could find it out here. Everything seems to be either flat red dirt or paddocks and fields where bush used to be. Terry had told me a few months ago that there were indeed still pockets of bush nearby and that he would show me some of them. Yesterday we finally got to go see some! 

Mt Arthur is right next to Wellington, only about 20 minutes drive from Dubbo.

We had the dog and the camera packed in the car when we set off down the road for a ramble though some trees. It's a winding road to get to the parking spot at the top of the mountain and once you get there you are immediately greeted with some amazing sights.

There's the moss covered rock face that you park next to on one side. On the other side is a drop off and some tantalising glimpses of the view that is promised from the top, as well as a track leading off towards wild beauty.

Everything here is covered in mosses and fungi, it's so different to what I was expecting. It was very alive and magical to be wandering amongst. I stopped often to snap pics so Terry and Giz were often way ahead of me.

There they are looking over the lookout. This is what they were looking at.

Not a bad view eh?

Then they took off ahead of me again while I photographed some of the huge boulders that are scattered all over the hillside.

I caught up to them before too long though when Terry stopped to inspect something more closely.

What had he found?

'Hurry up slow coach .. I've got something to show you!'

I hurried up the hill to see ...

'It's probably prehistoric ya know'

While I went off to take more pics .. 

Terry found the next treasure of the day.

Don't know what he is but he looks heavily armoured. I think I shall call him Tank.

More pics .. a tangled passage through the bush.

The landscape is nothing like anything I have wandered in before, not only the moss covering everything, there were also huge boulders everywhere you looked and a lot of branches and fallen trees littered the ground.

But not many of those downed branches and trees had cut marks, it was all natural litter, it was a healthy environment unlike some of the places I saw in Tasmania where the logging has been tragic to the land.

Some of the fungus was amazing ...

And of course the trees did fascinating things.

I even found some flowers in the middle of winter up here.

There was a sign that said this is a Rock Fern, it would have to be hardy to grow where it was right in the middle of rocks.

There were two different types of moss flourishing side by side on this rocky bank.

If you look closely you can see some roots growing through this amazingly coloured rock face.

 Yep they do grow them hardy out here.

As I took pics of the rock face I was standing next to our car and noticed.

Yes that's growing there, no it didn't sprout while we were wandering, we have a Chinese Elm in our front yard that sends seeds everywhere and we often have to pull out baby elms, this one found a spot it thought we wouldn't find.

As we drove up to the mountain we had spotted this in the middle of a paddock, no idea what it may have been but it stands out.

The Cow in the paddock came over to see what I was up to when I stopped to photograph it on the way down.

It was a great day out, there's still a whole heap of tracks to explore up there so we'll be back. But the day was getting late as we jumped back into the car and headed home. Terry spotted this amazing sight in the sky and managed to get a great pic of it to top off the day. We're not sure what caused this anomoly through the clouds, in reality it didn't look right to be a jet trail, but it was something that carved it's way through the clouds and seemed to pull a trail of them behind.

I know it's a photo heavy post but there were so many pics that I liked it was hard to pick the ones I liked the most, if you'd like to see them all check out this little slide show.

Disappointments and Stunners

I haven't been on the bike in weeks .. that's disappointing, but not the most disappointing thing to happen this week. It's heart wrenching when lollies are the most disappointing thing in your life at the moment. But then I found something else that made it all worth while .. pretty views, kangaroos and cows make up for a lack in lollies.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Last weekend I was suffering from the tail end of my annual cold. Yep every year I get a doozy and this year was no exception. We'd planned a trip to Wagga Wagga to visit with Terry's son but I just knew there was no way I could make it all the way there and back on the bike, not to mention the risks involved with sneezes and full face helmets. I don't think I need to say anymore, we can all guess that I stayed at home last weekend while Terry went off gallivanting.

Well to make it not a complete waste on Saturday I decided to take Gizmo the amazing Staffy for a ride in the car. She loves the car and doesn't get to go for as many rides now that we tend to take the bikes when we go anywhere. So Giz was excited! And my choice of destination had me excited too!

We were going to a little bump on the map called Lucknow. Yep it was a gold rush town way back in the day .. hence the name. The best thing about it now is the fact that it has a Lolly Shop. I love Lollies!! I have memories of the lolly section at Grace Bros (which no longer exists) in my childhood, with rows of lollies sitting in little baskets and you just went along with a little paper cup and scooped them out then took them to the counter where they weighed them and told you how much they were. It's one of my best childhood memories as it was a treat to go there and so exciting. I had visions of this type of shop when I heard about the shop in Lucknow, I've had people telling me all about how wonderful it is .. how it's full of wonderful stuff. I was itching to get there and now was my chance with no husband to curb my spending spree!

It's about an 2 hour drive, and it was a relaxing one too. Just me and the dog, and she slept most of the way. We just kicked back and enjoyed the ride. When we got to Lucknow I had already decided to take Giz and have lunch at the little cafe I knew they had there. I'd been told they had outside seats. first disappointment of the day, the outside tables were not accessible from outside, you had to walk through the whole shop and cafe to get to them, Giz couldn't join me :( So I thought I'd just take a quick peek at all the lovely sweetness while Giz waited in the car, it wasn't hot but I didn't want to leave her locked in the car for too long, even with the windows down. I went inside and got my second disappointment. The lolly shop. There wasn't much of a range, mostly it was the commercial stuff like Hershey's and Willy Wonkers. These things weren't even heard off when I was a child and it just didn't give me the buzz that I was looking for. They did have some of the old lollies that I remember, like fruit drops and flying saucers and black cats, but they were in neat little packets that were indeed little and way overpriced in my view. Oh well I bought some and headed back to the car promising Giz that we'd head back to Orange and have some lunch in the park there.

As I pulled out of the lolly shops car park I spotted a shop I'd often seen and wanted to look at.

Yep it's a junk shop. I love poking around in old shops like this, you never know what treasures you will find!

They even had a bike :-D

I didn't spend long in here either, not just because Giz was again waiting in the car, it also smelt really bad. Honestly did I never notice things like that when I was a kid? Even so this wasn't as much of a disappointment to me really, it was exactly what it purported to be .. a junk shop is supposed to be full of interesting junk isn't it.

We headed on our way, grabbed some takeaway in Orange just 10 minutes down the road and ate it in the park. Giz loved that, not only did she get hand fed some rubbish food that tasted yummy, she also got to go for an adventure exploring a new place.

Soon it was time to head home. I decided that I was going to check out some things that have always interested me along the way. First of all there was a sign on the highway that pointed down a dirt road to someones grave ( I don't remember the name now but it has an aboriginal sound) it's always seemed like it might be interesting so we headed down the road, past the paddocks with some very interested cows in them, to a gate. The gate was closed but not locked and the sign to the grave pointed down there but .. there were a lot of cows just on the other side of the gate. Now I'm not a country girl, and while I like cows, I find them intimidating up close. The thought of going through that gate and trying not to let someones cows out kinda worried me. Actually the thought of having nothing between me and one of those huge creatures (as gentle as they seem) almost terrifies me. So we did a U-turn, that's something we'll try another day.

On the way to Lucknow I'd noticed a sign pointing to a Lolly Shop in Molong. Hmm maybe that will be better, at least Giz and I can get a cuppa at Molong. So we stopped at the coffee shop there, I had coffee and Giz had a water, we sat together in the sun at the outside tables and Giz got lots of pats from the locals. Then we went for a wander looking for the Lolly Shop .. didn't find it. I did find a little local craft shop and got myself a very nice scarf that will be perfect for the bike in the next month or so.

Ah well, the next thing on the list of things I've always wanted to check out. Just past Wellington is a sign pointing to a place called Ponto Falls. I've always wanted to check out what kind of Falls they have here. So After stopping for a couple of lovely ladies who needed help getting their wheelchair back onto the top of the car after it had fallen off on the highway, then missing the turnoff, Giz and I finally made our way down about 8km of dirt road to find ...

Where there were birds enjoying an evening dip ..

And some gorgeous old trees for them to frolic in ...

The 'Falls' didn't amount to much .. but it was still pretty as the sun set ...

As we headed back towards the highway, with it really starting to get dark, we encountered one of the biggest black kangaroos I've seen in a while ... jumping across the road in front of us. Then we turned a corner and spotted the moon just coming over the tops of the trees, reflecting the sun with a stunning display ...

There are more kangaroos in that paddock too, unfortunately they are extremely well camouflaged .. well they are too far away for a good photo of them in this light. And that goes for the next two groups of kangaroos we came across along the road, one group even hung around long enough for me to get my camera out, but not long enough for me to turn around and focus on them unfortunately.

A little bit further up the road were some cattle .. actually there was a huge bull right next to the fence and in the paddock right next to him was a cow and her calf .. all of whom were very fascinated by me and Giz .. Giz on the other hand was still sleeping. She missed it all. Unfortunately no photos of those guys either, I tried but the light was just too bad and all I got was a really good shot of a fence and some red eye glowing in the back ground .. might have to invest in a better flash.

Grasshoppers Like Chocolate Too

I got myself a Chocolate Cosmos last weekend. It isn't what you'd think, it's a flowering plant who's flowers smell like chocolate. When I saw it in the nursery I knew it was the plant for me and had to bring one home. I have since learnt that there are a lot of different varieties of flowers out there that smell like chocolate quite a few of them are native Australian plants too, it's just hard to find them in the nurseries so I'll have to keep looking. My ultimate plan is to have a chocolate scented heaven potted just outside my back door.

Now I'm not very good with plants so I'm being very careful about the few that I have potted this year, with that in mind I went out yesterday morning to carefully water each of them and check out whether any of them are turning heels up yet. As I was admiring the fantastic flowers on my Choc Cosmos I noticed that someone else is addicted to that heavenly scent.

I let him chew on that flower while I got some shots of him then chased him away, he'd already taken out half a petal which wasn't a bad effort for such a teensy fellow. Terry reckons he'll bring back his mates for a party but I think he listened to me when I told him that he couldn't have all of my flowers and will go find some daisies in the yard next door.

While we're talking bout bugs chomping on my plants I guess I should mention the army that came to feast on my lemon tree.

I'm sorry to say that these guys are getting treated a bit rougher than the grasshopper. But again not til after I get my photos.

And one last shot of the day, sometimes the sunsets here are truly amazing and one day last week as Terry and I relaxed out the back looking at the progress of the deck that we are in the process of building we were lucky enough to catch one of the best I've seen in a while.

What is the secret of the Teaspoon?

I have long been convinced that my teaspoons lead a secret life. They sneak out of the kitchen draw at night and head out for a night on the town, partying hard all night and end up so inebriated that in the wee hours of the morning they forget where they live and are lost forever.

Or maybe they are double agents ... they are spying on the knives and taking important secret files back to the spoons .. I sometimes find them hiding amongst knives or forks and wonder what they have been up to. I wonder if the knives have made more than one set of concrete shoes fitted for teaspoons and if somewhere at the bottom of the dogs pool there is a grizzly teaspoon graveyard.

Terry has a theory for the latest disappearance, which he thinks happened while we had a visitor, Louie from Western Australia, who rode here on his bike and has a cool camper trailer that he tows. Terry reckons that during one of their late night parties one of the teaspoons noticed the trailer parked in the backyard and went to investigate this unusual contraption. He soon called over his buddies and they all were fascinated and spent the night playing in this cool jungle gym. They were caught by the first rays of sunlight early in the morning and weren't quick enough getting back inside, the humans were already up and about getting ready to leave on the return trip across Australia. Now the teaspoons didn't know that their playground actually moved and it was the only place they could think of to hide until the sun went back down and the humans went back to bed, so they jumped back into the trailer. Louie packed all his gear tightly back into the trailer that morning then headed off all unknowing that he had stow aways. I wonder where our little teaspoons have ended up, maybe they jumped ship somewhere along the way and are even now trying to find there way back from Broken Hill or somewhere along the highway in the Nulabour. Maybe they are lost or maybe they are having a great adventure.

I'm not sure exactly what the reason is it might be something I haven't even thought of yet, there might be aliens that have teaspoon fetishes that visit my cutlery draw. But my teaspoons disappear, their numbers usually gradually reduce so that you don't notice it at first, then one day you go to the draw and there's only one or two solitary teaspoons resting in their little compartment. In the last week or so we have noticed it happening again.

I found some of them, they were hiding in the fridge. I'd made some Chocolate Truffles to take to work last weekend and meant to use up the remaining mixture to make some for us. But I forgot about them til this weekend and when I pulled out the bowls of mixture this morning I found two teaspoons resting in there. I'm still missing a couple I'm sure of it, maybe they will turn up .. or maybe one of my theories is right and they are gone forever.

I made the rest of the Truffles today, and I'm munching on yummy chocolate treats with my coffee as I write this. These things are a huge hit where ever I take them and so easy to make.

All they are is two cups each of milk and dark chocolate buddies melted with about 2/3 of a cup of thickened cream and teaspoon of vanilla essence. After it's all melted together take it off the heat and let it cool a bit. You can add stuff after it has cooled but not set, I added chopped hazelnuts this time. Then you just stick it in the fridge to set, overnight is best. Once set use about a teaspoon full of mixture and roll it into a ball and cover in what ever you like. I have used dessicated coconut and toasted coconut here, you can use powdered cocoa which is yummy too. I'd like to try making these with a bit of fruit or maybe with a whole nut inside each one.

But while you are making these make sure you keep a close eye on your teaspoons ... you never know what they will get up to while you are not looking!

Biker Betty

Nope really I'm not confused, this isn't a bike related post and doesn't belong on The White Shadow Diary. This one is about Betty .. Betty Boop. I love Betty, she's so sexy. I was sitting round one night last week checking out eBay, and I browse all sorts of things, so Betty went into the search bar. It turned up a plethora of things Boop related but there was one thing that caught my eye. A cool pic of Betty as a biker chick ... ooh I like that! What is it .. oh it's a .. cross stitch?

Ted says Hi!!

Hmm I don't mind getting into all sorts of art and crafty things but I'm not really much of a sewer. I did a couple of tapestries when I was much younger, I even actually finished one I think .. a doily. I got bored on the second one in the set. I have made Teddy Bears, I finished three of those and gave the two biggest ones away to special people. The third lives with me still and gets into all sorts of mischief. But I still have a fourth Ted sitting in the back cupboard waiting to be put together. I get bored with sewing.

So .. I bought the Biker Boop cross stitch. Of course I did, I love Betty and she looks so cool in this design. It arrived today and I was kinda excited, I pulled open the package and took all the bits out. I was a bit put off by the fact that there was nothing printed on my piece of fabric, no design to follow .. hmm oh look a pattern to follow ... oh dear. 

OK I found the instruction sheet and worked it out. Then I sat down and managed to do about a dozen stitches before it got too dark to be able to see what I was doing properly. 




This is going to be fun!! I probably could have chosen an easier design for my first effort, not on a black background with a lot of black cotton, that is just about impossible to see on a good day, and maybe something bigger, with bigger stitches. But I think I actually will finish this one cause I like the design so much ... I dunno how long it's gonna take tho ...

Wandering Amongst Australian Natives

This morning I woke up with three goals in my mind, take Gizmo the amazing puppy for a walk, take some photos and visit the Arboretum at Lake Burrendong. I managed to do all three things. First I had to find out if the Arboretum would like Gizmo to visit, so I rang and the nice man said he'd love for Giz to frolic in the flowers as long as she had her lead on. Burrendong Botanic Garden and Arboretum is about 50km from home, so Gizmo and I jumped into the car and headed out there armed with plenty of water and a loaded camera.

Be warned, this is going to be a photo heavy post, I took plenty of pics and it was hard deciding which ones I liked the most, I've narrowed it down as much as I could. I know the names of some of the plants I took photos of, so I'll label those but there were a few that I have no idea what they are, some of them could even be weeds for all I know .. doesn't matter they made great photos!

This is the scene that greeted us when we first got out of the car.

We wandered over to a little information centre and picked up a few leaflets about the walks on offer here, then we started just walking and looking at stuff.

This is a Pear-fruited Mallee - Eucalyptus pyroformis

Most of the flowers are gone now, but there's a lot of seed pods about.

This plant facinated me, the leaves look almost painted white. It's a Western Australian Eucalypt called Mottlecah - Eucalyptus macrocarpa

 Apparently the Mottlecah had the largest of the Eucalyptus flowers, I'll have to go back earlier next year to see that.

As Giz and I wandered we spotted a lot of these delicate little flowers along the path, not sure what they are or if they were just a weed, but they were pretty.

These tiny pink flowers were definitely some kind of native, just not sure what one.

I don't even remember taking this photo, so I was delighted to find it on my camera.

Another one of those unknown flowers. Giz and I were now making our way back to the car as we'd realised just how big this place was.

What Terry calls a Spider Flower, it's some kind of Grevillea. We have a couple in our garden and just love them.

 After getting the car we made our way towards the Hakea walk. After parking the car I stopped to take a photo of the view, our first glimpse of the lake. There were to be more tantalising glimpses like this all day.

 We found the Hakea walk. Hakeas are members of the Proteaceae family, a family of flowers that I love, they always produce such interesting shapes and colors.

 
Banksia's are a part of the same family, this isn't a banksia but it has very similar seed pods. They reminded me of the Banksia Men from 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie' tho the Banksia Men were much hairier and scarier.

We found our way out of that twisted little grove full of it's twisted little plants and found a path that had more flowers ... Late flowering Wattle.

 No idea what this is, but it's a pretty picture.

By now Giz was getting the hang of standing round waiting for me to finish snapping. But when we were moving it was Giz's choice, she led the way all day so we headed further away from the car going down hill with no idea what we were headed for.

She even stood still while we were surrounded by bees so that I could get this shot.

 The bees were hungry for these little beauties.

 We came out of the bush to see this in front of us. At the same time that we spotted this obviously man made structure, we heard a thumping sound in the bush to the right of the path. We had no idea what either thing was, Giz was keen to go explore the man made structure in front of us.

 After twisting down the hill on a winding little path, and only getting lost once. We discovered that the roof was covering a fernery. The temperature cooled as soon as we stepped under the man made canopy.

 There were all sorts of paths carved into the rock, bridges to cross little waterways. It smelt fresh and almost reminded of a rainforest. Considering we are in a more desert type of location out here, I'm pretty impressed that they managed to do this.

It was about here that Giz and I heard two more thumps, and saw a grey shape bounce out of our view in the bush above us. We think it was probably a Wallaby or Kangaroo, the thump being it's tail hitting the ground. I was disappointed that I didn't get a better look at it, but kinda glad cause I'm not sure what Giz would do if she was confronted by wildlife like that.

 More tiny flowers to line our path.

They provided a nice little place to sit and take in the surroundings.

 

 And wooden stepping stones over a tiny waterway.

More seed pods.

 After making it back up the hill to the car, and getting the car up the hill (that was a bit touch and go) we decided to find the Lookout that was marked on our map.

More flowers, I think these are a type of Grevillea, but could be wrong.

 

  It was getting late, I knew we would never get to see everything in one day, so we just went for a quick walk round at the top. 

 Found some more fascinating seed pods.

 Gizmo enjoyed the view as much as I did.

 Looking back up at the lookout, there were a lot of winding paths here, and Giz was keen to explore a bit here.

 

 I found more interesting delicate little flowers.

 

 With seed pods.

 

 This pretty little flower was the last one on the tree, I'm not sure what it is but the flowers look like they would normally cover it when it's in full bloom.

 That was all we had time to do, there is so much more to see, and I could have taken so many more photos. I know it's going to become one of my favourite places and be assured you will see more of it here. These plants change all the time, sometimes they are flowering, sometimes they are just sticks and leaves, even the seed pods are fascinating. I cant wait to see what is here next month!