The Kill

Nadia caught her first mouse today. Up until now she has watched Buffy stalk and capture field mice while she can only glare in envy and sniff at the remains. She showed up at the back door, mouse in jaws, waiting to be let in. My previous experience with (accidentally) letting a cat with mouse in the house ended with the mouse running under the stove and me (not the cat!) having to grab the mouse and release it back outside. This time I slipped out while waving my hands at her to show her that the mouse was not welcome inside.
The mouse was already dead, but Nadia spent several minutes playing with it like it was one of her toy mice. Buffy, the mousing mentor, sat in the background, observing her pupil.

Raven and Peacock

Raven trying to steal feathers (perhaps) from a peacock at Blackbutt Nature Preserve. He finally gave up and went wandering off elsewhere.

Magpie Wrestling

Video I took of two Australian Magpies near Horseshoe Beach in Newcastle. The first magpie had jumped up to grab a piece of the plant. I'm not sure what he was doing that for - maybe catching a juicy bug? He got knocked off balance with the plant in his mouth and ended up on his back. His mate came over to investigate and started pecking at him. It's not an action packed video but I thought it was interesting.

Happy New Year 2007

Happy New Year to everybody! As you've noticed I haven't been posting to this blog for awhile. I think I ran out of steam (and how many times do you want to hear about my walks along the beach?) and I was getting tired of comments from spammers promising me Rolex watches and Viagra. The next few months are going to be pretty busy for me; hopefully I will have my M.Ed completed by May. Perhaps I will return to blogging then. In the meantime, I have been posting pictures to my Deviant Art page if you're interested.

Crystal Creek Holiday - Part II

Kitchen overlooking rainforest.

Each cabin has a small kitchen with a gas stove and a gas barbeque grill on the deck. You can either bring in your own food or order a food hamper. We ordered the meat hamper, which came with enough beef to feed us for two dinners and a lunch. Bob was very happy to grill again, as we had to leave our grill behind in Texas. We also had potatoes, greek salad, and desserts (with lots of chocolate).

Dining Room.

Bathroom.

One of the highlights of the cabin was the bathroom - it was huge! The tub was surrounded on three sides by windows overlooking the rainforest. There were privacy fences of course so that our neighbors couldn't peek in. At nighttime we could turn on the outside lights which illuminated the trees and listen to a cd (there were speakers in the ceiling) --very peaceful and relaxing. It's a good thing we don't have one of these in our apartment because I would probably take a bath everyday (and our water bill would be quite large).


Twice we were paid a visit by one of the brush turkeys that live below the cabin. The first time he looked like he wanted to steal our socks that we had drying on the railing. The second time he explored a little then left when he realized we weren't going to feed him. The retreat asks guest to refrain from feeding any of the wild animals for good reason. The picture above was taken just before this turkey slid around on our barbeque. He looked like he was ice skating. Guess he didn't really enjoy it and he flew back to the ground a bit awkwardly with a thud.

Crystal Creek Holiday - Part I

Underneath the natural bridge in NB State Park, Queensland.

Bob and I flew up to south Queensland/northern NSW for a weekend holiday at the Crystal Creek Retreat. We don't usually splash out like this on holidays but this was a special occasion; a belated 2nd anniversary and a celebration of (finally) selling our house a little over a month ago. We flew into Brisbane, Queensland and drove about 1 and 1/2 hours south across the border to where the retreat was located. On the way we stopped at the Natural Bridge State Park to stretch our legs and take some pictures.

I took over 800 photographs on this trip - of which only about 10 turned out halfway decent. I was getting really frustrated because every picture I took seemed so dark. I attributed it to the lack of sunlight in the rainforest and/or a problem with my camera. Finally on the second day I think Bob was getting a little weary of hearing me raining down curses on my camera everytime I took a picture. He suggested it might be due to my polarizing filters. I didn't think he knew what he was talking about but I took off the filters just to humour him. Ooops. The next picture I took seemed about 10x lighter and didn't look like I had taken it in the middle of the night! So lesson learned - polarizing filters may work well in the sunlight but aren't so hot in the dappled shade of the rainforest (or indoors for that matter). I took a few pictures of Bob looking (rightly) smug immediately after the discovery..heh heh.

View from our deck -- can't beat this!

The retreat property has over 5km of trails. We decided to undertake the most difficult one, the trail straight up the hill/mountain to the lookout on top. I thought I was in good shape but I was sweating, puffing, and cursing all the way to the top. I was in the lead and was covered in little spider webs from the little spiders along the trail. Those didn't bother me - the ones that came later did. On the way back down the mountain Bob was in the lead. I was looking at the ground and suddenly noticed something big, slimy and ugly immediately in front of me. I don't even think it registered consciously for the first few seconds but my unconscious primal fear of creeping things kicked in and took over. Bob said that I made this deep guttural sound that was a mixture of intense disgust and fear. It actually was nothing more than a cane toad, but it was the biggest and ugliest looking toad that I've ever seen. Plus, I don't have any love for cane toads as they are an introduced species that are wiping out much of Australia's wildlife. I didn't realize that they had made it this far south yet, but one of the guys who works at Crystal Creek said they're even down to Sydney now. Nasty. I took a picture but as it was taken when I still had my bright sunlight filters on, you can barely see it.

Road to Crystal Creek.

View from our balcony.

Melissa the Intrepid Explorer

I also had my first encounter with a huntsman spider on this trip. I knew that they were not poisonous but that did not do anything to calm my fear when I saw a huge specimen about 3 feet from my pillow (right before I was going to bed). When I approached it, he skittered sideways extremely quickly and I yelled for Bob to come in and kill it. I don't have a deep love for spiders but I've lived with them before and have even come to admire some of them, such as the large yellow orb spiders we had in Greenville. This one really freaked me out though. Bob said later that the way it moved reminded him of the alien egg implanter in the movie Alien. As a result of this pre-bedtime encounter I stayed awake for most of the night with the light on and my eyes wide open, sitting straight up and throwing back the covers everytime I felt a hair move. I slept better the next night but then found two more spiders near our luggage the next morning and the creepy feeling came right back.

Really, I did have a great time on this trip - it was just the spider encounters in the bedrooom that affected my sleep quality. I was back in exploratory mode during the day time.

 

Public Service Announcement

Laura talked me into getting an account at Deviant Art. I've uploaded some new photos, including the one above. To check out my stuff, go here --> http://shifragutterkat.deviantart.com/ . For Laura's art and photography, click here --> http://devyani.deviantart.com/ At some point I might sign up for the service where you can buy prints straight from the site, but I still haven't decided. I'll still post pics and such to this site - my DA gallery is just a collection of pictures that I really like.

Blackbutt Birds

Crested Pigeon

Bob's aunt Bonnie flew down from Chicago to visit us for 8 days. One of the first places we took her was to Blackbutt Nature Preserve. Most of the pictures in the blog from her visit were taken using her new Canon Powershot camera. The zoom and image stabilizer worked really well and enabled us to take great close-up shots of birds.

Nankeen Night Heron

Laughing Kookaburra

We were walking one of the trails on our way to find the fruit bats when this kookaburra flew right in front of us and landed on a branch about four feet away. He patiently sat still while we took several photos. We were pretty excited to see a kookaburra so close up. There are at least two or three that live in the park across from our apartment but I rarely see them up close.

 

Whale Watching out of Nelson Bay

One of the many dolphins surrounding our boat.

Bonnie and I drove up to Nelson Bay to catch a whale watching cruise with Imagine Cruises. The cruise was 3 1/2 hours long, and while we saw over 50 dolphins we didn't see any whales. This was probably due to the fact that we were at the very tail end of the northern migration season. In about a month or so the whales will migrate back south. Regardless, it was pretty exciting seeing the dolphins race with our sailboat and leap out of the water.

Although the sea was calm, the constant up and down motion of the boat gave both Bonnie and I a bit of seasickness. After I watched the dolphins for awhile I took a motion sickness pill and sat in the back of the boat with my eyes closed until we turned back towards the bay. Perhaps a career in the Coast Guard is not in my future..

Coming out of the bay and keeping my eyes on the horizon.

Blue water - no whales

 

Afternoon at Oakvale Farm

Male koala in the breeding pen.

After our ocean adventure we headed down to Oakvale Farm so that Bonnie could pet a koala and a kangaroo. My friends the goats remembered me and scampered over to greet me when I arrived. Well, maybe it was the bag of animal feed in my hand.

My pals at the farm..

O the noble camel...

Bonnie makes some new Aussie friends.

 

Royal Botanic Gardens - Part 1

These are miscellaneous pictures taken in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.


Art Gallery of New South Wales

 

Royal Botanic Gardens 2

Juvenile (?) Australian White Ibis

Ibis on Parade

Pink Blossoms

Morning Dew

 

Sydney in August

Cafe in Queen Victoria Building

Bonnie and I took the train to Sydney on Tuesday. We spent the first day shopping and wearing ourselves out. Bonnie bought enough t-shirts to clothe all the inhabitants of Chicago and I purchased the (nearly 900-page) McGee on Food and Cooking - An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture. That should keep me occupied for awhile.

We walked down to Chinatown for dinner that night. I was dying for some Peking Duck so we ordered the two course meal. For the first course they brought out the entire duck (head and neck still attached) and carved off slices of the succulent skin, fat, and flesh for our duck pancakes. We rolled the pancakes with plum sauce, sticks of cucumber, green onion, jalapeno pepper, and of course the duck. Splendid! Unfortunately neither of us brought the camera, so you will just have to imagine how delicious everything looked. For our second course we had fried rice with the rest of the duck sliced up into the rice.

Fountain in Hyde Park.

The next morning we walked through Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens before catching the train back to Newcastle. We visited the gardens early in the day so it was peaceful and relatively free of other people.

Australian White Ibis

There were loads of Ibis(es?) in the park. The majority of them appeared to be nesting on a small island in the middle of one of the ponds. In addition to the ibis, swallows, crows, and sulphur crested cockatoos were also pretty active in the area.

Fruit bats taking a snooze.

 

Morpeth

Bonnie and I drove to Morpeth for a light lunch and some more sightseeing. We ate at a little cafe overlooking the Hunter River. I had the Thai noodle cake with salad and Bonnie had the pesto pasta bite with salad. Most every restaurant I've eaten at in Australia serves a side salad. The great thing about these salads is that they are made with quality ingredients - no iceberg lettuce here! Photo above is of the helpful Australian custom of serving tap water in bottles at restaurants. It looks nice and helps us avoid having to constantly bug the waiter or waitress to refill our glass.

Beautiful wooden chairs at $380 each.

Morpeth was holding a Teapot Festival. We were not so thrilled with the teapots - we're more into the functional kind. There were cars, robots, and snowwomen with bikinis!

Sourdough..mmmmm.

We stopped by the wine/cheese shop so I could buy some of my favorite feta cheese that has been soaked in muscat wine. Then we popped into Morpeth Sourdough for a loaf of white tin sourdough. All of their breads are made without additives and are low GI. My favorite is the white tin, which is the most sour. The last time I was in the bakery I mentioned that Australian sourdough is not as "sour" as what I'm used to - such as San Francisco sourdough. The lady who was working there that day also happened to work for the bakery as a microbiologist. She told me that the sourdough culture used in Australia is different, hence the different taste. Nevertheless, Morpeth sourdough is delicious and I don't feel quite so guilty eating so many slices (daily!) knowing that it is (relatively) healthy for me.

 

Morning Walk in Newcastle

Bonnie and I took a walk south from Newcastle Beach to King Edward Park and the Bogey Hole. The sea was calm and clear; we could see where the rocks and sea grass were located in contrast to the sandy areas, which appeared light green.

Looking towards Glenrock State Recreation Area.

Flowers in bloom at King Edward Park.

Bonnie's photo of Newcastle Beach

 

Hunter Valley Part 1

Synchronized Ducks

Bob, Bonnie and I drove out to the Hunter Wine Valley on Friday. Our first stop was at Bliss Coffee in the Hunter Valley Gardens Village for a flat white and a latte. Then we walked over to the Hunter Valley Gardens. There were several groups of school kids there for Jamie Durie's (a "celeb" gardener) Children's Book Week kick-off. All of the kids were really well behaved and excited to take part in the potting demonstration, which was being filmed by a local television crew.

White-Faced Heron


There were several different themes within the gardens. My favorites were the Italian Grotto and the Indian Mosaic Tea Garden. I especially loved the smell of curry plants as we walked through the garden.

Indian Mosaic Tea Garden Entrance

 

Hunter Valley Part 2

Flat White at Bliss Coffee

Bob and Bonnie

Orange and Yellow Flowers...

Pink Blossom, Blue Sky

 

The Sea Teaches Me a Lesson

Morning walk - blue sea
High tide, but I don't notice,
perched up on my rock
Too high for the waves up here!
Splash! Chastened and soaked, long walk home.

My attempt at a Japanese tanka commemorating my foolishness this morning. There's a sign just before the breakwater warning people of rogue waves. The sea looked calm to me, but I neglected to process the fact that it was high tide as I walked along the breakwater. There aren't many people out there early in the morning so I hopped up onto one of the highest rocks at the end and started scanning the sea for a whale or seal. I noticed the waves were a little rough below me but didn't think that anything could reach me! Of course I was completely neglecting the fact that I've seen waves go up that high before - in that exact same spot. Before long I noticed a wave approach the rocks. "That'll be a big one," I guessed. It sure was. Before I knew it, I was soaking wet. That was enough for me - I jumped off the rock, embarrassed and a little frightened, and headed home sopping wet.

 

Weekend in Sydney

Our hotel room overlooking Hyde Park.

Bob and I spent a day and a half in Sydney this weekend browsing the bookstores and relaxing. I neglected to bring my camera this trip which meant that there were several missed photo taking opportunities. I've recreated some of the scenes using Sims2 to make up for the lack of photographs.

We stayed at the Park Regis Sydney, which is right in the heart of the shopping district. I had mistakenly booked a room with two king-sized single beds, so when we arrived I asked for a room with a king or queen bed. The clerk said that he didn't have any available, but a few seconds after we entered our room, he called and said that he would upgrade us to a premium room for free. So in addition to a king-sized bed, we also had a wonderful view of Hyde Park from our ninth floor room. The Coffee Club was right next door to our hotel, which was an added bonus, as we didn't have to wander all over the place looking for somewhere inexpensive to have coffee and breakfast the next morning.


Dinner at Don Quixote.

I couldn't decide between Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish for dinner, so we finally settled on Don Quixote. I had recently read a mouthwatering review of the Toston Sancho Panza, "...roast suckling pig done to utter perfection, with a brittle, salty layer of crackling. The juicy layer of fat under the skin melts into the flesh during roasting, leaving the meat extraordinarily succulent and saturated with flavour..." so just had to try it. The Toston Sancho Panza was indeed moist and delicious, and very filling. The Texan in me thinks that it would also have been quite tasty as a pulled pork sandwich with a dollop of barbeque saue. Bob had the beef filet wrapped in bacon, which he said was juicy and satisfying. We followed up our meal with the rich tasting chocolate mousse with strawberry coulis.

The next day we started off our morning with breakfast (bacon & egg roll and flat white coffee for me, eggs and toast and flat white for Bob) at the Coffee Club. Then it was off to Abbey's bookshop and the adjoining Language Book Centre for an hour or so. Our next stop was at Books Kinokuniya, just across the way. I dropped off Bob at the Coffee Club and headed back down to Chinatown to do some shopping.

My shopping spree.

I found a coin purse and a little bag at a store in the Sussex Centre in Chinatown. When I first showed them to Bob he thought I had bought them for my little niece or my sister. Ha. I guess they are something that I would have bought when I was twelve years old! I did balance out the juvenile flavor of my purchases with something a bit more mature - The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, a book written in tenth-century Japan detailing daily life in the Heian culture.

I ate lunch at a yum-cha restaurant in Chinatown. As this was my first time partaking in the yum-cha experience, I wasn't sure how to proceed. I decided to venture out of my "safe zone" (which usually means sticking to things like fried won-ton) and accept the first dish that the lady with the trolley offered me. As it happened, I had a pot of hot tea, shrimp dumplings (haa gaau), and steamed pork dumplings (shiu mai). I really wanted to try the salt and pepper calamari and the pork spareribs, but I was too full by the time I finished my dumplings. As the cooks prepared the various dim-sum dishes, the trolley ladies would work their way around the room, offering the freshly cooked food to the diners. Each time a diner selected an item, the trolley lady would mark the price on the bill, which would be taken up to the cash register at the end of the meal.

We headed back for Newcastle in the early afternoon. I saw about five kookaburras, several rabbits, a few kangaroos and a hawk or two from the train. Of course this was because I didn't have my camera - normally I don't see any wildlife on the Newcastle-Sydney journey. Quite a good weekend overall!

 

Sims2 Interiors

Primping in the mirror.

A few of the interiors I've designed with Sims2. This is the result of massive homework avoidance. "I'll just play the Sims for a few minutes before I start working on my assignment..." and three hours later I've designed a two story McMansion and my school books are gathering dust.

Thanks to Holy Simoly and Mango Sims for much of the new wall/floor designs and furniture.

Lounging by the pool.

More lounging. Japanese spa house just behind the pool area.

Front entrance.

 

Day Out in Sydney

Shoppers in the Queen Victoria Building (QVB)

I took the train from Newcastle to Sydney for a day of sightseeing and shopping. In retrospect, nearly six hours of tedious train travel is not worth the 4-5 hours of time spent actually sightseeing. So next time, I will stay overnight and really get my money's worth!

All of the pictures in today's blog are from the Queen Victoria Building, which was completed in 1898. The QVB is a great shopping destination (if a little pricey) and is a nice place to relax with a cup of coffee and engage in people-watching.

My first stop was at Kinokuniya - a large bookstore in the Galeries Victoria. Great selection of books and a decent cafe. I could only choose one book though, so I finally decided on Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, which covers the colonization of Australia in the 18th and 19th century.

19th century spiral staircase and centre dome in QVB.

Next stop was the Australian Museum. I had been looking forward to several hours of wandering through this museum. I ended up spending a mere 30 minutes in the museum, as it was not that impressive. I think the thing that turned me off the most was the exhibition of gems. They were tucked away in a grotty little room that was supposed to resemble a "treasure cave" of sorts. The gems seemed rather dull, and on closer inspection I realized it was because they were dusty - some even had cloth fibers caught in their mountings!

By the time I left the museum, I was rather hungry. I returned to Galeries Victoria for lunch at Wagamama, which looked like a promising Japanese-style restaurant. My plans were foiled after waiting in line (I was second in a line of three people) for over 30 minutes. I could see inside the restaurant and initially wasn't too worried since I saw at least three or four empty tables. My optimism faded as we continued to wait... and wait... and wait. Normally, I would have left for greener pastures long ago, but I really had my heart set on duck gyoza with plum dipping sauce. Changed my mind when two ladies walked out of the restaurant and advised us not to bother - apparently they had been waiting over an hour for their food! So I returned to QVB across the street, found a cafe with an empty table, and had a passable lunch of spanakopita and salad.

Pendulum clock in QVB.


I roamed through the QVB after lunch and realized that I only had an hour before I had to catch a train back to Newcastle. Stopped in to another cafe in the QVB for a lemon tart and lemongrass/ginger tea before heading back to the train station. Tart was disappointing (I am picky about my lemon tarts - the best one I've tasted by far is at the Danish Bakery in Newcastle), but the tea was refreshing and gave me a little boost. All in all, a good day - and quite exhausting.

 

Oakvale Farm

Our friend Deb, her son, and two of his friends took us out to Oakvale Farm today. Oakvale Farm is a place where the kids (and adults) can pet the resident koalas, kangaroos, pigs, horses, camels, ducks etc. Deb knew that I was dying to pet a kangaroo, hence our trip to Oakvale. Kangaroo fur, by the way, is quite soft. I was tempted to smuggle home a kangaroo and one or two of the cute little white goats who followed us around.

My new friend Skippy.

The noisy, greedy geese who nibbled at our fingers.

Kangaroos and camels besieging the boys.

 

Back to Back Wool Challenge

Today I drove forty minutes out to Tocal to witness the Back to Back Wool Challenge. The Challenge started in 1990's to promote wool and raise funds for cancer research. Funds are raised through raffle tickets and sale of homemade wool goods. Several teams around the world compete in the challenge, the goal being to blade shear a sheep, hand spin the wool, and knit it into a jumper, in under eight hours. This year, teams in Japan, Canada, the U.S, and Australia participated.


The Tocal Homestead, dating from the 1820's was also open for tours. The blacksmiths were busy making little horseshoes for the children.


The odd thing about being out at Tocal today is that I felt like I was in Wales. It was grey and a little drizzly out, there were sheep and horses nibbling on the green grass, and some of the trees and plants around the property had been transplanted from seeds brought over from England. Then I went for a walk in the Pumby Brush area along the river and remembered that I was in Australia as I scared off a few kangaroos and picked my way through through the dense roots and branches of the rainforest trees that formed a tunnel over the path.


Sheep - the reason I went out to Tocal today!

 

Winter in Newcastle

Today the weather service issued a gale warning for the New South Wales coast - S/SW winds from 30/40 knots and wave swells up to 5 metres (16.9 feet). Unfortunately, all the rain stayed offshore, but the wind and rough seas sure made for an interesting sight. Only a few foolhardy surfers braved the waves, while amateur photographers and fishermen were out along the beach and walkway in force.

Sunshine broke out for a few minutes just before sunset.


Cleaning the day's catch.

Lone surfer.

 

Blue Mountains Blair Witch

The majority of my photographs on this trip were either underexposed or overexposed. So I messed around with a few and made them look a little creepier than they already were. The first one is a bush growing out of the side of one of the Three Sisters. The original photograph had a completely washed out sky so I changed the tint a little.



Too little light in the canyon and a shaky hand.


A fern as we came up out of the canyon.


A blurry Hairpin Banksia.