Table Rock Dam

Wednesday was a lazy day here at the reunion. Mostly cloudy and occasional showers. Temerature was warm in the morning and dropping later in the day.
Not weather conducive to bicycle riding. Spent much of the morning visiting. About 11, I drove down the Table Rock Dam and Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery. Time to play tourist.
Shot some photos at the fish hatchery. From there, I stopped at the view point parking lot on the lake side of the dam.
Next it was a stop and the HQ and Visitor's Center. Not much to see there. They are building a new Visitor's Center. The lake shore walking/cycling trail starts at the Visitor's Center. Time permitting, I want to ride the 2.2 mile trail on the road bike (the trails is paved).
Ended my tour driving to the trailhead #2. The first parking lot on that road is the only spot that affords and view of the dam. Nap time!
In the evening, a large group of us went to Charlies Steak Ribs & Ale for dinner. Much better service than Tuesday dinner. And, I was able to able to have my local micro-brew. The proplem was my food was over-cooked, dry. Others commented their's did not taste right. Some of the group had been to Charlies before and the food was great. So, food at Charlies was so-so.
Had to shoot one mug shot and play a DVD on my laptop. Visited Paulette for a bit while the video played. VERY tired (over-tired) by the time I got to my room.

Windows Around the World

Billie The Beak - Gone, but not Forgotten

We have been in denial for the last two days, but extensive searches have failed to find Billie the Beak. That feisty ex-battery hen, a real character. We will miss her.

Here she is leading her little flock - Little Red Hen and Sick Chick. Billie was always the boss, she ruled their woodland with a very pointy beak, and she wasn't afraid to use it.

She was always the first to greet us when we went into the wood.

This was her usual form of greeting and it didn't matter whether we wore wellies or sandals... she preferred the sandal option.

The other two hens are a little lost without their leader. Because we were working in the gardens today we let the hens out of the wood to join us, they just wanted company... and a few birdy treats from under the apple tree.

Sparky decided to check out the bird boxes and pointed out that this one needs some maintenance. Thanks Sparky.

During my lunch break I nipped up the road to visit Arnold - another shock awaited me... an empty field...no Arnold ... just a lock of coarse, black horse (tail) hair, near the fence.





My heart was in my mouth as I knocked on John's door and asked if Arnold was alright - John came out and shouted for him ... eventually Arnold came out of the inner yard, munching on some hay. Phew! What a relief.

He doesn't look quite as smart as he did at the weekend because he has been rolling in the mud again - but he still looks better than normal. He was a little miffed when I pulled out the camera and made him wait for his carrot. He forgave me, especially when we got to his favourite part of the proceedings, his polo mint.

I took the opportunity to check with John about what type of tree this one is. He confirmed that it is an Ash. The house was built in the 1830's, so the tree may well be a similar age, approx 180 years. It has the typical lattice patterned trunk of an ancient Ash tree. We still don't know whether it is one or two trees though!

'Bye Billie, I hope your end was swift.

Progress and Pressies...

Hi...
I feel so blessed.
I wanted my mom to make a quickie post to say humongous thanks again for all the well-wishing from so many doggies and other furry creatures (as well as your parents, too, of course). It means so much to me and I’m going to make an attempt at directing Mom to visit some of your blogs today to see what you’ve all been up to. Then I’ll dictate some commentary to Ma.

Doorbell does not ring, but Mom finds this and beautiful flowers on the mat. Thank you Honey!



I love this card too! What a happy Boston Terrier!



I had a pretty good night, but my stitches bothered me a little. Still, I actually ate two little jars of turkey baby food off of Ma’s index finger and kept it down. This is really good news. I’ve had lots of water and meds too and have also kept these down.
Golden Honey stopped by last evening, but never rang the doorbell. Imagine my surprise when we found the above on the mat. How gorgeous! Thank you so, so much Honey – I love tulips – especially “golden” ones and they are cheering me up! How sweet. And my pals at Pet Express sent a doggie carrot cookie home with Mom yesterday. I’ll love digging into that in a couple of weeks! Thank you, kind ladies at P.E. so much! I’ll keep you updated, but for now, I’m finally getting to visit some of your blogs.

Huge Hugs and So Many Thanks xo

Sammie

A Small English Village and a Cute Little Car

Situated just three miles from Louth is a small village, Little Cawthorpe. This beautiful building is the manor house and dates to 1673.

Click to enlarge!

Even the gateposts are original and yet somehow a post collection box was carefully fitted into it during Victorian times.



Whenever we pass this pretty little manor house I have to steal a look.

Just opposite it, on a small bank, is the village church. St Helen's was rebuilt about 150 years ago, in red and black brick.







I really like the way that whoever designed the pathway to the church didn't go for the easy option, they decided to make it flow, built in a curve. Red and black brick do not appeal to me, the pathway does!










Right next to the church is the village pond. This area had seven springs and is the source of the Long Eau. At some point it was decided to turn this soggy place into a village pond - and it is quite beautiful. The road is called "Watery Lane", that should tell you everything you need to know about how wet it gets.

It is a beautiful, peaceful place, although I don't think I would like my house to be quite that close to the water.

There are a couple of other interesting buildings which I would like to show you, I will photograph them when I visit the church.



Forgive me, this is pure self-indulgence. I spotted this cute little car in a car park, just a couple of miles up the road at the garden centre.

An Austin Seven.

So cute, so dinky, I could almost have fitted it into the boot of my car.



The sun was shining so brightly I couldn't see what I was photographing, I had to resort to good old point, click, hope for the best. They are not brilliant shots, but at least I got the right car!

The impostor!

Around 80km to the south of here is a dirt road climbing over a range that passes through Mt Jerusalem National Park. This climb is quite steep in places (particularly from the north side), so much so that for a long time I actually mistook it for the real Mt Jerusalem. Ironically, it was only after I discovered that it was a fake that I discovered many of the other attractions in the area. However, last Saturday was all about incorporating the ride as part of a circuit. For once it was a cool day -- at 24 degrees C it felt more like winter than summer, so I was going to make the most of it.

The rainforest of Urliup is now my regular start to most of the southern rides. It was once the regular ride home, until I was reminded that the climb over Tomewin to get home cuts out around 10km of suburbia. At the start or the finish, Urliup is still quite pleasant. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that the rally last month hadn't torn the place to shreds. It was also interesting to see that someone obviously reads this blog because some tracks indicated someone HAD actually taken a road bike along the now very smooth dirt road. Interesting.


Further south, it looks like the local sugar cane farmers have taken to burning some of their crops for some reason. I'm not quite sure what this achieves, but I can only guess that sugar is a product that doesn't store very well, meaning there's no point having it on hand if you don't get a decent price for it immediately. The strong southerly wind that was around blew the smoke away fairly quickly regardless, and it was now time to start the series of climbs over Round Mountain and Cudgera Creek, to the next phase of the ride.

It seems as though my blog is making me something of a celebrity in these parts, and sometimes the recognition comes in the most out of the way places. This conversation informed me, among other things, that the dirt road over the Impostor would be in a treacherous condition due to the amount of dust around. Fortunately, a couple of rain showers eased that problem by the time I hit the climb. There really is something unbelievably beautiful about the Australian bush when it's wet. It's an intangible quality that really has to be experienced because it just can't be described.

The descent into Uki was notable for the dropping temperature in the rain -- now just 14 degrees C, which at this time of year is a little like snow on the Equator. At Uki I ran into group of hippies who were on a short (three day) bike tour of the Tweed Valley. One of them had broken a derailleur a few kilometres up the road, and had limped into the village. The nearest bike shop was in Murwillumbah, and that was closed. They were asking people in the village if anyone had an old bike from which they could salvage the part they needed. Last I heard they were heading for the Murwillumbah rubbish tip (wherever that is) to try to find an old bike there. Given that the ride back to Banora Point where they started is basically flat, they might as well have just ridden straight back.

For my part, I still had the final climb over Tomewin to navigate, and that was after a surprising headwind between Uki and Murwillumbah. What was surprising about this is that it required the wind to come from the North, when it had spent the rest of the day coming from the South quite strongly. Normal service was resumed just after Murwillumbah, so I'm not sure what the wind was on about here. Either way, it was forgotten with a clinical demolition of the Tomewin climb. While it wasn't my fastest time, it was still pretty good at the end of a ride of this length, and left me with plenty in reserve to mop up the last 30km from the top.
I finished the day with 180km, and still felt fine that the finish. Since returning from my tour, all I've wanted to do is ride. I thought motivation was supposed to go the other way after a tour, but I'm not complaining.