Wedding Bells Falls

Yesterday we took a gorgeous hike through the rain forest west of Woolgoolga (the town nearest Red Rock) to Wedding Bells Waterfall. It was a beautiful walk to an even more beautiful falls. The best part of the falls was that if you stand (or sit, the rocks are slippery) under the falls you are surrounded by a perfect circular rainbow. I think we were very lucky that we arrived at exactly the right time of day for this to happen. We plan to go back with a disposable waterproof camera to try to get photos of this unusual phenomenon.
We cooled off in the pools at the bottom of the waterfall before hiking back to the cars.

Party Time

This weekend was our son-in-law, Joe's, birthday party. On Friday there was a big house party and on Saturday a cricket match followed by drinks and awards at the Bowling Club. On Sunday there was a lawn bowling competition, which Joe and his partner, Tim won by a narrow margin over Marcel (is it cool to beat your father-in-law?) and his partner, Matt.
While the cricket match was on, someone spotted a Goanna (not sure of the spelling here), which is pretty big and scary looking. Someone told us that they are quite dangerous and can claw you badly. Hence, the distance photography.



This is a picture of the point of red rocks that give the town it's name. Our ambition is to walk down the beach to Corindi, the next town. It is a 6 km (3.7 mile) walk so we have to choose a day that is not too hot and a time when the tide is low. Stay tuned for how that turns out.

Birthday Party

Yesterday was Reve's 4th birthday. The high point of the day is the birthday cake smash. All the little boys know what is to happen. After the candles are blown out, everyone grabs big chunks of cake, demolishing the entire thing. Carmel started it several years ago when she got tired of trying to keep True and his friends out of the cake.




This is Reve's last go at what is left of the cake!

Here I am holding a green tree frog that the kids found on the deck.
The rain has stopped and we were able to go swimming for the first time today. We have been having a wonderful time as you can imagine from the lack of blog entries.

Red Rock

We are having a wonderful time here in Red Rock, Australia. There has been almost no time to be on the computer, as it should be when you are on holidays. The weather has been fantastic for us, although the people here are complaining a bit. It has been cool and rainy, which is great for us to get acclimatised. Here we are walking to the ocean which is about 5 minutes away. We walked half an hour down the beach and the back and met absolutely no one. It's like we have paradise all to ourselves.

Carmel, our daughter, has an Aboriginal friend who took us on a bushwalk and pointed out several kinds of plants that are good to eat. Then we went to the ocean and they picked some Googoombulls (I hope I have spelled that correctly) from the rocks. They had to be soaked in fresh water for a few hours and then they brought them here to cook. The picture below is when they have just opened.

Here we are cutting off the edible part. They were quite delicious and reminded me of calamari. I really enjoy seafood and living as we do, miles from the nearest ocean, it's a real treat to have really fresh shellfish.

We have also eaten crocodile, emu and kangaroo meat. All of them were very tasty. So far we haven't had a chance at a Witchety Grub. I'm not sure how I would feel about one of them!
I will probably not be posting with much regularity since we have to swap the internet cable from computer to computer and it is a bit of a hassle. I have read all the comments though and thank you for them. It is a bit of a problem to send mail from this computer without changing some of the settings so for now I probably won't be replying to your comments.

Finally, here is my grandson , True, on his skateboard.

And this is Reve. There should be an accent over the first e, but I don't know how to do it on the computer. His name is French for Dream.

Guess Where We Are

We have arrived at Red Rock in Australia and are experiencing rain instead of snow, a nice change. Today we ate crocodile and kangaroo with lemon myrtle sauce at the Aboriginal Center which was a great way to celebrate the government saying "Sorry" to the Aboriginals.

We spent Chinese New Year in Hong Kong by watching amazing fireworks along with a hundred thousand other people. I have never been part of such a large crowd but it was very orderly and felt quite safe.



We also saw some dragon dancers there that were very impressive.

The Beauty of Winter

We woke up this morning to light snow and beautiful frost on the trees. It's still pretty cold so the snowshoes and snowboard seem to be staying where they are.

Flying Geese

Yesterday I had started to clean my studio when I found a small flying geese ruler that I had bought in Fargo and completely forgotten about. Well, what is more fun, cleaning or trying out a new ruler?? Before I knew what was happening, I had made lots of them. I don't know what I'll do with them. They will sit on my design wall until we get back and then they will either become part of something or hit the parts drawer.

I like to travel with my own pillow but I found out last year that it doesn't pay to use a white pillow case. Most hotel pillowcases are white and it's easy to forget your pillow. Ask me, I know. I bookmarked this tutorial by Vicky awhile ago and it seemed like a good time to give it a try. The first one turned out great, exactly what I wanted so what could I do but make a second one.