So I had no idea about the big comet event last week until my friend Ray emailed last weekend to ask if we could see it Down Under. I looked it up and it was going to be reasonably visible for a couple days and we have a good view to the western sky from our house, so we thought we’d watch for it on Saturday night. But a) it was cloudy and b) we had a music bingo event to attend with our friend Leigh at the time it would most likely be visible, so no comet to be seen that night. Then, in a case of serendipity, Dr John, the local astronomer who puts on star talks when there is interesting celestial activity, messaged Hugh to say he thought there was a decent chance of seeing it on Sunday night before it leaves our view forever in search of a new solar system.
Dr John sent us GPS coordinates to meet him and the other stargazers at the best spot from which to see the comet. The spot was between Yeppoon and Rockhampton, but in an area we’d never been to before, so even just driving to see the comet was fun! We were on a gravel road that runs through cow pastures, so we had to navigate between cows at one point:
They were also doing a controlled burn in one section, first time we’ve driven through one:
I can only imagine the terrible visibility if there was an actual bush fire, it was hard enough to see when they were just doing a controlled burn. If I haven’t previously told you about controlled burns, this is a technique to reduce the impact of bush fires – they burn off a bunch of the “fuel” (tall grasses, etc.) in a controlled manner (i.e., with a fire truck there and a bunch of people to keep an eye on everything). So we see (and smell) smoke in the hills around Yeppoon from time to time.
After getting through the smoke and the cows, the gravel road started following along Hedlow Creek. Now when you see the word “creek” here, it is often just a trickle of water, but Hedlow Creek was beautiful, reminded me of rivers in Ontario:
We noticed some caravans (campers/RVs) parked near the river here and there so I googled it when I got home. Hedlow Creek sounds very cool – we may have to take our kayaks out here at some point and have a day of kayaking and picnicking. If you click on the Hedlow Creek link, you’ll see reference to “trachyte plugs” – these are the remnants of volcanos from millions of years ago and you see them dotted along the road from Yeppoon to Rockhampton. The area they’re in is called Baga National Park. Now in a case of funny timing, you’ll remember that 2 weeks ago I told you we bought some art from local artists, one being this photograph by Matt Harding:
He had climbed up Baga to get this photo at sunrise and he had been explaining to me how to get to where he was – and lo and behold, that’s where the comet watching was happening 🙂
We watched the sunset while awaiting the appearance of Comet A3 and got some pretty photos:
When the comet appeared, it was just above the windmill. We were able to see it with our binoculars but Dr John also had his big telescope to look through. We only had a few minutes before the clouds rolled in and obscured it, so I was very glad to have had the opportunity! With the western sky becoming cloudy, Dr John turned his telescope to the eastern sky and we got a fabulous view of Saturn and its rings, very cool!
So that’s the comets and cows part. Onto carts!
This is a common sight at the golf course – people have their own golf carts that they tow to the course each time they play!
Oh – another C word I could have put in this week’s title is curling. There is a dramatic increase in the number of spiels being broadcast on YouTube this year so we’ve been able to get our curling fix. This event had a chat option so Hugh posted:
The commentators recognised his name and mentioned him on air (I think we win for being the fans watching from the furthest away!) – Hugh got a little teary for a moment remembering all the fun times and friends from his many years of curling. And then a few moments later the phone rang. It was our friend Rob B who was watching the same game back in Canada and heard Hugh’s name on the TV. More tears after catching up with a wonderful friend!
And now the damn cane toads. I think I’ve previously told you about these menaces. Click on the link to learn their history and why they’re a problem. You will recall that we get green tree frogs here that like to hang out in our downpipes and bark LOUDLY when it rains (yes, bark – they sound like a dog barking in a tin shed). They have stayed away recently, perhaps word spread about Hugh’s last interaction with one. In their place, I was enjoying this lovely warbling sound in the evenings. Last summer (my summer, your winter) I think I told you about this warbling sound and I indicated that I hadn’t seen the frog but on the basis of the sound, I thought it was a Peron’s Tree Frog. Well the sound was really close to the house this week so the other night, after watching a couple episodes of Territory on Netflix (very good Aussie series), Hugh and I got our torches (flashlights) out to go look for the frog in our front yard so I could share with you a photo of my beloved Peron’s Tree Frog. Well, it was in fact not a Peron’s Tree Frog:
A horrible cane toad is what makes the warbling noise! I’m crushed. And there were 2 of them hanging out near the pond. “Were” because Hugh transported them through the air as far as he could throw with the shovel (with apologies to any neighbours inadvertently affected…). Our friend Leigh has previously given us suggestions on what to do with cane toads and last night, while having a fabulous dinner over at Rod and Lou’s, Rod has added to the list of cane toad disposal tips. You usually rely on snakes to get rid of vermin but there is only one snake that has immunity to the poison on the cane toad’s back so they really have no natural predators. Ugh.
In the category of nice sounds are all the tropical birds here. Except these days when the sun is rising really early and the birds like to start singing even earlier, usually around 4:30am. I’m thinking it’s maybe the baby birds that are up early chirping away and their tired parents try to sleep through it for a bit but eventually give up and tell them to keep quiet because they stop after awhile and we too can get back to sleep!
Not long after my last blog post, we were coming back from the pickleball courts and saw a creature we hadn’t seen before. Our initial thought when we saw these 2 small critters jumping onto a tree trunk was squirrels – but of course, there are no squirrels here. We did some googling when we got home and learned that they were Brushtail Possums, very cute! No photo, I’m afraid, it was dark and they were very speedy.
As we are nearing the start of summer, cicadas are starting to appear, just like they would in Canada. Always like listening to them. Here is one that landed on our patio, about 1.5 inches:
I took that photo a couple days ago and just tonight noticed he’s still there – so that would be a dead cicada :(.
A few days ago as I was walking to the car in the garage, I walked through a spider web. Not unusual except it was a particularly strong web, have never walked through anything quite so stringy (but still barely visible). Then a couple days ago we discovered this fun inhabitant in our garage, a Northern Jewelled Spider:
He’s only about 1.5 cm at the widest but so funky looking. I previously posted a photo of one that I almost bumped into, literally, at work one day. They’re harmless to humans – unless you get caught in their very strong webs 🙂 The one in our garage moved today to position himself in front of our washer and dryer, at approximately head height, so we kept almost bumping into each other today while I was doing laundry. He eventually had enough and moved higher up toward the ceiling. I’m not sure what kind of bugs the spider likes to eat but boy it would be nice if it was flies. I think I’ve told you about the flies here – they look like normal house flies but their behaviour is so aggressive, they aren’t afraid of anything and get right in your face. We’ve also noticed that they smell cooked food a mile away and if we’re having a cooked meal inside, they even swarm the screens to try to get in. This is them while I was sitting in my home office having a hot lunch one day this week:
Incredibly annoying! And then when the food is done, off they go somewhere else. I can only imagine how bad they are in the Outback.
It wouldn’t be a blog post without a beach photo so here is a video taken last week when we had unusually strong waves:
Still very minimal compared to what we’d get on Lake Ontario but the water here is usually super calm because of the islands off the coast, so this was unusual.
Speaking of the islands, here’s a great article about them.
Speaking of the lack of waves here, on the other side of the highway not far from where we were stargazing is a place called Surf Lakes. They have neat wave-making technology and they’re apparently planning a surfing resort in the middle of a field – it’s pretty hard to surf here because of the lack of waves, so I guess this would be a good solution for the non-surfing tourists to enjoy our fabulous beaches while their surfing friends head inland to Surf Lakes 🙂 We’ll see if it happens!
We had to put a couple new tires on our car the other week. One downside of roundabouts everywhere, that I never thought of, is uneven wear – you’re always driving clockwise in circles 🙂 Fortunately, tires are reasonably priced here. And it’s so nice to not have to swap summers and winters twice a year!
Speaking of driving, we’ve become very comfortable driving on the left side of the road, it was actually a very easy transition. In fact, watching shows on Netflix, driving on the right actually looks odd to us now! The only time it catches me sometimes is when I’m turning right – I feel the need to check that there isn’t a car coming behind me on the right because it feels like I’m turning right from the left hand lane.What has been much more difficult is getting used to driving on the right side of the car. We’ve been here 18 months now and we both still walk to the wrong side of the car from time to time and grab for the seatbelt on the wrong side. It still even feels odd to be controlling the car from the right, like when backing into a parking spot.
Well that’s it for now. 3 more sleeps until my mom and sister arrive!!!