Photography Course and Townsville

Margaret sneaked in her 60^thbirthday on July 14^th. We had a quiet day out in Atherton .

No fuss she said, just another day older.

Marg was very lucky to be able to go on a workshop weekend with a German Photographers Juergen and Stella Freund, well known for their Wild life nature photos. It was arranged through the Tableland Regional Council in Malanda where they managed to get a grant for a limited number of 15 people only and the cost was just $50.00. He held a weekend course taking us around the Atherton tableland area taking photos of different wild life. It was a full on weekend. We went to Granite Gorge to see the Rock Wallaby's up close. They are protected and have become very tame to the point that they eat oats out of your hands and like to be patted.

                                                                            


Teacher checking student

                                                                                  

 

Rock Wallaby

 

Margaret hand feeding a Rock Wallaby

 

After a morning of theory on Sunday we went to Mt Hypippamee to photograph water falls and ( hopefully) Cassowary . A large bird that is protected and can be very dangerous if you get up to close to it. As luck would have it after a lot of walking up and down rough tracks and taking some photo's, we came back to the car park and there were two adult cassowary and 3 chicks. The males look after the babies and are very protective of them and will charge at you if they feel threatened. There was a lot of excitement as these birds are not seen very often.

Dad and two baby Cassowary

                                                                               
                                                                                   

Dad and baby

                                                                              

Peek a Boo with a cassowary

 

                                                                                  

Stag horn ferns

 

From here we went to Bromfield swamp to photograph the Brolgas ( Native Companion ) flying into the swamp for the night. In October in the Tableland area they have a Crane week highlighting the cranes  and other birds in the area which are many.

                                                                          

Cranes coming into Blomfield swamp for the night

 

 

 

Cranes flying over to land before dark

                                                                              

                                                                         

John had been busy helping Glen build a fernery for Anne close to the house. Once that was completed it was time for us to have another look around the area in our caravan. As I (Marg)are starting work at the Atherton Holiday Caravan Park as a relieving Manager while the owners go overseas for 9 weeks from the 9^th August 2013. John is looking after a friends farm for a month while Ross and Wendy go over to  USA and do Route 66.

We decided to head off to Townsville 4 ½ hours away for 4 days.

We stopped at Tully for lunch. This is where the sugar cane is processed for the area. Then onto Cardwell, a very nice beach side town. In 1911 , 440 people lived in the Cardwell shire council a areas which covered 2901 square kilometres. Hinchinbrook Island is just of the coast of here, it is a National Park great for diving and swimming amongst the coral beds and plenty of walks around the island to do seeing many different birds. Today Cardwell is a popular tourist area for the region .

First night we stayed at Rollingstone free camp.(camp book 6 site  36 Bushy Parker Park Qld )  A lovely camp very quiet. It has a small river running past it and there I found some turtles. Met up with a couple who own a farm in WA and they have decided to sell up and live on the road and see some of Australia. It is amazing how many farmers we have met on our travels doing it exactly that.

                                                                                 

Rollingstone creek

                                                                            


Parked up at Rollingstone

                                                                     

                                                                             

An Ibis wondering through the camp

 

Early in the morning we travelled to Blue water rest area and parked our caravan. You can stay here for 3 days so this suited us fine.. (camp book 6 site 39 Qld )  Time for a visit to Townsville a few k down the road.

First stop was Castle Hill lookout.  A great place to see the surrounding area from. Then from here down to the strand along the waterfront. By this time it was near lunch time . After walking around the shops for a time we came across the Cowboys rugby League Club where we had our lunch. John follows the Cowboys but is still following the Warriors and always picks them to win when they play.

                                                                                

Castle Hill lookout Townsville

                                                                                   

   

By this time John had developed a Full on head cold so back to the van we went. A relaxing evening and a early night for John.

Wednesday brought us another lovely day. Back into Townsville we went and visited friends

whom we met in Shepparton. It was great catching with all of their news from Christine, sad to say Ray was busy working driving the cane trains.

We had another look around Townsville and went out to Rowes Bay for a drive and tried to take a Panorama photo of Magnetic Island just off the coast. Magnetic Island is one of 900 islands within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The Reef HQ Aquarium is the worlds largest living coral reef aquarium with over 130 coral species and 120 fish species on display which is situated in Townsville. We did not get a chance to go and visit it, ran out of time but next time we are in this area we sure are visiting it.

We stayed at Francis Creek rest area (Camp book 6 site 33 Qld    ) We left the van at the rest area and had a look around Abergowrie area.

 

                                                                           

 

                                                                                  

 

 

                                                                             

 

This is where John and Glen went to boarding school . It brought back many memories for John . From here we went to Wallaman Falls which is the longest single fall in Australia.

 



                                   

Calf having a feed while Mum is walking

                                                                                

 

Had a look around Ingham for the rest of the day. The next day we went to Taylor's beach and Lucinda Beach which is were the sugar is exported from. Sugar produced in the Ingham area is all exported from the Lucinda wharf. Then from here we went to Cardwell and had lunch along the beach front and back home to Malanda.

                                                                                  

Harvesting sugar cane

Sugar cane train

                                                                        
                                                                               

sugar cut ready for the mill

                                                                               

 

Sugar cane growing

Lucinda Beach

                                                                                  

While we were touring around Townsville Johns Dad was in Brisbane Private Hospital having heart surgery.

Thankfully Dad is now back home recovering with Mum.

John and I moved into the Atherton Holiday Park to look after it for 9 weeks while Lorna and Agan go overseas . It is a lovely family park close to a lot of activities around the Atherton Tableland.

We are now into our third week and it is going great. Meeting lots of wonderful people and directing them to see many of the different attractions in the area. The last three weekends here at the caravan park have been fully booked out. So yes we have been busy.

John is now getting up at 4.30am to start milking at Ross around 5.15am . Gets back to the camp ground around 5.30 at night.

6th September 2013

I  (Marg) had the opportunity to visit the Crystal Caves store in Atherton. Having lived here for two years now  and not visited the caves I thought It was about time especially as I have been telling all the visitors to go and visit the caves. I am so pleased that I went. It is amazing the many different crystals that Rene Boissevain has collected from over the world, over many years. The front of the shop is for selling of the crystals in rings, necklaces and just beautiful pieces to hang on the walls etc.
Rene has created a set of caves for you to walk around and view and touch many of the crystals so it feels like you are underground. The Empress of Uruguay stands 3.5. metres tall and weighs 2.5 ton. The thousands of crystals she displays are rated AA jewellery quality and were all created naturally inside her millions of years ago.
The Amethyst Room  is the largest collection  in Australia. The energy in this room is amazing . You can buy these amethyst Geodes from around $250.00 up to and over $17,000.00 . nature at its best.
You can buy small geode from $30.00 to $300.00 and crack open these in the store with help from the staff. The Geodes will crack into two neat halves revealing the hollow interior of beautiful crystals in that that have been hidden for 44 million years. The word "Geode" means "of this earth".
They are only to happy for you to take photo's of the crystals and there are signs saying this around the caves. If any of our followers get to Atherton. The first thing on the bucket list I would recommend is the Crystal caves. Check out their web page www.crytalcaves.com.au

Agate Nodules

                                                                          

The Empress of Uruguay crystal



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uncut Geode