Pukemokemoke

The weather is getting cooler now and autumn is definitely here. Although, in saying that, the last 2 days have been quite warm again.

It's been a long week this week, after our holiday. Monday was particularly trying. We went to bed at 9 30, but our brains thought it was 6 30, so we couldn't go to sleep. It was nearly 1 am before we went off. Eddie had to get up at  4 45, so his day was really long. Otherwise we haven't had any jet lag issues.

I went for a tramp last Sunday to a place called Pukemokemoke. It is a little hill that was a pa site at some pre European time. The timber on it was all milled. It is now owned by a trust who are doing pest monitoring and looking after the tracks. The bush is regenerating and the bird life is quite prolific. We saw 1 large totara tree that some how missed the logger's saw. The gazebo is in the centre where the logs were hauled too.

me and the large totara tree

Up the large totara tree

regenerating bush and well kept track

Gazebo where we ate our lunch

Trip to see family

We have been away in Australia visiting with our children and grandchildren. We have had a great time and it is very sad to come home and back to work. Reality is a real bastard isn't it.

We did a bit of a road trip to visit friends while we were there. We stopped for lunch at a lovely spot called Esk. The next 2 photos were taken there. I really liked the decorated door just sitting by the footpath beside a store. Esk is in a valley and gets very hot in the summer, but is quite pretty. 

The next day's lunch was at Nobby. For those of you old enough to remember, the radio programme Dad and Dave was set in Nobby. The local pub makes the most of it. Even the toilets are labelled Dave and Mabel. As you can see, the bar is full of memorabilia. While we were waiting for our lunch a lady asked us is we would mind being filmed. They were doing a promotional video for the area that was going to go on face book. We haven't looked yet to see if we are famous or not.

The cathedral to the right is at Warwick. A lot of the old Warwick buildings are made of the local sandstone that has weathered to a lovely yellow colour.














We called in at the Queensland Rail Museum at Ipswich. It is set up in the old work shops. It is a huge area with lots of work going on the old trains. Over a 1000 bicycles left the works every evening. Their motto was if it could be made it could be made at Ipswich.

Eddie driving the simulator. 

This is the office where the men collected their wages and their tags. The tags were put back at the end of the day so that those in charge knew everyone had left. It also told them if someone didn't come into work for the day.

One day our daughter took me for a tramp in the Lamington National Park. (Not a lamington to be found anywhere). It was a lovely day and not too hot, which made a nice change. The walk was fairly easy and the track was in good condition.

This is one of the views we had that looked out towards the Gold Coast.

We came across this chappy lying on the side of the track with a very full tummy. The bulge  was about 12 inches long. He was curled up digesting whatever he had eaten and hadn't moved, when we came past on our way home. A bit further on we came across another python lying across the track. We were at a bit of an impasse for a minute, until Katrina threw a stick at him. He looked at us for a moment or two and then slithered back and allowed us to pass.

A very full python