Today we had a good workout. We walked the 2.5 kms to the lighthouse, including at least a 700 foot elevation gain, this morning, before breakfast, and opened it up to air it out. I think I will take a lot of photos from this vantage point because it is the first full view of the lighthouse on the walk up and it gives me a chance to catch my breath. The lighthouse is over 1000 feet above sea level.

We came back to the compound and mowed and weed whacked all day and now we are going back to the lighthouse this evening to catch the sunset and close it up. Our house is in a valley and blocked by hills so we haven’t seen the sunset yet. I’ve been spoiled by living in places where I could just poke my head out the door to enjoy a sunset.

We met the couple from the beautiful sailboat of yesterday. They were last here in 1993 and have sailed around the world a couple of times. They brought us chocolate and wine!!!

Here’ s the view of Dover and Erith Islands in the morning and evening. The compound, and our walk, is from the white buildings in the yellow-green meadow.

  

On the way back, we saw our first possum on the lighthouse trail. It was the first time we really spent some time outside at night. We stirred up some large birds who nest in the trees near the house. Maybe they are the brown hawks we see soaring over the East Cove. We saw a lot of bats flitting by in front of us and we saw the Milky Way and Southern Cross. Orion is upside down here!

It was still very windy and there were whitecaps blowing through the pass so we didn’t expect any visitors. We heard that 5 boats withdrew from the Sydney Hobart race due to weather related problems. We walked to Garden Cove on the north side of the island and tried to find a way to Pulpit Rock, off the eastern point. I’m not a big fan of bushwacking or walking on steep rocks but we gave it a try. We made it to a high point but didn’t make it to the rock today so we enjoyed a picnic lunch down by the water. There was a a large, ? 65 foot, sailboat rocking and rolling in the cove.

This afternoon was the start of the Sydney Hobart race. 628 miles and some boats are expected to finish in a couple of days. Theoretically the 87 boats will pass by but they are too far east in the Bass Strait. We were able to watch the start on TV but for the next four days, the coverage is more spotty. Sounds like there will be high winds and seas for the first two days. We had the winds today but the seas aren’t an issue since we don’t have anyplace we have to be. The internet was more cooperative and I got to talk to a bunch of my family so that made me feel better.

It was a domestic day. I washed and waxed the floor in the house. i have always been a big fan of waxed floors. This was often to my kids’ dismay when they would go skittering across the paste waxed, wood floors in the various houses in which I have lived over the past several years. But there is something about cleaning a floor which makes the place you live, yours. So I guess I am a domestic goddess after all. it’s a good thing too because I couldn’t start the industrial lawn mower – I didn’t move the choke far enough over. So I quit and worked in the gardens instead. How spooky is this carrot?

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Santa found us! We celebrated Christmas Eve last night with a lit Christmas tree. We had candlelit singing with a new candle holder Tim made for the occasion, accompanied by karaoke music from iTunes.

Our garden is full of vegetables and herbs. We’ve had fresh lettuce, carrots, radishes, potatoes, broccoli, kohlrabi, silverbeet, cabbage, peas and beet root since we arrived. Most were ready for harvest upon our arrival. Sweet corn is growing but I have to prop it up every day after the wind blows it down. I go out every afternoon with a large tub and figure out what’s ripe and what we can have for dinner. Then I pick and clean a lot of the food right out at the garden. There’s always a lot of dirt and a few earwigs. If something has been eaten too much by something else, I toss it. There are the occasional land slugs with pretty shells but bad intentions. Crunch they go. Now it’s our turn to plant the rest of the garden for ourselves and the next caretakers. So far I have planted pumpkin, watermelon, dwarf beans, silver beet, beet root, radishes, rocket, turnips, parsnips, carrots, corn, chinese cabbage, capsicum, tomatoes, leeks, cauliflower and broccoli.

I’ll see how my garden grows

   

We are the visitors here and we’re not alone.

Every time we take a walk, we encounter at least a dozen wallabies.  There are a few rabbits, about a dozen Cape Barren geese.  Yesterday, I was working in the garden and when I came out, the garden was surrounded by a wallaby and a few geese.  We seem to see new birds every few days.  There’s a brown hawk, which flies over the cove near our house and yesterday we spotted a white face heron.

White faced heron in the visitor yard

We can hear the fairy penguins at night going home to their burrows.  They sound like old men snoring.   I made a video of the wallabies and penguin sounds, which you can see here. There are two new boats in the cove on the Erith Island, across the pass from us.  I saw one returning to its anchorage at about 6:30 am.  I think they may have headed out and decided against it due to rough seas for a change.  The wind should lie down over the next couple of days and maybe the human visitors will increase.

We have to remind visitors when they take the 2.5 km walk to the lighthouse to remember to tie open the door to the catwalk.  Otherwise it slams shut and they could be there for days!!