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Deal Island record rain reported on the news

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Our record rains were reported on the news last night. I missed it. The rain has stopped and the weather today reminded me of a crisp fall day in Maine. It will be windy for the next few days and with a southerly wind (perhaps from Antarctica) and I had to find my wool socks again. Tim went off to do manly things and I hung around the house. He found some of the culverts we just cleared full of silt after the last downpour. I guess it’s back to the rock pile for me.

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I spoke with the crew of a boat, which anchored at Erith Island last night, and gave them the weather forecast. it looks like they will be here for a few days. They made an ill fated attempt to leave this morning and encountered big seas and 30 knot winds. So they came back.

P2050134.JPG P2050156.JPG Bunch of carrots

The garden is a big success. I’m pulling carrots out in bunches. I finished spinning a skein of alpaca on the drop spindle.   And it’s sooo soft.

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Here are photos of the turkish drop spindle, spinning, then being taken apart

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to result in, like magic, a center pull ball of yarn. Lastly, I take both ends of yarn and spin them together again to ply the yarn (combine two or more strands together). So after about 4 days work, I have 100 yards of 2 ply, lovely alpaca yarn.

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Guest blogger, Tim

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What is Tim doing all this time Lynne is busy brewing succulent stout, concocting 300 gourmet meals, growing tasty veggies, and working with her fiber? When he isn’t napping, he’s out cutting tracks (trails to North Americans). We have 7 of them totaling 15 kilometers. They need attention in varying degrees, using 5 methodologies: mowing, weed whacking (whipper snippering in Australian), sawing, pulling, and lopping. We tow a 3 blade mower behind our little toy truck for the compound and the longest part of 4 tracks.

Little Squally track

Truck and tow behind mower

When it gets too steep, I resort to a Stihl weed whacker, just like the one I bought for home and used on Bakers and Seguin Islands. It’s an art learning how to cut the ubiquitous and extremely tough grass tussocks and the metal blade attachments need sharpening with some frequency.

Tussock Grass

One of the tenets I live by–words of wisdom if ever I’ve read them– is written on the wall of the shed by some bored lighthouse keeper: “Time spent sharpening is time saved.” S. Maples, 1991.

Whacker Man

Pulling sea spurge is a Sisyphian task. The seeds are water born from the south coast of Australia and just keep coming. Come to think of it, all trail maintenance is endless. But I love the solitude and exercise and sense of accomplishment I get maintaining tracks even though Lynne and are the rare ones who actually walk all of them.

Needles and spindles

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After two weeks of dry sunny weather, it’s been raining for three days. Not as much as up in Queensland where rivers have flooded and an area larger than Germany is covered in water. Five towns there were wiped out in the past couple of days with loss of lives and major property. We’re just having a little rain and lots of wind. So, I’ve been indoors knitting and spinning and baking.

This morning, i finished a pair of socks. I knit them from yarn I spun from a sheep named Blackie who lives in South Australia. I had just enough yarn to finish them with about a yard of yarn left over. They will be extremely warm and are a nice way to bring the fleece back to the States. At the same time, I’ve been spinning a mixture of Tasmanian Mohair and merino and haven’t decided what to knit with it. One can never have too many socks.

Here’s an update of what I have knit or spun since we arrived.

Easy lace pattern PC140026.JPG Calorimetry 2 Fits my knee and head PC160025.JPG PC210037.JPG PC250079.JPG P1020083.JPG P1080120.JPG P1080125.JPGP1120118.JPG P1120126.JPG

Our work party managed to leave this morning. They tried yesterday but turned around due to crazy seas. There was a window this morning and they jumped through it. Last night we enjoyed self saucing pudding and a terrible movie. This morning I can hear my beer gurgling in the pantry and it’s a fairly soothing sound. Maybe even better than the beer itself.

We’ve had boaters in for tea and we’ve been invited aboard for tea. I used the words, “keen” and “bloody hell” without thinking twice the other day. No accent, just an expanded vocabulary. To clarify a further post, our friend Malcolm told us porkie comes from the cockney phrase, pork pie, which rhymes with lie. At least we haven’t been called seppies: septic tank, which rhymes with Yank who are full of –it. But maybe it’s just because most people think we are Canadian.

We saw the Clouds of Magellen and a satellite on New Year’s Eve

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We had a number of people visit from boats anchored in the cove closest to our house. PC310088.JPG I was doubtful a barbecue would take place because the wind was “fresh”. The sky was the clearest it has been and the weather was mild, it was 100f in Melbourne during the day. But the party happened and we went down to the cove. While we were looking at the stars, we saw a satellite pass overhead. We have seen the Southern Cross and the Milky Way but Tim mentioned that there were clouds in the same place over a couple of nights. They looked like another galaxy. It turns out they are. We saw the clouds of Magellen, which are galaxies orbiting our galaxy. The mind boggles.

.Joey trying to go home

  Then today, when I left the compound to walk to Winter Cove, I saw the smallest wallaby Joey yet. it was tiny and gangly. I watched for a while but needed to pass and it clambered into its pouch. At Winter Cove, I found a small skull, seagull or tern is my best guess. The day went from seeing objects at the limit of the naked eye’s visibility to small creatures along the tracks

We’ve become Wallaby wranglers and we are getting pretty good at it. We had about four wallabies in the outer circle of gates and over a few days, we managed to get all but two out. Wallaby near the water tank

Then, I went to get drinking water and found one in the inner compound, right next to the house. They chew on the grass, which is good, but leave wallaby poop around, which isn’t so good. We used some amazing teamwork and got it out the front gate.

It was a beautiful day to take a walk and I went to Winter Cove, about 4 kms from house. The only problem was these new little flies have arrived. They don’t bite or anything but are “in your face”.

I got to the beach and saw the catamaran anchored nicely and found a small bird skull.

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A nice day for a walk

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East Cove and the road to the compound

Yesterday was a nice day for a walk. The sky was clear and there were 48 knot winds. Luckily I had my handy new headband and off we went. At the lower left of the picture is the pier. On the right is the road around the hill and to the compound. Below is a picture of the old way. Straight down the hill to the pier was a “whim” or tram: Iron rails on the ground like a railway on which a cart was hauled up. The power came from two bullocks (I don’t think they used horses) who walked in a circle, which turned a gear, which turned a gear.

The whim's engine, sans bullocks

 

 

Behind the “engine” to the left are the remains of some of the track leading down to the cove.

 

 

Dover and Erith Islands, Kent Group

A panoramic view of Dover Island to the left (south) and Erith Island to the right. Most of my photos from the compound are directed between the two islands where a swashway sometimes separates them.

The swashway and beyond

 

Barn Hill cliffs

 

 

Another perspective of the Erith Island, from Barn Hill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This incredibly deep ravine on Barn Hill. I couldn’t go any closer to the edge to improve the perspective.

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Tomorrow, tomorrow

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The wind blew all night and day, then the rains came and went. Now all is calm. The birds are happy and singing (actually they were happy and singing during the downpours) and we got word that the boat leaves shortly before 0500 tomorrow. After a month on the road, we are heading out!!! Yeah. If our internet works, you will hear from me, if not, have a Merry Christmas, and wonderful New Year. The best news is I met a spinner/knitter through Ravelry here and she found some fleece and combs for me to bring out to the island and work on in my spare time.  It’s really a very small world.

Waiting, watching and…eating Tim Tams

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Too windy today. Maybe tomorrow. So we wait and watch. We walked into town yesterday to reprovision. In the meantime, we watch the weather reports on the internet, listen to the wind outside, relight the water heater when it gets blown out, watch bad TV, play games and eat…and eat. Then plan our next meal.

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Luckily Chelsea instructed me in the best way to eat Tim Tams. Amazing. They are oblong chocolate wafer cookies. You bite off diagonal corners then try to sip a warm beverage of your choice through it. Only a small amount will pass but the real goal is to melt the chocolate on the inside of the cookie.

DSCN0611.JPG The preperatory bites.

DSCN0612.JPGDrinking through the cookie.DSCN0613.JPG The molten, melted interior.

The sad part is they are all gone and it’s a 40 minute walk to town.

Monkeys in a barrel

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Okay, we are grasping at straws here, so to speak. Our trip has been delayed at least another two days because of gale winds and rough seas. Today it’s grey, cold and windy outside. We’ve played travel Scrabble, Suduko and now, Monkeys in a Barrel, which we found in our cabin.

For those of you who have never played before, there’s a plastic barrel with 10-12 monkeys in it. You shake them up, toss them onto the table and then, using one monkey to begin, hook the other monkeys, one by one, to form a chain. It’s sort of a variation of pick up sticks.

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Monkeys in a barrel - 2

A newbie to the game, Tim, picks them up in a heap and counts them as connected even if they are just stuck together by the legs or head. Sheesh.

Monkeys in a barrel - 3

We quickly came to a dispute in the rules and couldn’t find an answer online.

It’s not in the official rules, nor could we find anything online about it, not even in Wikipedia.

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When it’s flat like this, there is no chance of picking it up.

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I applied what I consider advanced technique and pushed one monkey to the edge of the table so it could be hooked. Otherwise, when there are only a few monkeys left, they are flat on the table and impossible to hook. Monkeys in a barrel - 6

Believe it or not, no one has addressed this. Am I the first to think of this? My rules say it is allowed.

I made it up Mount Strzelecki

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We hiked to the summit of Strzelecki Mountain yesterday.  You will have to take my word for it because I took a camera whose cable link is already packed and unavailable.  So I will post those pictures out of context.  Here’s the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife trail guide.

Strzelecki National Park

Our view was to the west until we circled around the back of the mountain.  Plus we could watch our car slowly disappear as we ascended from the trail head.  Elevation gain,  726 m over 3 km to the summit.  I almost resisted making the final ascent because the views were already spectacular where I was, but I made it.  Along the way, we saw a blue tongue lizard and heard lots of birds.  We didn’t see any snakes, which is fine with me.

After the hike, we visited Trouser point and the beautiful, half moon beaches with lichen covered rocks.  The rock formations were extensive and flat, which made a nice shelf along the water.

We are awakened here by the song of the laughing kookaburra. A pair of superb fairy wrens peck on the window when we are drinking our coffee.  Black swans are an uncommon, common site for us.  Blue winged parrots fly by our window.  The Australian magpies are all over the roads eating carrion and have a haunting, throaty call.  There is a flock of turkeys behind the cabin which get their panties in a bunch when cars go by.

Our backyard turkeys

We’ve also seen a flock of Cape Barren geese during our travels around the island.  They have a distinctive green bump “cere” on their beaks.

Cape Barren Geese

Looking to the future

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Tomorrow. if the weather holds up, we plan to hike Strzelecki Mountain on southern Flinders Island and to visit the beach there. We walked to “work” today along the beach and caught these rays messing around in the morning and views of the mountain on our way home.

DSCN0567.JPG DSCN0574.JPG It’s a small world. I mailed two postcards out to the kids this morning. Five minutes later, someone walked up to us and asked us if we had mailed a postcard because we forgot to address it. We must stick out like a sore thumb.

Then, later in the day ,we finished up with all the groceries, after checking the lists a final time, and were buying some food for the next several days because NOTHING is open on Sunday; no stores, restaurants or cafes. A kind looking man tapped me on the shoulder and told us he had heard about us and knew we would be the next island caretakers.

Apparently, sometimes on Mondays, stuff falls out of a plane and lands on the island. It could be newspapers, magazines or lollies. The plane buzzes the island and then drops a parcel. Tim asked him if he thought it might include any ice cream. You never know.