Rain finally arrives two days before Christmas

What a great relief and a wonderful Christmas present.

We have suffered severe drought for the last four months with virtually no rainfall even though the average is around 100 ml a month in the dry months. We received nothing. The Mangosteens are dying- these are 18 year old trees that I am very attached too - we went to Bangkok to collect the seeds, and then nurse them in the nursery for two years and then plant out into the orchard. At 18 years old, they should be providing us with at least 100 kg of fruit. Instead there has been no crop as the trees are too stressed. There are 20 trees which loook like potato crisps - dead brown leaves - and unlikely to recover even with the rain.

It started raining last night and now we have had 50 mls or two inches with lots more on the way from the look on the radar screen. A great website to view the actual rain storms approaching at http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/qld/cairns. Select Observations and scroll down to radar images - Cairns region - to see the storms approaching Cape Tribulation.

I feel like a drowned rat - working in the rain spreading mulch all day - so that the moisture can be trapped under the mulch once the heat returns.

Netting the Davidson Plum Trees

Here is Digby's first attempt to build a net for the Davidson Plum trees - it needs to about 20 metres high - quite tricky. I doubt whether it will stop the cockatoos, but think of it as mark one 

Stripey possum at creekside cottage

I have only had two sitings of a stripey possum in the 16 years I have been living here, and both of these were in the early days. So you can imagine how gobsmacked i was when the guests staying at Creekside described the stripey frolicking on a palm frond just off the balcony of the cottage the other night. They had no idea of the significance of the siting. It's so great to know they are still around and so close to us.

Catch up

The last few months have been quite hectic. So this is a catch up of what has happened since I last posted. More than 40 pigs have been trapped and shot in the valley - but we are still getting serious pig damage in the orchard.

The second cottage opened at the end of June and it has been fully booked ever since. There are a few vacancies still available in November. This has been a major change to our lifestyle. A bit like having a second child I expect. Breakfast is now a major production - we have split roles and I get to walk the dogs and Digby tends to cook the breakfast. Guests still keep us entertained and amused - such interesting backgrounds with great storyies.

No flowering on the mangosteens yet - we live in hope. Have a crop of Abius and Star Apples and Soursops at the moment.

The weather has been wet - much to our joy and guest chagrin - but you can now feel the change in the temperature - more humid and loads of sweat after working in the orchard for a short time. Not really looking forward to the next few months, but the ocean is finally flat and great for sea kayaking.

Wild pigs stampede through the fruit tasting tour

A herd of pigs was rooting around in the Breadfruits as I walked into the orchard with 12 fruit tasters. We got to within 30 metres before they stampeded. Luckily they ran away from us - some of the pigs were huge, and there were lots of piglets.

Our two dogs - Kimmy and Mia - took off after them. It all seemed to happen in slow motion - the dogs were loping, the pigs were trotting. And it was EXIT - Stage right. Then ENTER - Stage left. Pigs first, followed by dogs. EXIT - stage right again. It reminded me of a Keystone Cops movie with the police chase.

And the next afternoon they were there AGAIN! Our neighbour has started shooting them and is killing 3 or 4 a day. They are making a huge mess in the orchard turning over the soil looking for worms.

Door squashes treefrog

The green tree frogs are back in the house after a long absence. I was so excited to see him on the back of the toilet door. Some of the fruit tasters needed re-assurance to visit the toilet - we had a few frogphobic people last week. He settled in well, going out at night to hunt and then returning with muddy feet and making footprints all over the toilet wall.

He was hanging out right on the edge of the open toilet door next to the hinges, and then the door closed. His eyeball got caught in the space and got squashed in the socket - it's still there, but it bulges a lot. It looks like you could just push it back in, and it would be OK, but Digby's sister is here - she's a vet - and she said the nerves would have been detached so the eye no longer works. So one eye looks like it is out on stalks watching things coming from behind.

So now we have a disabled frog. He seems fine - he still comes and goes - but I am worried about how his predatory skills have been damaged and wonder if he can catch enough food. At least we will be able to distinguish this frog from all the others.

Digby checking out the local fruit markets in Dili, East Timor

Digby teaching the program facilitators about grafting techniques at the Caritas headquarters of Oecussi 

Alison standing in the foreground of a view of the mountains of Oecussi. We spent 4 days in these mountains visiting remote villages to meet local farmers and teach some grafting workshops. 

Some of the farmers at the grafting workshop held at Nefomtasa in the province of Oecussi 

Digby presenting a grafting workshop to the farmers from the village of Nefomtasa, in the remote mountains of Oecussi. Cornelio, the program co-ordinator, is working with Digby, and translating into the local language 

Alison at the summit of Mt Manucoco on the island of Atauro 3 hours by boat from Dili. It took us 4 hours to get to the summit 

Postcard from Timor Leste

How did we finish up in East Timor? I read ‘East Timor’ by James Dunn, which detailed the betrayals of East Timor by Australia over a 40 year period, starting with the withdrawal of troops from ET, leaving the East Timorese to face the brunt of the Japanese fury on their own, to Gough Whitlam giving Indonesia tacit approval to invade and acquire ET as an Indonesian State, to Howard standing by and allowing the massacres of ET by the militia, until public opinion shamed him into acting. We discussed the concept at an intellectual level, that there must be something we can do to make a contribution to ET.

Then we had an ex-student from Eltham college, one of Digby’s students from the 80s who spent her honeymoon at Cape Tribulation. Sophie is an activist specialising in social justice for East Timor. She supports a women’s weaving co-operative in ET and helps them sell their stuff in Australia. Her visit galvanised us into action. A search of the internet gave us four leads to follow up, where we may be able to use our tropical fruit expertise. The best lead came from Caritas, with an invitation from them to visit East Timor to explore how we could work with their ‘Women in Gardening’ project which was located in Oecussi, the ET enclave which is located in West Timor on the north coast – a rugged mountain province of 30,000 people living in remote villages and still slashing and burning as subsistence farmers. Caritas were looking to extend the gardening project to fruit trees. The villages grow maize, and then store it but the supplies run out before the new crop comes in – could fruit fill the gap in the food supply.

Oecussi is a 12 hour ferry rid from Dili – the area is so remote that the militia were still rampaging and killing people here long after Interfet had taken control of Dili. A teenage boy smuggled a written note hidden in his thongs and walked over the mountains through west timor, continually harassed by the militia to bring the request for help to Cosgrove. Each person we met had their own personal story of violence and trauma. In Oecussi every house in all the villages were burned by the Indonesians. Caritas provided the roofing iron and poles, and the building teams to rebuild 4000 houses in the Oecussi enclave.

The first night after we arrive we are on the ferry and heading for Oecussi. The next morning Digby is presenting a workshop to the facilitators of the project, training them in basic grafting techniques. Everything was translated into either Indonesian or Tetum or the local language. It was a ‘train the trainers’ scenario. The next three days saw us taken by four wheel drive high up into mountain villages on terrible roads. Digby ran workshops for the farmers, with more and more of the teaching being done by Cornelio as his confidence and knowledge increased.

We did have some time to ourselves – we visited the island of Atauro and climbed the highest mountain – Mt Manucoco. We visited Bacau. We lounged around Dili and ate at restaurants existing to service the UN presence.

What stands out?
The human face of the trauma – which is a very strong presence in every family today – is in such contrast to the friendliness and the appreciation and welcome we received. You wouldn’t know that so many of this population had been slaughtered only five years ago. How could they be so happy now? We felt so safe. One of our drivers had received 9 machete slices to his skull in the Liquica massacre in the lead up to the referendum and had been evacuated to Darwin and the Perth where he had operations and recuperated for 6 months before returning to Dili. While he was in Australia he learned enough English to be able to drive tourists around and communicate – this is how he now earned his living.

The big Expat scene – which is so similar to theExpat scene in Samoa (and other places I expect) with bars, Australian beer, and many restaurants. The UN presence which was the main economy has been reduced from 9000 to now only 150 people. You still see the UN cars all over the place, but their departure will mean less money flowing to the locals.

The lack of tourist infrastructure and awareness. This is a green field. I felt I was in Nepal 40 years ago before anybody went there to trek. There are great opportunities to have an amazing adventure holiday in ET. But in 2005 we are the only tourists – we only meet aid workers.

The Women in Gardening project was a highlight. They were so thrilled to see us and made us feel really appreciated. We now have some good grassroots links here to the program co-ordinator and the team of facilitators who work in the villages, and we will now look at concrete ways we can support them, with the supply of seeds, the development of training materials, training the trainers and mentoring the team as required, as they need new skills. We will try and help them develop their vision for the villages.

We discovered that Digby has a remarkable resemblance to Xanana Gusmao, the president of ET, very revered. As we drove into the villages people were waving and calling out 'Xanana' thinking the president was visiting their village. This provoked much hilarity in our car, especially when Digby played up to it with the royal wave. People were saluting as we drove by!!

We intend to go back in 2 years time.

Seedling Durian produces fantastic fruit

The Mangosteen season has come to an end. The Salaks have finished. And there are only three Durians left. These three Durians are rather special - the tree was destroyed by Cyclone Rona and all that was left was a stump - the graft had gone. I planted another grafted tree beside the tree so that we could use the rootstock to graft again. Now it has fruited as a seedling and the fruit is fantastic - a wonderful gift for us as it has fruited much later than all our other trees and it appears much creamier too. So viva la difference - it gives us more variety for our tastings, and an extended Durian season.

Cyclone Ingrid threat

They said it was the first time since 1918 that a category 5 cyclone had threatened the Queensland coast and it was heading our way, with destructive winds forecast in 24 hours with winds over 320 kms per hour. I walked through the orchard that afternoon and looked at all the fruit on the trees. It was exactly 5 years since we had been wiped out by Cyclone Rona - you can see some of the photos on the farm section of our website. I thought - tomorrow all this will be one big mess - and we will be back to square one again. I'm getting too old for this now - I remember that it took 3 months of solid clean up to get the orchard back on its feet and we had to have a huge replanting program to fill in the gaps. Now it was going to happen again.

The good news is that during the night the cyclone veered north and has crossed the coast north of Cooktown. So we are lucky for now. But it still might come back. It has been raining all day without stopping which is nice.

Digby is elected as President of the Rare Fruits Council of Australia

I think we might have bitten off a bit more than we can chew. Last weekend Digby was elected as president of the RFCA and I am now the secretary. This role is to bring all the RFCA branches in QLD together to work out how we can best share information and promote rare fruit. We have put forward a vision of building a website and moving to technology to overcome distance and communication problems. Many members are not computer literate so this will be a challenge.

Rainfall for February 2005

The average rainfall for February is about 800 mls at Cape Trib. This Feb we have only had 150 mls for the whole month and most of this fell in a 3 day burst. This is a worry as we need the ground water to be replenished - otherwise irrigation in august will be impossible.

The smell of Durians is driving me crazy!

I never thought I would say it - but I am sick of Durian. The smell is inescapable. Rich and creamy and a fantastic taste, but there is only so much you can eat. The crop is dropping faster than we can eat it, and they are now being stockpiled in the shed so that the smell is quarantined from the house. I have tried the Durian cake recipe, but it is not a success. Freezing it does not stop the smell and every time you open the door, the smell wafts out. The BIG question - what can we do with it to preserve it???

How to open a Durian

Opening a Durian, along the crack line - watch out for the spikes!

feasting on durian 

Durians are dropping!

The last week has seen 10 Durians drop from the trees ready to eat. We are now offering them in the fruit tasting, and reaction has been mixed. Western palates who expect crunchy and acid fruit are shocked by the creamy texture and the tast of burnt caramel and onions. But it is certainly a topic of interest - many visitors have heard about them but never seen one.

How wonderful to be able to eat fresh durian everyday!

Naming of the cottages firming up

It seems like the first cottage now has a name, apart from 'cottage'. I think we are going to call it 'Creekside'. Perched on a cliff with a verandah overhanging the creek, this is the best we can come up. So there will be 'Creekside' and 'Under Blackbean'.

Cassowary and chick return to swim

The Cassowary has returned and brought his chick with him - very grey and about 30cm high. They came wandering down the dry creek bed this morning while Digby was working at the B&B cottage.

He watched the two birds go past and then heard 'splash' as the large bird waded into the 'goose pool' - a small waterhole on the creek about 20 metres down from the B&B. The large cassowary kept wading in to the deepest part of of the pool which is about a metre deep, and then slowly sank and submerged himself up to his neck in the water. After a few minutes he stood up, shook himself and stepped out onto the bank to preeen for about 5 minutes. The chick followed.

Just magic! That's why we live here!

Lots of rain, and a great durian harvest predicted

The Wet Season arrived early last weekend, and the farm received 300 mm of rainfall over three days, with the creeks raging. The concrete causeway on the road near the farm gate was completely covered. Now we have great swimming holes close to the house, which is just as well considering how hot and humid it still is - work on the farm for a few hours then jump in the creek to cool down, then repeat.

A walk around the farm has some good news and some bad news for us. The bad news - the mangosteen harvest will be very small, probably less than 200 kgs. Many trees which had heavy crops last season have no fruit now. Never count your chickens before they hatch. The good news is that our Durian harvest will be the best we have every had. Digby counted 73 Durians on 5 trees. They have hung on despite the heavy rain, and that pungent smell that Durian lovers know so well is hanging in the air around the trees. Can't wait to tuck into this feast.