Walking across England

18 days and 205 miles later Digby and I staggered into Robin Hood's bay on the east coast of England. We have walked the whole way from St. Bee's on the west coast through Cumbria and the Lakes District on to Yorkshire through the Moors to the coast.

Staying at B&Bs most nights has given us some interesting insights into the business. In general English B&Bs quarantine you from the family into a separate part of the house - you dont meet the family - the husband is usually never seen. There are exceptions and these are the places which we will remember the most: watching the grand national steeplechase in front of the fire with a local sheep farmer; talking about the long distance walk with the host who has also completed it. The B&B breakfasts are usually 'full' english breakfast which includes a huge fry up of eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, fried bread and black pudding. Not much fruit to be had - and usually out of a tin - stewed prunes, grapefruit. The highligh of fresh mango this morning for breakfast - the last thing we expected!

Cyclone Larry gives us a miss

Cyclone Larry crossed the Queensland coast in the early hours of Monday 20th March, between Innisfail and Mission Beach, 2 hours south of Cairns. It was a category 5 cyclone with wind gusts over 280 kms per hour.

Our farm is two hours north of Cairns at Cape Tribulation, and we breathed a sigh of relief as the cyclone headed south, away from us. We were on the very edge of the cyclone and suffered destructive winds, less than 150 km per hour, which started at about 3.00 am and lasted about 4 hours. We sat on the verandah in the moonlight, watching the trees bending and whipping with the wind, and listening to the roar. It is the sound that frightens you.

We had two German guests staying with us in the bed and breakfast. The night before the cyclone they had asked about going out on the reef. By this time, the dive boat was heading for safe harbour in Cooktown. By 9.00 am the next morning, the road was open and they headed out to Cairns hoping to catch an international flight the following day.

A farm tour of inspection showed that damage to our orchard was minimal. About 6 fruit trees had fallen over and snapped off. And that was it! So different to the previous cyclone - Cyclone Rona which had scored a direct hit on the farm in 1999, and created 6 months of clean up work.

As we listened to the radio, we heard the damage reports coming in further south. We had been in Innisfail the day before for the Annual General Meeting of the Rare Fruit Council of Australia. The motel we had stayed at on Saturday night, lost its roof in the early hours of Monday morning. The annual feast of the senses held on sunday in the main street of Innisfail had been fantastic - a great display of rare fruit and vegetables of the local area. And now all those farms destroyed.


This link below - Serious Weather Events - Bureau of Meteorology will provide the summary of the event, once they get round to putting it up.
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/sevwx/

First Taste of a Velvet Apple

This fruit looks and feels magnificent - it really does feel like velvet, deep rich red velvet, which is a rough velvet rather than the smooth nap we are used to.

Our tree had produced its very first fruit and I had never tasted it before, so a great sense of anticipation. Cut a wedge - smooth texture like a firm avocado, with a smell similar to rockmelon. And the taste?
Well at first sensation you think of apple but it is much smoother and waxier than an apple, then the rockmelon flavour cuts in.

Finally a taste which you can't quite put your finger on - not that pleasant either - perhaps a tang of cleaning fluid or something similar. It is this final part of the taste which makes you realise why there are not thousands of hectares under cultivation. An interesting fruit to grow and to have and to eat on the odd occasion, but not one that you would rave about.

Oh well - it will be great to have on the fruit tasting anyway, just for the texture and the rich red colour.

Driest December in three decades

"This has been the driest December since 1972, which was also a 31 mm month. But this has not broken the December 1950 record, when 9 mm fell."

This quote is from the Cairns Post, December 30th 2005.

The big dry broke on December 23, when our farm received 165 mm over 24 hours.

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.