Brooms Head Reprise

Been there many times and there have been few changes. This time was wetter and more crowded than ever before, but with the layout of the camping you all have open space on one side of your site so it works quite well.

All families too, so a good and happy crowd.

Rained every day, and quite heavy at times,  but also was at fine at some time so we walked, surfed, explored,  cooked, ate and chilled.

Next time, probably will stay up in the National Park. Only a couple of km north of the town, but no crowds, basic facilities, and a fantastic outlook.

In an octopus’s garden

I have been known to write about a lot of things in my time, but there is one area in which I make no pretence of being any kind of expert. Marine biology can be very close to home, but is really quite a foreign world to many of us, but especially to me.

 

And so it is at Brooms Head. Step off the grass onto the beach and into the rocks, and there are some very odd examples of life waiting to be discovered.

See if you can see the octopus, and look for all of the other things lurking just below the surface.

Under the water, and at the waters edge, different things every day.

Old friends with new ones

Hard to believe that in less than three years since our big jaunt, our new friends and travelling companions have managed another two kids. Welcome Mason.

A new house and a new yard to explore, so all good reasons for an Easter visit. Shame about the rain spoiling the normally clear skies, but nothing could upset the warm welcome we have come to expect and enjoy whenever we make our way out west.

 

A Memorial to a Moth?

What could be so notable about a humble moth to make it worthy of a memorial? What you see here is a prickly pear. It is a fairly common sight through southern inland Queensland.

However, not so long ago it was choking all before it as an introduced pest. Without any of the pests of its native home, it found the conditions of inland Australia much to its liking and spread, much like the rabbit, until it overran and choked the entire countryside. The land became unsuitable for agriculture or grazing and the future was looking grim.

As had been tried in many other situations, being unable to control the introduced pest by any man-made methods, man turned to a natural predator for assistance. Famously, this method fails many times – think of the cane toad. The introduced control could become yet another introduced pest when it finds other new prey to its liking. However, on this occasion, the humble cactoblastis moth went to work and did what other methods could not. Pastures that had been choked by the all-consuming weed were reduced to cactus wastelands as the moth larvae worked away at the structure of the plant and left them in rotting piles.The control worked.

So today the prickly pear remains a fairly common sight on the southern and western Darling Downs in Queensland, but it is no longer the choking all-consuming menace it once was. Now all that remains in this story is for us to stop treating the fruit as an uncommon niche delicacy and work out a way to market it so that poachers will want to clean up the rest.

So when you are next travelling the Warrego Highway west from Toowoomba through the Western Darling Downs, keep you eye out not for the plaque, not for the statue, but for the memorial hall built to honour the humble cactoblastis moth that could do what man could not. http://monumentaustralia.org.au/monument_display.php?id=90605&image=1

More Music in the Orchard

There’s nothing quite like getting back together with old friends, and when an old friend is an old music teacher, nothing makes for more shared joy than music making.

A few new additions to the house since last time.

And again time to go all too soon…