Awaydays Blog Post 27: Running Up That Hill

Yesterday was another excellent day, divided between the coast and the high country. We started with a walk along the Merimbula boardwalk, past oyster beds, followed by a really nice lunch at Sunny's Kiosk.

After taking our leave of Rick and Helen we drove to Canberra via the Mount Darragh Road, a very picturesque country road that winds its way up the Great Dividing Range through temperate rainforest and tree fern lined gullies.

Awaydays Blog Post 26: A Day at the Seaside

I went swimming today. Aslings Beach Rock Pool is an ocean pool in Eden on the NSW south coast. According to unreliable sources it was built in 1961. It's ace!

However, you do have to be careful, because there was an undesirable on the beach: the Pacific Man O'War (Physalia physalis), also known as the man-of-war or bluebottle, is a marine hydrozoan found in the Pacific Ocean. It is considered to be the same species as the Portuguese Man O'War. It's not a jellyfish, it's a community of nasty stingy things suspended below a gas sack. (Read more here).

Awaydays Blog Post 25: Rock Oysters

Today we had oysters for lunch. They're grown, harvested, and sold about a mile from where we're staying. They're Sydney Rock Oysters rather than the bigger but less regarded Pacific Oyster, and were very tasty indeed.

Growing near the shop was the biggest patch of samphire either Susan or I had seen, so we stole a bunch as an accompaniment.

Awaydays Blog Post 24: Being Noble

A couple of days ago I teased you with a picture of a Chiko Roll.

The Chiko Roll is an iconic Australian food, first introduced in 1951. Supposedly inspired by the Chinese spring roll, it's designed to be a convenient meal for people on the move, either at sporting events or in the car. The filling consists of a mixture of beef, barley, cabbage, carrot, celery, and spices, all encased in a thick, deep-fried pastry shell. The exterior is really solid, almost to the point of being indigestible. Today, for lunch, I had a chiko roll and a potato scallop (a battered and deep fried slice of potato).

I do these things so you don't have to.

Awaydays Blog Post 23:Capital!

 If you squint, you can see Australia's capital city.

I grew up in Canberra, but left 46 years ago. My parents were curious about history and natural history and the like, but on returning I have discovered all sort of history things that were forgotten in the 1970s and 1980s. The world war one training trenches are where we spent many hours canoeing and having BBQs, yet were unknown to us.

Awaydays Blog Post 22: Finishing What We Started

The beginning, middle, and end of today.

Awaydays Blog Post 21: On the Road Again

We're overnighting in Coonabarabran after leaving Pittsworth. 531 km in 6 hours of driving.

Food for truckers (and others)

We're sharing the road. This photo was taken in the same place as the last photo in this blog post, but heading in the opposite direction.

The Kaputar ranges from a distance - and on the move.

Awaydays Blog Post 20: This Wheel's on Fire

Completely fortuitous. The first sound you can hear is thousands of frogs.

Awaydays Blog Post 19: Sky's on Fire

This week we have had some pretty impressive clouds and sunsets, but no weather. That'll probably change as soon as I attempt a 1000km drive.

Awaydays Blog Post 18: Acting with Reserve

In the 1970s Susan's father started campaigning to have a parcel of undeveloped land on his farm listed as a nature reserve. Yesterday we took him to see what it has become.

John did the cross country wheelchair pushing, Roz drove the Taxi, Susan and Kathy were dutiful daughters, and I did the sweating.

Awaydays Blog Post 17: Deafened by Frogs

Whilst visiting Susan's father we're staying in a motel on the edge of town near the highway. Next to the motel is a catchment pond for rainwater. It's full of frogs to the extent that after dark you can't hear yourself think. So far we've seen 4 species and heard 3 more.

Here are two of them:

Spotted Marsh Frog

Peron's Tree Frog (Emerald Spotted Frog) 

Awaydays Blog Post 16: Filthy Clouds

We arrived in Pittsworth this evening, and the sky was looking filthy. In the end we got some rain, but others got a whole lot more.

Awaydays Blog Post 15: Mountaineering

We drove two thirds of the way from Woy Woy to Pittsworth yesterday, via Thunderbolt's Way. You could skirt around the bumpy bits of the Great Dividing Range, but where would the fun be in that?

Look Out for European Spindle in the Touraine Loire Valley

 European Spindle Euonymus europaeus (Fr. Fusain d'Europe). 

A shrub or small tree, abundant in almost all of France, and very noticeable in the autumn because of its shocking pink seed capsules which spread open to reveal equally vibrant orange seeds. Grows in mixed hedgerows in areas with calcareous soil.

 

 

The species is the most important overwintering host of the Black Bean Aphid. As such they provide an important food source for early emerging hover flies with predatory larvae.

 

 

The species has a surprising number of uses for man. As referenced by the French vernacular name, it makes the best artists' charcoal, and the best charcoal powder. It has a hard fine grained yellow wood, ideal for sharpening to a point and making meat skewers and spindles, as well as being used in horology for cleaning brass and rubies without scratching them. The seed capsules can be used as a source of dye for certain Moroccan leathers.

 

 

The other time of year you might notice spindle is when it is being attacked by Yponomeuta spp small ermine moth caterpillars in the spring. This looks devastating as they eat all the leaves and cover the plant in a silken web. But the plant recovers, and by June has grown a full covering of leaves again.

 

Awaydays Blog Post 14: By Train

We caught the the train from Goulburn to Woy Woy. It involves changing from the old creaky and rattly train you see here to an even older one in Sydney.

It has to be said, though - NSW state railways do an exceptionally good line in tin sheds.

Everyone Knows the Story About the Donkey

At the fruit tree care and maintenance lecture I attended last year, Jean-Pierre Couturier said at one point: 'Of course, everyone knows the story of Saint Martin's donkey, but in fact the Romans pruned'.

St Martin's donkey, munching on a grape leaf, is depicted on the left of these medieval carvings on the church at Cande Saint Martin.

And it's true, everyone in the Touraine does know the story of how Saint Martin's donkey nibbled on the vines it could reach when tethered at Marmoutier, just outside of Tours. The monks noticed that the vines the donkey munched did better than the vines that were left to grow naturally, so they started clipping all the vines. Thus pruning was born.

Donkey in a field.

However I'll bet not many of our international readers know the story and would have been mystified if they'd been at the lecture. 

A herd of Poitou Asses, a local breed of donkey, with vines in the background.

But then, I guess not many French people know the story of Simpson and his donkey, whereas all our Australian readers will be familiar with that story.

Statue of Simpson and his donkey at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

Simpson is an Australian hero of Gallipoli in the First World War. As medic, he went out again and again with his donkey to retrieve wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

Today is both Saint Martin's Day and Armistice Day, which commemorates the end of the First World War. It is a public holiday in France.

Awaydays Blog Post 13: Parroting

This morning we went for a gentle perambulation on the lower slopes of Mt Majura. The star event was seeing a mob of at least a dozen Gang Gangs. Can you see them?

Later, at lunch one landed in Kathy's garden. This photo was taken through the dining room window.

and as a bonus, have a superb parrot.

Awaydays Blog Post 12: Guess!

Awaydays Blog Post 11: Batlow

It's been close to 40 years since I was last in Batlow. Its a lovely little town with an apple and pears fixation, and I can thoroughly recommend the Apple Inn as a traditional, very comfortable motel, and the RSL next door for its traditional NSW country Chinese restaurant.

Awaydays Blog Post 10: Half of an Excellent Day

What a great day. The Snowy Mountain Project museum, swimming at Yarrangobilly, proper Australian hamburgers (beetroot, not "pickles"), and the sadness of historic bushfire damage.