Not Before Time

After the thunderstorm and torrential rain yesterday this was the reward :-}

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I got a new phone recently. With my old phone, the photos that came out of it were not good, so I was interested to see how this phone took photos – I don’t think they’re too bad.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been playing with the camera a lot more, and today was such a beautiful morning, so I grabbed it and went for a walk around the park, something I haven’t done for a while. This also fits in with my resolution to update more frequently here, even if I think it might not be that interesting for anyone who reads this. I’ll see how I get on with that resolution :-}

With all the rain we’ve had recently the trees and shrubs have taken a beating, so there aren’t many flowers around like there usually are. There aren’t many people around either, a lot of the seasonal workers have left because the sugar season is over or because the rain has effectively put an end to the jobs they had. It’s nice and quiet though.

This photo of a ginger plant is from one of the permanent residents’ garden, she has quite a few of them, all in this gorgeous colour. I didn’t realise until I saw the shot on the computer, but this plant also has its own residents – bugs and a moth :-}

I love how dandelions look when you photograph them up close, they catch the light and shine like mini chandeliers.

This young magpie was funny, he walked right up to me and just stopped in the middle of the path – not sure if he was trying to stop me from walking on or if he was looking for food – since he’s been around for a while he’s very used to people, and I would suspect that some of the residents have been feeding him.

The willy wagtail was following Pete, the maintenance guy, around while he was mowing the lawns. The birds have learned that mowing or whipper snipping means fresh bugs! David was whipper snipping around the van the other day and one was following him around too – they get very close to the cutting bit.

There are lots of green frogs around, particularly in the amenities block – this little guy was quite comfortable – in the toilet bowl! He was only a little one, the other day I was surprised by his big brother who leapt off the cistern onto the floor at my feet. Sorry, I didn’t have the camera with me for that shot

This leaf is from a clump in the garden bed outside the camp kitchen, not sure what it’s called, but the veins are a beautiful colour

I was sitting outside having a coffee after my walk, and there was a slight breeze blowing the palm tree fronds around a bit. I like the look of the trellis pattern when one frond moved in front of the other.

I’m not sure what this shrub is called, I’m having trouble finding someone who knows the name of it and I can’t find it on the internet which is really odd because they are everywhere up here, the foliage is similar to an agapanthus, and the flower is really lovely, the petals are almost transluscent.

David is back at work after the Christmas break, but I’m still looking and not having much luck. People don’t seem to get back to you up here, and I think with what’s been happening with the weather in the area it might be even more difficult to find something – we’ll give it another month and then decide what we are going to do. David’s been very lucky with work, the trucks aren’t getting up here due to the flooding at Rockhampton so there’s not much to do and the company has been sending a lot of their drivers home early or telling them not to come in until late in the day, at least David has been able to work his normal hours. Hopefully things will start getting back to normal for everyone soon.

More rain overnight – and this was the sky when I got up just after 5 this morning – glorious colours, shame it promises more wet stuff!

We’ve had more rain over the last couple of days, but with sunny, clear spots here and there. It’s good in one respect, but the humidity is really high. The night before last there were a couple of heavy downpours and the power went off about 6:30am yesterday morning for a few hours. We thought, rather than sit inside a hot van we’d head off to the supermarket and get a bit of grocery shopping out of the way. I think just about all of Mackay was without power. Traffic lights everywhere were out. I must admit, people were really good at the lights; everyone was being very courteous and careful before going through. It was good to see. It was still drizzling when we went out – here’s a couple of photos taken from the car. The first one is showing traffic lights not working, the one with the low cloud is showing the peak of a hill, the clouds were very low over it, and the other one is the Pioneer River which is up quite a bit.

We went to Mount Pleasant shopping centre which is just north of Mackay, and the power was on there which was good, it also meant the aircon was on We got there about quarter to 9, and by the time we left half an hour later the place was really busy, and I think it was more because of the airconditioning than the shops being open.

At least it had stopped raining when we left, and there was blue sky and sun. We took the little truck and opened the soft top a bit – I saw these 2 different types of undercarriages while we were driving –