Ella is 12

Ella girl is 12 now, and one of the ways she celebrated was hosting brunch for the Canberra family last Monday (a public holiday), our first cold bleak day of the season. 

Present giving takes a lot of thought for teens and pre-teens. Angus took a lot of care to choose this one......

 Lego was on Ella's wish list - and this set .......

 ticked all the boxes .............

 These sweet kids put in a few hours building this most amazing ship in a bottle Lego - from scratch!  Just as well it held their interest as it was not much fun playing party games outside on this cold grey morning.

 It was a serious business, involving great teamwork..........

 Abi didn't feel as much part of the Lego team - which was nice for us as she put in a lot of time with Maxie and me instead telling us all about whale sharks (and other creatures).

 Ella makes all the cakes in the family now - although she's a bit over it at the moment after making 72 birthday cupcakes for her school friends. 

 I tried to get a good group shot of these gorgeous kids - but only two of them are friends of the camera... I take what I can get!!

 This might be my best shot!

 Happy birthday dear sweet Ella girl!

Late Autumn

This is what greeted us on our return from Brisbane in mid May (the 18th to be exact).... magnificent Autumn foliage in our front garden!

There's a "grove" of Acer Rubrum "October Glory (maple)" planted in our apartment's north facing parkland (right in front of our unit). We think they were planted about 3 -4 years ago when Hassett Park was being established. They are really looking good this Autumn!

 Our apartment's volunteer garden group finally got approval, after a lengthy bureaucratic process involving both local govt. and federal govt. bureaucrats, to establish garden beds in the 2 metre wide piece of parkland that abuts our building. Our small group got cracking this week and got the job finished..... it already looks so much better than the scrappy grass borders established after the builders had finished. It is a huge advantage living in an apartment block with no gardens of its own to look after - but it does make it more complicated when we want to "take over" some of the "public" parkland for our own purposes.
As well as being a great month for Autumn foliage May is the month for some important birthdays too. We helped Wayne celebrate his (delayed) birthday today, at Grazing (in Gundaroo). The restaurant is in the old Royal Hotel (established 1865) so the atmosphere is very cosy, with fireplaces and lovely old timber floors in every room. The menu was very refined and layered with seasonal flavours. However, the very discerning people in our group decided that the wine list did not quite match expectations..

Happy birthday Wayne!

Back in Brisbane

We're back in Brisbane....staying in South Brisbane, close to Southbank and the lively West End. Our first morning walk coincided with the Mother's Day Classic, so even though it was an early morning start for us there were lots of people about on this side of the river. We ended up walking over the bridge through to Queen St, down to the Botanic Gardens and back - a good long walk - and covering a lot of old ground for us.

But we're mainly here to see Rob's Mum Bobbie this week, so it was a lovely way to spend that Mother's Day afternoon strolling around the Southbank parklands with her.

 This is a city view that is unique to Brisbane: the "beach" at Southbank, the city buildings, all framed by the city's ubiquitous palm trees.

 Today, May 14 is always the anniversary of the sinking of the 2/3 AHS Centaur - the hospital ship that was torpedoed by the Japanese in 1943. Rob's Dad Allan was one of the few survivors of this war time disaster - so the annual commemoration is important to Bobbie and the family.

 These two brothers really pleased their mother today, sharing the commemoration and wreath laying with her. The service was very formal, solemn and beautifully detailed. Morning tea at the church hall after was lovely too - very retro but in a good way! 

Aside from our time with Bobbie, we have enjoyed our morning/evening walks around this lively part of Brisbane. We found a local brewery (The Catchment Brewery Co) on tonight's walk along Boundary Road - and so had to make sure it met with our approval.

 But we also enjoy checking out West End's distinctive architecture and street planting. It all looks so exotic to us........

 West End was very much an inner city working class suburb in the days these cottages were built. They're not the magnificent, opulent Queenslanders of the more affluent suburbs, but I love their quirky detailing and character filled colour schemes.

 We found this cute coffee place with a cool colour scheme: "Who Shot the Barista" on Jane St.

Aren't they something?

Noosa River

We booked ourselves into a morning "Ecocruise" with Noosa Ferries this morning. Pick up was at 10.15am on the Noosa River behind the Sofitel Hotel in Hastings St.

 Just for a change, from here, we could look up to see our balcony on the top floor of the Noosa Lookout Resort from a different vantage point. (It's the building on the highest point of the hill behind the bridge in this picture.)

 Neither of us had high expectations of this "Ecocruise". It only cost $88 for the both of us (Seniors discount) and its duration was only a bit over 2 hours. We were expecting to enjoy cruising around on the river - and we thought any eco-learning would be a bonus???

Setting off on the river, heading towards Mt Cooroy in the distance, felt good!  And the first thing we learnt was that Cooroy was the local Aboriginal word for possum. After all these years I never knew that!

 We leave Noosa Heads ........

 ..... as our skipper starts explaining, at some length, some of the environmental upheavals that this area has been subjected to since large scale development started in earnest in Noosa from the 1970s onwards.  

The most devastating impact has been caused by the decision to change the mouth of the Noosa River (in the 1970s) to enable more development at the western end of Hastings St (now the Noosa Spit) - and to reduce the risk of tidal damage to the new Noosa Sound development on the former Hays Island.  

 It all looks beautiful today - and people who live here on the river a few minutes by boat to Hastings St. are so lucky! But the changes to the river have changed the whole river ecology forever!  There is reduced flow now; the river is so shallow with sand build up that only a few fish species can survive - and it's a salt water river now at this end - no freshwater life at all.

 The water is very clean however, having an A- environmental rating (which is very high apparently). The Brisbane River water only has a rating of D-.

Our skipper gave us a pretty full run down of most of the significant development bunfights fought through Noosa Council since the 1970s.  I had always thought Noosa was a haven of enlightenment in terms of environmental issues - but its wins have been very hard fought (and not every issue has been a winner). The Noosa developers used to call the environmental lobby "Gan-Greens". I'm sure they still do, under the covers.

 One of the more troubling developments has been the construction of the Settler's Cove apartments (Stages 1-4 and still counting) and the consequent destruction of remnant rainforest trees.

Despite all of this Noosa has been designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve. ("Biosphere reserves are areas where humans strive to live sustainably within their environment, share best practice approaches to sustainability and work in partnership with like-minded communities".) So thank goodness for the work of all those "Gan-Greens" to ensure Noosa survived the environmental ravages of the 70s & 80s better than many other beach side areas in Queensland.

There are still protected mangrove sites and areas of native forest in the coastal areas behind Noosa Sound - it was great to see these herons nesting in the eucalypts beside the river.

 Other birds were pretty quiet on the river this morning. We saw a few pelicans - and learnt all our East coast pelicans do their breeding at Lake Eyre (when there's water flowing in the lake). I didn't know that breeding was such a challenging process for pelicans, involving such long distance flights.

We stopped and took a short walk in some bushland near the Settler's Cove site and learnt a bit about local "bush tucker" and we could see how plentiful the small river fish (bream and whiting) were in the shallow edges of the river near the jetty. It's apparently impossible for a fisher person NOT to catch a fish in the Noosa River.

 Despite our not high expectations we'd both found our "Ecocruise" very interesting and thought provoking too - we were pleased we'd signed up for it! Our $88 tickets (for the both of us) included morning tea AND free travel on Noosa Ferries for the rest of the day.  That must be the best value tourist deal in the whole of Australia!

So, after a lunch break and another sun soaker beach session for me we were back down at the ferry wharf in time to catch the 4.30pm Sunset Cruise to Tewantin Marina this evening.

I took this as we were leaving the Sofitel Hotel wharf for our Sunset Cruise.....

 .... and headed down the Noosa River towards Mt Cooroy for the second time today.

 I am pretty sure that this is the area where Dad used to take Ros and me fishing in the 1960s (when it was nothing more than sandflats and tufts of beach grass).  We called it Munna Point but I'm not sure it actually was.......

 This is the view of the much maligned, realigned mouth of the Noosa River. The sand build ups make this part of the river very tricky to navigate.

 A picture of me with a day's worth of hat hair - but still enjoying myself!

 I do love a good sunset - and tonight's, from our spot on the Noosa Ferry, was pretty good...

 I am having fun with my new camera (#sunsetspam)

 We ended another beautiful Noosa day with a beachside meal at the Boardwalk Bistro tonight. I do love the sound of the waves when I'm eating (and our "fish of the day" was great too). Perfect Noosa!