What I did on my holidays

Yes, I know this is a little belated, but here's what happened on my holiday up at Mum's.

* It rained. A lot. But I liked it. There's something appealing about a sub-tropical downpour, at least for a Southerner who doesn't see much rain anymore. It wasn't cold. I hardly wore a jacket or socks the whole time.

Looking out mum's back door

* The rain let up enough for us to make a couple of trips up into the mountains. OMG. If you have never been to that part of the world, you should. The countryside is just so beautiful - so lush, so picture-book pretty. There's hillsides dotted with brown cows, valleys with little ponds covered in flowering lilypads. There's lots of creeks and wide, wide rivers (they were wider than usual due to the heavy rain). The forest is dense and thrumming with insects. 

Little shack near....somewhere

How now brown cow?

* There's so much wildlife up there. I saw a lizard nearly every day. Mostly they were large skinks warming themselves on the paving at Mum's  - one morning there were three on her front path - but near a river on one of our drives in the hills, we saw a goanna climbing a tree. A kookaburra swooped it as we watched, no doubt trying to protect the young kooka we could hear up in the treetops. 

Mmm...baby kookaburras for dinner....

Skink

* There's a couple of green tree frogs which visit mum's back patio. One night there was a little brown frog in the house. It jumped all over the place while mum tried to catch it and even went under the couch. Mum eventually coaxed it onto a towel and put it outside.

Ribbit!

* I slept a lot, read four books and watched quite a bit of TV, including almost daily repeats of Seinfeld and Frasier. TV1 (or whatever channel it is) has hardly changed its evening programming in years, so watching Frasier has become a holiday ritual. We love Frasier.

* We played Scrabble and cards. I won at Scrabble, Mum beat me at nearly every card game.

* We went into Port Macquarie a few times. We walked along the foreshore and visited the new performing arts and convention centre and the old Court House. I clowned around at the bench, wearing the (faux) judge's wig, pointing the gavel at people and telling them to be quiet in my court.

Silence!

There's a lot of history in Port Macquarie - it's older than Melbourne and has a church that was built by convict labour.

* Christmas Day was very laid back. The turkey was excellent (and left overs are ace). I had a lengthy nap on the couch in the afternoon. And again on Boxing Day.

* I was a bit sad to leave Mum, but I was looking forward to getting back to Melbourne and my little flat. It was overcast and the sun was getting low in the sky by the time my flight landed at Tullamarine. The sun burst through a gap in the clouds to welcome me home.

Waiting to disembark

A few more pics...

Mum grew mutant garlic. One clove was the size of half an apple!

Beware the green fuzzy cows

Mum (fondly): "Nothing escapes your lens, does it?"

Fungus on a log near Ellenborough Creek

For some of my fave photos from my trip, see Girl in Melbourne from 24/12/09 to 02/01/10.