Sugarloaf Pass

This is a pass that I have always wanted to do but had never had the opportunity. We skipped it on the way to the Olivine Ice plateau many years ago as the weather was atrocious and we wanted to avoid some river crossings. Having now done it in the rain we probably would have been alright but going up the rockburn instead that time we managed to see some blue ducks and that is the only time I have been lucky enough to see them so it was a good decision in the end. None the less it meant that it was something that was certainly outstanding on my list of things to do and since I had a day to myself even though the weather was bad it was well worth it. The DOC website has some more information on it if you want to do the walk although I would caution that there are a lot of beach roots to scramble over on the walk. Also I would like to thank the two lovely ladies from DOC who gave me a lift up the road from the lake sylvan carpark to the routeburn carpark when I was throughly drenched after walking in the rain for 8 hours.


South Island Robin (Petroica australis australis)

The wildlife is a lot better than I remember it and certainly there were plenty of traps about to kill off any mustelids that might be about, which was great to see.


I'd missed my mossy nothofagus.


There was not a lot to see on top of the pass unless you have a fascination for wet tussock.


Pretty waterfall.


More moss and lichen.


Lake sylvan


You could just about see some mountains.

Pesky critter

Along with magpies, noisy miners, kookaburras and the odd pied butcher bird these are the most common visitors to our garden. This one wanted a few grapes that I was eating.




Rainbow Lorikeet (Trichoglossus haematodus)

A little home maintenence

Have been very slowly getting the garden into shape. There is a little bit of bush at the back with a few nice blackbutt trees and a few manky wattles, which was infested with camphor laurel, loquat, privet, cassia, cotoneaster, Ochna serrulata and oleander and many other weeds particularly small groundcovers, grasses and vines. I have mostly got on top of the weeds now but it was a spectacular collection. I have also finally put in a few garden beds and a compost heap that took an embarrassingly long time to build.



There was also a hideous large gymnosperm outside the front of the house which while it provided a nice screen of the neighbours house was very large and for some reason I had always hated it. Mostly because it was not native and did not provide overly good habitat for the local fauna. Anyway after 4 days of sawing with my little handsaw I have finally managed to reduce it to a rather large stump.





The hard part was getting it to fall in the right direction as I did not want to squish the neighbours house. The top was easy enough as you could cut sections of the many trunks down and push them in the right direction as long as they were small enough. However it got considerably harder closer to the ground.


Finally mostly gone.

Mail

This horrid creature had set up shop in our letter box. Nothing half a can of fly spray couldn't take care of.

Citizenship

It only took just over 5 years from the submitting my PR application to getting citizenship. Admittedly 2 years of that was a standard waiting period from getting PR till when you can apply for citizenship. The rest was government incompetence and the complete sham that is university education being sold as PR.


A small terror at the ceremony.


Phillip Ruddock (white hair) trying to scab some votes before the next election.

Settling in and Christmas

Well we have pretty much settled in now although there is still plenty of work to do in the garden.


Claire had her birthday, which was nice although due to the horrible summer we had it was a little to warm.


Finally had Christmas in my own house and for such a momentous occasion only a real tree would be sufficient. People were rather scathing of the glorious specimen above but at least Claire liked it.

We have been for a few walks in the bush at the back of the house although there is still a lot more I need to do once the leeches settle down for the winter. Mind you I have been leeched at least half a dozen times just walking around my lawn so I am starting to get used to it.

Debt

Things have been a little quiet here of late as I did something rather foolish and brought a house. Hopefully it will be paid off in a decade or so, but it is still an unsettling amount of debt to get into.

On the other hand though at least I am not trapped in a small concrete box with nothing to do on weekends. If anything I have too much to do, with a large garden which was a tribute to the noxious weeds of Australia. I made a series of compost bins with a volume of approximately 3.6 cubic meters and they are already full and I could have filled them three times over. The garden is also fulling up with tree trunks from all the ones that I have cut down, might have to mulch them up one of these days.


On the other hand though it does have a nice selection of wildlife with numerous species of lizards including at least one bluetongue, as well of plenty of birds including a wonga pigeon one day by the back gate.



Broad-tailed gecko

This post was edited on the 13/03/2013 due to people whinging about the grammar and spelling.

Back in action

Finally got the interwebs reconnected after a few month absence. Should have a few new posts up soon, but in the mean time here are a few pics from a walk I did in lane cove a few months ago.


A little bit overexposed. Pity I deleted the raw file.

Stuff

Have not being doing a lot lately although I manage to get out for a short walk most weekends, there has been no longer trips or camping. The bird life was pretty good but I did not have my camera on me then so didn't get any shots. However, now that I finally got my camera fixed there should be some reasonable photos soon.

Fagan park again

A few weeks back we went to Fagan park again so Claire could 'play' with some ducks.




Hello ducks