Weekend Break

This weekend … a long weekend in Tasmania, we went away for three days to Strahan on Tasmania's West Coast. We rented a shack in Lette’s Bay. The shack was pretty rustic … but it had all of the amenities that you would need and there was a private jetty that we could fish from.

On Sunday, my daughter and I did a spot of fishing. My daughter caught the first fish of the day … but it escaped before she could land it. Later, we caught five more cockies (juvenile salmon) and then my daughter caught another cocky, it was the biggest of the day, but our lines got tangled and then the fish got away, oh well.

Later, we took a scenic flight on a sea-plane that took us up the Gordon River, the Franklin River (the site of the protest against the building of the dam by the Hydro).

The sea-plane touched down on the Gordon River, where we stopped off for a short while and we went in and had a look at a waterfall.

There is a platypus that lives around this area … but it was not anywhere to be seen at the time. Platypuses are crepuscular animals, and we were there at midday, so no real surprises there.

The rest of the day was spent just floating around. Anita found some friends at the shacks, so she spent a lot of time jumping into the water from the jetty.

All in all, we had a fantastic time. The drive was a pain, but it was worth it.

Gone Fishing …

Today, we planned to go fishing. A nice break, just fishing … how relaxing.

The chick’s water feeder broke this morning, so I had to get a new one today so that the chick’s had a water supply. While we were at the shop buying the water feeder, we saw a nice feeder that was much larger than their current one … so we got a new feeder as well. The old feeder held about 0.5 kilo of feed and I was filling it every morning and night, the new one holds 1.5 kilos of feed, so now I will only need to feed the chicks once a day, of course I will still be checking the chicks before and after work every day.

We went fishing at about 1pm and went to McGee’s bridge. This is a bridge over a large seawater bay in southern Tasmania. Mostly … we catch flathead.

My lovely wife was the first of us to hook a fish, she caught a mullet. It was a little bit small, so back in it went.

We caught some flathead a cocky (a young salmon) and my daughter thinks that she caught a bream … but I’m not so sure. It came off the hook just as she was landing it.

We had a lovely time on the bridge having a nice fishing adventure. Next weekend, we hope to go a little bit further down south and do some rock fishing. There was a nice spot that we found that has some nice rock ledges and rock-pools. If we get bored fishing, we can poke around in the rock-pools.

Brighton Show

Today, my wife, my youngest daughter, her friend and I all went along to the Brighton show today. This is another fixture in the show calendar of Tasmanian agricultural shows. Brighton is a fairly small show, but it is quite good.

The day was a lovely 20+ degrees (Celsius) with not a cloud in the sky. We arrived at 9am and the parking was easy.

I was very pleased that there were a couple of bullocks at the show. These immense animals used to be used throughout Australia to haul timber out of the bush. They caused less damage to the land, cost less to run and were much more environmentally friendly.

Bullocks have a nice temperament and are immensely strong.

Here’s an animal that not many people would expect to see at an agricultural show … the humble Australian emu.

The animal nursery was, once again, somewhere that my youngest daughter just HAD to go to. Most of the animals in the nursery were the property of the Jordan River School (Previously the Brighton Agricultural College). One of the blokes there had just finished his Veterinary training and decided to come along and help out.

One of the local horse studs brought some of their absolutely drop-dead gorgeous Friesians

 

The Friesian isn’t a massive horse, but they are very pretty. A friend of mine breeds Friesians, his horses are absolutely lovely.

Well, the main reason that I was at the Brighton Show was to watch the Dairy Goat judging.

The goats were lovely, and the goat breeders were, as always, friendly and very helpful.

We went and had a look in the poultry display and had a look at the animals that were in there. There were some great looking birds in there. My favourite birds there were the Australorps.

Royal Hobart Show

We went to the Royal Hobart Show yesterday. I was surprised that both of my daughters wanted to come. Our eldest daughter is at that age where everything that her parents do is “boring”, nevertheless, we went as a family and had a good day together.

The Royal Hobart Show is the annual show of the Royal Agricultural Society in Hobart and there are loads of domesticated animals there to be seen along with arts and crafts and the inevitable carnies, show-bags, junk food and crowds. I’m not a big fan of the last four.

We started with the cattle and moved on to sheep, pigs and goats. The cattle were lovely, although there weren’t many different varieties of cow. The Jerseys were looking very good. Some of the sheep were very impressive, I took a fancy to a black faced dorper ram. He was a very good shape with a lovely open face and good meat quality.

We went and had a look at the angora goats in the next pavilion. They were nice looking goats and of good quality. The pigs were in  the same pavilion with the angora goats. There wasn’t much variety in the pig stalls, mostly bacon pairs. Still, I like pigs and they were all sleeping soundly.

The dairy goat pavilion was our next destination. On the previous Saturday, my youngest daughter and I did some work at the pavilion helping to set the pavilion up for Show week, so we had a particular interest in this display. Many of the other dairy goat breeders that we know were there at the pavilion and the goats were lovely. The display of British Alpine kids was fantastic. The breeders had set up a platform and a couple of planks so that the goat kids had some play equipment. The goats loved their play-things.

Of course the Royal wouldn’t be worth going to for our youngest daughter without going to the “Farm Nursery” pavilion. All of those chicks, and ducklings are always an instant hit with children. In the petting display, there were goat kids and lambs along with a piglet that seemed to be taking it’s cue from the older pigs and slept the whole time … maybe it was tired from being adored by children. There was a very nervous Turkey in the petting display too.

We then went on and had a look in the Handcraft pavilion where we had ice-cream and a walk around the cakes. There were some very creative and imaginative decorated cakes among the display. Some of our friends were in the Handcraft pavilion representing the Society for Creative Anachronists (SCA) showing off some of their medieval craft work. They did a fighting display on the green for the entertainment of the show goers.

After that, we walked around to the rides and shoved our daughters into a “Haunted House”. After some screaming and laughing, the girls came out the other end with big smiles on their faces.

Lunch was next … not bad … pretty much what was expected.

Our next destination was the Poultry Pavilion. We had to traipse all the way through the rides and carnies to get to the poultry. The chickens and ducks were very good. We saw some very nice roosters indeed. The first chickens that we saw were Andalusian, these animals were lovely examples of their breed. We also saw some red and white Leghorns, Plymouth Rock, Silkie and loads of Old English Game birds. Among the ducks, there were Muscovy, Indian Runner and of course Pekin. There was a large brooder in the middle of the display with loads of chicks under a heat lamp. Overall, the poultry display was very good. It’s a pity that there weren’t any fowl for sale (although my wife would probably think that that was a good thing).

Finally, we went to the show-bag pavilion so that the girls could buy show-bags. I think that it is a great pity that the show-bag has gone from what it was when I was a kid (a sample bag of products from manufacturers) to an overpriced bag with a few “themed” products that you really don’t want and wouldn’t pay good money for if you were to find them in a shop. Ah well, how times change.

It was a good day and I enjoyed spending that time with my family.

Burnie Show

Today was the first of the Agricultural shows of the show season. We left this morning at about 7am and drove for about 4 hours from one end of Tasmania to the other, just my youngest daughter, my lovely wife and I.

We wanted to see the goat judging but we got there too late for that. Still, the goats that were there were lovely.

The show was certainly smaller than the Royal Hobart or Royal Sydney shows that I am more familiar with, but it was very enjoyable. The only thing that I felt was missing from the show was sheep, we didn’t see any sheep!

My youngest had her first go at driving the dodgem-cars and we had a bit of fun driving around hitting each other.

Next weekend is the Launceston show, we should have a nice time … it is about an hour less drive in each direction too, so I shouldn’t be so tired after the drive.

le bonfire

Tonight we had a bonfire. My youngest daughter has been after me for a while to have another. I think that it is the combination of a roaring fire, cocktail frankfurts, roasting marshmallows and family that makes these such a wonderful affair.

We never do anything much for our bonfires, they are pretty much just fire, food and family. Although tonight we had two of my youngest daughters friends over for the bonfire (but very much for the food and fizzy drinks).

The fire started very easily. The trick for starting a good bonfire is to make sure that the fire is set on the side from where the wind is blowing. This makes the fire go through the stack and everything burns quickly and easily.

Initially, the blaze rose into the late afternoon sky, up to about 8m high. When the main fuel had settled down and all of the thin sticks had burned down, the coals go on burning for ages. Just 20 minutes after the photos above were taken, the fire looked more like this:

A great coal bed that was almost ready for marshmallows, but still too hot. About another hour later, the fire was very well settled and at potato roasting and marshmallow toasting stage.

Here, you can stand quite close to the fire and reach in with the marshmallow forks (about 1.25m long) and have some utterly yummy toasted marshmallows. I love the crunchy outside and the gooey sticky inside of the toasted marshmallow … anyone who eats these things raw is just plain wrong!

We do a bonfire about once a year, sometimes we will skip a year, this years bonfire was a lovely affair. Now I just have to get rid of my youngest daughters friends who are downstairs playing with the Wii.