Dalmorton

There is an old dirt road,
it was built by convicts between Grafton
and Glen Innes,
many many years ago. These days it is just a very picturesque track
along the Boyd River
and it has lots of magnificent scenery,
some beautiful camping and picnic areas, a ghost town and a really really old tunnel.Daddy and Mr7 found some kiwifruits and did some harvestingOur Ghost town was Dalmorton

a very interesting place that was once a thriving town of 5000 people and 13 pubs!
These days it is abandoned, state forest/ National Park with a rangers residence the only habited building, but back in the days of the gold rush, or when the timber getter's lived there...and our old tunnel is known as being convict built,
Mr12 found a micro batand on closer inspection,
turned out to be a whole family of micro bats
Mr7 and I were quite taken with this strangler fig,
growing on the inside wall of the tunnel,
with visions of a leafy cliff and tunnel in future years.Boys being boys they were starving to death by now
so we found a shady spotby the beautiful lively Boyd River
for our picnic,
complete with weeping bottle brushes and rocky gurgling rapids
followed by a lovely cool off on the riverthe water was so clean and freshand mightily powerfulpummeling uswith a lovely watery massagebliss

Maclean Floods January 2011

Some images of the flooding here in Jan 2011We were so lucky, we have a river that does flood regularly, but it was a nice slow and gentle flood, living in our house during the peak was like being on a houseboat, the sparkling water reflecting into our safe and cosy house. It was so quiet with all the roads blocked apart from all the helicopters in the day time. The bats were not bothered at all.We were gripped to the media though, watching and listening with shock and horror at what was happening elsewhere in our poor flooded country.

Out and About~the local trawlers were tied up to the bridge over South Arm, out of the main Clarence River flowthe road to Lawrence

The Maclean showground

the levee bank

our engorged river

this house is on the other side of the river normally, not in the middle of it.

Some views of our backyard~

very waterfront for 5 days, this is around the peak and the water just went for miles and miles in every direction.

Some of our special backyard visitors~

Yaegl significant Aboriginal cultural sites

The boys and I have started our new year of homeschooling.

Mr12 is starting high school level work at home and Mr7 is doing year 2-ish work. We are using some wonderful curriculum materials and the boys are very keen to use it.

One of the topics we are doing is Australian History and using 2 different spines-

Our Sunburnt Country from Downunder Literature

and

Australia, the wide brown land for me! from Adnil Press



we are starting out with Aboriginal history and headed off today on a tour of our local Aboriginal Peoples Significant sites. Our local mob are the Yaegl people around the lower Clarence but we might also look at Bundgalung people who traditionally occupied land north of the mighty mighty Clarence Rv and spend some time with some Gumbaynggirr people who have a wonderful cultural centre at Arrawarra and a yummy bush tucker cafe.

Our tour today was a self drive one


and we picked up a little pamphlet from the Maclean tourist info at Ferry Park


We learned so much
this is Ulugundahi Island behind the boys
it was an aboriginal mission in the early 1900s and Ulugundahi means ear in the local Yaegl language because the island is shaped like an ear.


This is Reedy Creek, the first Goorie camping area in Yamba
Mr7 thinks the semi permanent structures on the beach would be much nicer to live in back then than the big brick residences that dominate this lovely area today.





walking through our magnificent coastal bushland

we ended up on some magnificent beaches


and the boys found some sticks!

Mr12 had to test out his strength, picking up huge logs and rocks and pushing and pulling at everything he thought might budge.

So this was our wonderful homeschool classroom this afternoon

2 Healthy Babies

Our lovelyEmerald hatched out 2 healthy baby chicks and we fed them and raised them and they grew up and left home and joined the wild flock way before we were ready :(We do know they are both well and alive and they come to visit Emerald and live out there with Saphire, and we don't really mind, they are happy , healthy and free and you can't wish much more than that for your children.

Miss Emerald has an Egg!

Our lovely Emerald and her handsome Sapphire have finally laid an egg. We have been watching all the mating and nesting behaviour and have been eagerly awaiting the first egg, so it was with great joy Mr11 ran down the hallway to share the good news first thing this morning.

Sapphire has been very vocal and active all over the neighborhood this morning , we think he must be telling everyone. Our birds have free access in and out of their cage, so he really can share his good news all over the neighborhood.
Mr7 also observed the kookaburra couple we have been watching in one of our trees and noticed the gentleman kooka feeding his lady this morning, just like Saph has been feeding Em this morning, so he has surmised they might have laid their first egg this morning as well.

This has of course interrupted our day and our chocolate study, we simply had to research every thing about lorikeet breeding and there are endless questions about kookaburra breeding still to be answered, but I have manged to lure the boys back to the table with a bowl of chocolate salad, this is a bit of a Rockpool tradition, and is basically a bowl with mixed pieces of block chocolate in it and it did the trick nicely and they are now writing up and drawing food webs.

Chocolate

It is the first day of term for NSW school students today, and it has been raining heavily for weeks, everything is wet and mushy, so it was a happy homeschool family who could stay at home today and watch the rain falling out our windows, although we did feel sorry for the kids trudging along to school whilst we were in our nice warm house and about to learn all about

C.H.O.C.O.L.A.T.E

I found a 12 lesson study guide at the Chocolate Exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago complete with history, recipes and quotes.I added a couple of likely lads, and some lovely books from the libray and we are set and as chocolate comes from the rainforest, we have a sweet week of school this week.

We have been getting some lovely visitors from the rainforest as well
This friendly lady King Parrot, or Queen Parrot as the boys call her is almost eating out of my hand and she gets right into Emeralds cage, but only when our rowdy lorikeets are not home. I wonder if she might be an escaped pet she is so quiet and friendly.

I am having a lot of trouble getting to update this blog living here, the only internet connection I have is a very very slow dial up and it doesn't cope very well with pictures. So I am sorry but blogging will be very erratic here at the moment and so will visiting everyone elses blogs.