The house at Maleny.

Got back from my grass cutting trip to our Maleny house. After the recent rain everything is growing like Jack's beanstalk - overnight changes! All our trees are growing quickly and so are the weeds. Spent the morning weeding - but it was 32° at 9.00 am! It hit 41° this afternoon.
Anyway, came across this Paperwasp's nest and our 'Swamp Bloodwood' is in flower.

Thur. 21st February.Deva Premal Concert.

To Brisbane City Hall to see and hear 'Deva Premal & Miten' - 'Spiritual musicians'.
She is German and has a beautiful voice. He is English and was a backing musician for some big name bands in the 60s & 70s. Between them they interpret ancient Hindu & Buddhist mantras and produce a distinctive pleasant & relaxing sound.

There were 400 people at the concert - more hippies than anywhere outside of Byron Bay! A lot of people looking like Neil out of the 'Young Ones' but even some real young ones.

Wed. 20th February. A visit from Hugh.

Hugh, who was with us on the Tibet trip in September, was in Australia for a week seeing his son on the Gold Coast. He & his wife Margaret came up to Brisbane for lunch on Wednesday. (we may have overdone the garlic on the garlic prawns!)
It was good to see him. He is an example of how to simply keep going - age is no barrier to trekking, travel or any other ambition we may have.
I hope to be having a beer with him & Phil in Lancaster in a few months time.

The next trip.

I'm off to New Zealand in 6 weeks time to do a bit of climbing.
The target is Mt. Aspiring on South Island near Queenstown.
This is a very pointy mountain of 3,033 m. (9,950 ft). We fly up onto the glacier by helicopter and take it from there.
Plenty of pictures will be posted.
Click here to see a bit more about Mt. Aspiring. Or the company I'm going with.

Unlucky!

This summer has brought an end to our 7 year drought with some serious flooding in Queensland.
This girl was unlucky enough to be run over by a motor boat at a place 700 km. inland!
It could, of course, have been much more serious if it were her head, chest or abdomen that had been hit.