Sunrise at Quintell Beach

Yesterday I got up nice and early to try to capture some sunrise photos, and fortunately it was a glorious morning.

The big barge in again with some modular houses.

Early morning at the beach

Sunrise over Quintell Beach

Sunrise 

A day out to the Pascoe River.

Yesterday we went for a drive to check out the Pascoe River. This is 56 km from Lockhart, but took us 1hr and 40 minutes to get there. This is in part due to the 43 creek or gully crossings in the last 19km. Only about 6 of these didn't have running water. The road also includes 10km of sealed road which seems quite strange in the middle of such an isolated area. On leaving town there are another 3 major creek crossings with causeways, but these are quite easy to cross now even though they have water over them.  Some locals have been crossing the Pascoe River by wading across with a rope and then winching themselves over, apparently with a bit of floating on the way! You then need to wait an hour or so on the other side to let the car dry out a bit!! No way we are attempting that kind of crossing!

The Pascoe River. This is what we are hoping is low enough to cross in June.

This is the western side road access of the Pascoe River.

One of the many creek crossings on the way.

Looking toward the McIllwraith Range

A very dried up bog, someone had some fun here a few weeks ago!

Another very picturesque creek crossing.

Yet another crossing.

The remains of a bridge built in WWII by the Yanks. Certainly have strong bases!

The view to Mt Tozer.

Me being a real tourist on the platform looking to Mt Tozer. This is the mountain the plane crashed into a couple of years back.

Raod to Pascoe River.

  A native hibiscus growing along the road to the Pascoe.

Small flower on the roadside.

Another small roadside flower.

Flowering grasses on roadside.

A dingo spotted on the road on our way home, he sat in the grass beside the road looking at us.

A blue tongue lizard, hypnotized by Ron!

A large visitor to Lockhart

On Saturday Ron and I went down to Quintell Beach to see the massive big barge that had come into Quintell Beach landing with a load of road base, rock and earth moving machinery.

Barge and tug.

Trucks waiting to load.

Going to the beach is always a good chance to walk the dogs too.

A very pretty flower from an sea almond type tree.

The tree on the left is the one the flower came from, the tin shed is an old beach shack.

Birds and wildlife in and around Lockhart

Ron has been nagging me to put up some more photos of the the birds and animals we see up here.
So I am finally getting around to it!

This was stumpie a feral free range boar, but alas he has gone the way of all little piggies now!

Ron's trash bird the Palm Cuckotoo, of  which we haven't seen many of late.

A crab of some sort at the beach.

Grey goshawk at Portland Roads

A very large spider, one of many in a communal web.

Shining Flycatcher at Portland Road.

Lots of these dragonflies have been seen.

A red dragonfly

A praying mantis- yes it is Ron's head!

One of our favourite visitors at home.

Blue winged kookaburras are plentiful

Snoozing in the trees.

The Waterfalls

After a short drive of about 20 mins and a 15min walk through the bush we arrived at the beautiful waterfalls. Some nice still pools to swim in and also heaps of falls to get under.
Very nice.

The waterfalls looking upstream

Looking down the falls

Easter Holidays in Lockhart

The sink hole and the detour

 Well we have now been on holidays for a week, and I am feeling very relaxed. Ron and I got away for a couple of days to stay at the Beach Shack in Portland Road. We had been told the road was closed due to the road being a bit washed out and a bad sink hole. However locals were allowed to travel on it, so long as we didn't expect the police to come and get us out of any bogs. So Ron being the old bushie said no worries.. and off we went.

The detour around the detour

Finally arriving at Portland Road we moved into our very picturesque accommodation. It was a steep climb up to the house so after a couple of days doing this we were almost super fit! It is advised as being rustic get a way, which does sum it up pretty well.

The Beach Shack

The path up the hill!

The top one is where we stayed.

The lovely open verandah

Open plan house

The view from the loo.

Our view of the bay.

Unfortunately the weather was slightly overcast so I didn't get any good sunset or sunrise shots.
We went for some walks on the beach, a drive around to Chilli Beach, (about 10km away) and relaxed and read.

Ron collected some oysters off the rocks! They were abit sandy and gritty to eat.

Back in Lockhart I have been getting cultured checking out the local art work. It is quite a big business here with a number of the artists exhibiting all over Australia and some overseas. There have been a number of art works sold to Aust. galleries and in Aust museums.
There are a number of books about the local artists and as Ron and I have been doing lots of reading  up on the history of the place we bought some of the books.

Carvings out the front of the arts centre

Painting by local artist on the outside of building.

Another painting on outside.

Some of the art inside. So much to look through to choose by piece as a keepsake!

Many of these paintings are hundreds or thousands of dollars, a bit out of my league so it will be rummaging through the cheap baskets for me.  Could take a while!

Well tomorrow it is hopefully a trip to the waterfall with some of the other teachers and partners.