We Went To Brisbane To Visit The Queen

Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where have you been?
I went to London to visit the Queen
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, What did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under the chair.

I’ve been quoting this to the kids for days.

Today the Queen visited Brisbane, and we made the trip down to town to have a look see. I’ve never seen the Queen in actual person, TV only and given its likely she will never come to the Antipodes again, it seemed sensible to take the opportunity to let the kids see their monarch.
So, I phoned the school absence lines to say they wouldn’t be there.
Dave parked at the office, mucked around there for too long a while and then we walked from Milton to South Bank – with all the road closures it seemed the most sensible way to do it, but it must be 5 km and not a cool day, so it was a little wearing. Maybe I should have lightened my handbag…
So we arrived at 10:30 at Southbank, for Her Majesty’s 12:20 arrival, but it wasn’t early enough.
We were 3 rows back, and people really need to learn that you take your hat off when the event is on so the people behind can see.

Where's Wally style shot of Queen Elizabeth II arriving at Southbank during the Queen's visit to Brisbane, Queensland, October 2011

I held up master 9 (and *sob* he’s the size of an 11 year or 12 year old!) so as he went up I sank down and didn’t see a thing.
Oh, well, at least I saw that Anna Bligh knew to wear a hat, unlike our glorious leader the other day.

Queen Elizabeth II and Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland, arriving at Southbank during the Queen's visit to Brisbane, Queensland, October 2011

Pizza Capers for a late lunch after! Score. But now we aren’t hungry, so its dessert for dinner! Double Score! What a good day

Caloundra Music Festival

Well, what a big weekend!
Dave shot the Caloundra Music Festival and *wow* what a great festival it was! I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:

Joe Camilleri and the Black Sorrows

Hayley Mary of The Jezabels

Heather Shannon of The Jezabels

Alan Boyle

Diesel

Suze de Marchi of The Baby Animals

Holly Findlay of Stonefield

Missy Higgins

Booker T Jones

Bluejuice

Rai Thistlethwayte of Thirsty Merc

Iva Davies of Icehouse

A week at the beach

We are back from a week at the beach, and a lovely little break it was (could have been longer!)
Not much was done photographically, it was more of an R&R thing.

Dave did go birding once and caught the great sunset shot:

Dave’s Dad caught a nice shot of him on the beach beside his beloved Prado:

Dave and his father also did a shoot of a local band, The Cavanaughs, who were after cover shots for their first album. Its under cover for the moment, but I’m sure we can release something eventually, as it was a really good shoot.

Brisbane Riverfire!

Well, what a big weekend we have had – first Riverfire was on on Saturday.
I was abandoned for the day again, and Dave spent form 5am to about 8pm on the banks of the Brisbane river, as the boys had a fireworks photography class and needed to make sure they had a position for good photos. Apparently it was a little quieter than last year, and around 8am would have been early enough to be there. If only we could know these things in advance, eh?
Dave got a decent photo out of it (isn’t it sad when I get so blasé about things, that a gorgeous photo like this can be called ‘decent’!!)

The iconic Riverfire Falls

Apparently it was an excellent evening and the students, as usual, were wowed

Then Sunday was Father’s Day, after a tour around the local countryside looking for a dusk shoot location for a class in a couple of weeks, we took Dave out for dinner at Ahmets Turkish Restaurant on Southbank (food just to die for!), then we saw the laser lightshow afterwards. It was very, very good, and I think I might have preferred it to the fireworks. (I love fireworks, but after all these years of them I am getting a little bored with them)
Dave got a particularly spectacular shot, IMHO.

Brisbane Festival - City of Lights

So, that was my weekend – what did you do?

Rain, yet Startrails

Saturday saw Dave up the creek with Allan and Mel. It was a grey and miserable day and I thought they were insane for going up, and I was absolutely right – they all came back completely soaked
A couple of nice shots, though…
I fed them hot tea and coffee to warm them up

And then Sunday – after much umming and ahhing over the weather, Dave decided his night sky photography course could safely run. I was a bit worried because it was still a bit cloudy when he left, but Lo! Around 7pm, the clouds all disappeared and a glorious clear sky was apparently had.
Dave claims this night sky panorama he got is old hat, but I’ve never seen anything like it and had a big “What The?!?!” moment when I first saw it. Dave explained it as an arch from horizon to horizon.

The Milky Way

See there is land at both ends? Very nice!

Abbey Medieval Tournament

What did the wife see?
Not much – I got to stay home with the kids.
Ah, well – one of these days they will be big enough that I can go and volunteer and camp with the boys, too.

Dave has only posted one photos so far, of a very nice Masked Owl:

Photo of Masked Owl – Tyto Novaehollandiae

More to come, I’m sure, with some 48Gb of photos in the camera (thats more than 2000 photos)!

History Alive, 2011

Dave was out shooting History Alive Saturday and Sunday – we stayed home.
Madness started the day, with smallest having a friend for sleepover and they getting up to play computer games at 6am. I’m not sure the sun was even up, the little lunatics. Then the place got quieter as they went for a reverse sleepover at the other lad’s house before lunch. This calmed down the teenagers a bit.
Me? I got some work done, then started my sewing for the Abbey Medieval Banquet. All my gear is Renaissance, so I need something medieval – sideless surcoat here we come! I was going to do a proper fitted underdress, but its a bit tricky to do on one’s own, and a little beyond Ms 16 – so just a straight smock it is.
The surcoat looks good so far

The results from Dave’s History Alive trip look good so far – I’ll post when the photos are online

4wding to Rainbow Beach

So, the Prado Point Forum Christmas run was on this weekend gone, and a good time was had by all.

What, you want more detail?
OK – we got up far too early (around 5:15, I think) had breakfast and headed off to the meetup point at Caboolture.
Stood around for ages commenting on the weather, as some attendees were stuck on the Gateway, and eventually took off around 8.

North went we, and got the wheels dirty prior to letting them down.
Here are the cars in their pristine condition, and then with some dirt on them.

Here’s the Let Down caravan

We drove through a little bit of mud, but we were all confident the rain would stop by 10!

and then came to the Noosa River.
It was quite low, so everyone, even those of without snorkels, were able to cross.

Good fun, and washed some of the mud off the tyres

We stopped at rainbow beach for some morning tea, then headed back to the dirt, planning to lunch at Teewah Beach (I’m fairly sure its called).
The trip down was really very easy – the little bit of rain we had before 10am had made the sand very easy to traverse

the final leg which exits from the track to the beach was fairly smooth this time – I’m told last time at least one car got bogged there

and then we were on the beach to have lunch

The weather never did open up to something very pleasant, and their were bluebottles on the beach anyway, but it was a pleasant trip out anyway.

Shhh… Be vewy vewy quiet – we’re hunting Glossy Black Cockatoos

Yesterday, Dave crawled out of bed at… I don’t really know what time it was, but the sun wasn’t up! and off he went, to take part in the Glossy Black-Cockatoo Birding Day , an attempt to gain a better estimate of the population size regionally of this threatened species.
But, no luck had he in his assigned area.
Apparently they eat only the pine cones of the She Oak (Casuarina cunninghamiana, I think). but he duly reported that there was no sign of the bird or of trees with eaten nuts in his area.
Which was nice, because it meant he was home early enough to make me breakfast
Have I mentioned its a hard life, being the wife of a photographer who cooks?

After lunch, he started getting the twitches again, because he hadn’t photographed anything in 3 or 4 hours, so he made a bold suggestion.
Want to come with me? The kids can stay home…
What, I said, go out without the children? Is that allowed?
Yep, the girl is old enough to be in charge now (because, truly, she is!)
I don’t understand, said I. You mean Go Out. Without the Children?
Yes, Without the kids.
OK, I’ll just get the kids ready, said I.
No, *without* the kids, he said.
I don’t understand, replied I.
So we went off on our own.
Do you think I might be a little housebound?

We were planning to go up to Mount Nebo, so did something we had been meaning to do for ages – we went up the infamous Samford Goat Track.
To our great surprise, its an excellent drive – well graded and perfectly wide enough for one way traffic.
And much less steep and more pleasant than the main Mt Glorious Rd.
(and I’ve just checked the map. If heading for Mt Nebo rather than Mt Glorious, its a heck of a lot quicker to take the Goat Track)

At Mt Nebo, we went for a lovely walk down a track near Jolly’s Lookout. It was very pleasant to go out together, without whining, noisy children. But not a Glossy Black Cockatoo did we find
We even checked Jolly’s Lookout itself. Saw some Rosellas and a magpie, but no cockatoos at all!
I can only conclude they aren’t in the district at all at this time of year.

Storm chasing

After an evening out at one of his photography workshops (Brisbane) on Saturday, yesterday a storm was forecast to blow through Brisbane, and Dave announced he wanted to go storm chasing. So, we all jumped in the Prado and took off west.
It wasn’t very successful, as the storm didn’t come in as fast as we expected, so we didn’t go far enough to really find it.
But we did have a pleasant drive down some country lanes (most of which didn’t lead where we wanted them to, darn this Australian landscape!)

And I finally got to cross the Moggill Ferry (after we had crossed I thought, darn, shoulda got Dave to snap that!_ and we stopped at Cold Rock to treat the kids, because they’d never been.
After we got home, Dave popped down the road, and finally got something:

I’ll post some more photos if I can get Dave to export some for me,