ANZAC Picnic

This Wednesday is our first ANZAC day. It's a public holiday commemorating the poor buggers the Brits sent to Anzac cove to try to knock the turks out of the first world war. I'm too lazy get up for the dawn service tomorrow, but I will try to treat it as more than just a day off - it really does mean a lot to Australians, many of who have a grandfather (or great-grandfather) who was involved in the fighting in Turkey. Also, the meaning of the day has grown to encompass all Australia's war dead, which should give us pause for thought as Howard once again ignores common sense and the will of the people by doubling the Australian contingent in the illegal occupation of Iraq.
From a selfish perspective, ANZAC day falling on a Wednesday means I'm spending the whole week in Nimbin, and will only head in to Brisbane for the day on Thursday.

Saturday was a glorious day, and Nimbin is starting to get quite busy with tourists now that it's only two weeks until Mardi Grass, so we decided to take the car over the hill to the dam near Dorroughby, and have a look around. We stopped at a roadside honesty-box and grabbed some fresh bananas (5 cents a pop, and some of the best I've ever tasted!) and got the other ingredients we needed for a fine picnic at the dairy in Dorroughby. The lake formed by the dam for the water reservoir is really pleasant - there are flowers round the edge, and well cared for walks have been marked out around the dam and below. Apparently duck-billed platypodes are quite easy to spot in the waters below the dam, but we weren't quite patient enough (though we did spot an extremely chilled-out sunbathing turtle amongst the flowers).
As we ate our humble picnic, we were also treated to the sight of two large white parrots (Cacatue Sulphurea) having an (extremely loud) territorial dispute above our heads.
On Sunday I finally made good on my repeated resolutions to start taking a morning run - and 7:30 is a great time to get out near Nimbin; the sun isn't too hot yet, the clouds are still hugging the hills, and the locals are in a cheery mood (unless I was mistaking a succession of "get off the road, you idiot" gestures for friendly waves). We replaced the calories at the Rainbow cafe, and then went to the Nimbin skip to buy large rectangular pieces of fibroboard (to repair the holes I made in the walls when removing the bath with a pick axe) and drove cautiously back through town with the fibroboard sticking a good 5 foot behind the back of our li'l car. With what energy we had left after a morning run of at least several hundred yards (stop sniggering!) we also tackled the old, lantana-covered chicken coop halfway down the garden; hacking our way through the lantana roots, and using a combination of pick-axe, crowbar, wood saw, brute force and ignorance, in about three hours we cleared the structure right back to the underlying breeze-blocks. I know I want to do it up and get it weatherproof, but beyond that, I'm not sure what to do with the space - once cleaned up, it might make a good den or retreat (it's about the right size and distance from the house) or we might end up getting chickens of our own and using it as a chicken coop once again - the hard part is now done (except for fixing up the structure's roof) and I'm immersing myself in the Earth Garden Building Book's "Simple Roofs" chapter, and learning words like skillion, sarking, birdsmouth and truss. Another new world - funny how each and every one I discover has dafter vocabulary than the last.