School Hols

We are now part way through the first week of the school hols and this is officially the warmest September on record so far...luckily the nights are still very pleasant with temperatures in the high teens so blankets are still needed! The day time temperatures though have been rather high, in fact on the Tablelands on Sunday the thermometer in the work van peaked at 42 degrees - but as the humidity was very low it felt fine.
As the weather has warmed up we are getting back into the summer routine, yesterday we had our first swim of the summer at the Lagoon (Xanthe had an art workshop in the morning making bugs but at the moment we are not allowed to see her work as it is going to be displayed in the Tanks Art Centre). It was very pleasant but you can tell the children have acclimatised as after about 45 mins Cameron was shivering  - the air temp was 32 degrees and the water was I think in the low 20s.
We are also spending a fair bit of time on the beach here at Yorkeys.
It is not a "shell" beach like Casuarina in Darwin was but we did still manage to find a few Sand Dollars

This one is still alive but we also found three shells so we will keep an eye open for them.
The children love the freedom of running on the sand and at this time of the year they can safely splash in the water but as the summer progresses we shall have to be more careful as the stingers move in.

We never both with shoes and usually by the time we have walked a couple of hundred yards atleast one of the boys has taken his shorts off and stuffed them in Daddy's pocket!

The water was nice and warm in the shallows so we all had a paddle..

....although for some reason Tish was not impressed by my suggestion that she was scarring the small fish

In the evenings we have been having great sunsets, the clouds build up in the late afternoon and as the sun sinks behind the hills we get some superb skyscapes

slightly spoilt by the power lines but I am not skilled enough to photoshop them out.


Over the weekend I had a trip with the husband of a friend of Tony who has been letting us use his photos on our web page. Andy is not a great birder but just has a passion for taking wildlife pictures - he had sent us a list of his targets so we planed our route accordingly.
One of Andy's target species was Boyds Forest Dragon - a very cool lizard restricted to North Queensland. As I have been looking unsuccessfully for one since we have been here I must admit I was sceptical but having told Andy this we set off.
We were entering the forest at Lake Barrine when my attention was caught by some movement on the gound as a Musky Rat Kangaroo vanished off into the undergrowth, I was just turning back when to my amazement

I saw a Boyds Forest Dragon...

I have not altered the light at all in this shot...can you see it?!
As Andy really wanted to get some decent pictures with his far more impressive camera once we had got him onto it he set off and stalked it.
Here is my picture at ISO 1600

a very poor record shot but a self taken Boyds nonetheless
Here though at an impressive ISO 6500 is Andy Macdougalls superb shot of the same wee beastie (he has given permission for us to use his pictures)

They are amazingly cute!

We also scored with another much wanted lizard the Eastern Water Dragon - not as rare or restricted as the Boyds but another that I had failed to find before. This time given where he was mine were the better pictures

A very enjoyable start to the holidays.
Off on the bikes tomorrow as Tish is on a run of late shifts but we should be back at the lagoon over the weekend.