Working at a cattle Station at Normanton Queensland Australia

31 May 2010
Trip took 3 days..first night at Camilalla Beach, then 45 kms past Bowen and then Ravenshoe and here...2,012 kms distance traveled.
Was very exciting. Loved the trip and found the roads and weather excellent. The Toyota drove well..was wonderful trip.

Love the property. Its right next to a lagoon and very green and very beautiful. Will do photos next week. I can use the internet weekly so will prepare for it. Its a very beautiful part of the world, many birds and trees and beautiful colors. Love the people I am working for..Bill and Maxine and the team love my cooking. I shall never want to leave here I can see.

So far done nothing but cook. Today the muster started. It is done with a helicopter who finds the cattle and directs the team to collect them and take them to the fenced areas for all they do to them. Then it takes 5 days for this lot to be done, and then the helicopter comes for the next part. I will know more as I see it happening. I hope to be poking around the sheds with a camera and get some photos...want one of the cattle being led in, dust around, as they come towards the shed.

They killed a hige beast for meat, and I have mince and steaks and huge roasts to prepare. The guys will eat 2 Porterhouse a meal. I am amazed. I have never seen so much meat before. Last night I cooked  salted meat for lunch today. They make their own salt beef here and its delicious. Cooked in in a crock pot overnight.
Today I will make a huge roast fort tomorrows lunch, and have steaks for dinner when they return. They have taken a cut lunch...sandwiches, cake, scones and fruit. They eat very well here. I am sure I will be fat in 2 months with all this good cooking, and eating, I am doing here.

This is this weeks adventure...today the muster has started, and soon the yards will be full of brahmin and motor bikes, and action.

1 June 2010

Yesterday the muster started. A helicopter locates the cattle, and then they are driven down to the house yards.
Today they will dip them and inject them after sorting them into weiners, calves, pregnant and fat. This property is a breeding property where they breed Brahmin cattle.
The property is one of a few properties. Others fatten for the overseas market. The meat from here goes overseas. It is of a very high quality. The meat that was killed for the kitchen has so far been a flap roast, salted meat and an irish stew, and the food is delicious as the quality of the meat, and vegetables here, is very high.
On the way at Milla Milla I saw a tea plantation and bought some local tea which has a wonderful flavor. The countryside between Innidfail and Ravenhoe is all very mountainous. That is where the tea grows. I also took photos of a Wind farm. Ravenshoe claims to be Australia's highest town.
It was scary driving up these steep inclines in the first and second gear. The views were spectacular but as the driver, I was more concerned with getting the van up the hill and over.

Today the team are giving the 600 cattle in the yard injections and the dip. They will work these cattle for about 5 days and then the helicopter will return for the next muster. I hope to get some aerial shots if I get lucky.

Sarah is running around Australia

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Sarahs Journal

Cairns

Cairns welcomed us with a fantastic stay at Coconut Palms BIG 4 Resort. The kids have had a chance to play with other holiday makers, relax and rest up ahead of the journey accross the Savannah Way towards Darwin. We were able to take the kids on the Sky Rail and Kuranda Scenic Rail. I really enjoyed sharing thier delight at the sights but alas, reality soon caught up and it was back on with the running shoes to face the hills to Kuranda on foot. The strecth to Mareeba was a welcome contrasting plateau. Atherton was next.

Townsville

Another humid 60km under the belt. Channel 7 and Win tv interviews done, it was time to hit the beach here in Townsville and let the kids play in the gentle surf. Woodlands BIG 4 Caravan Park let us stay for 2 nights. The support vehilcle shuttled a tired me back to there after the days running. Lack of road shoulders meant that the support car would let me run ahead for about 2 km, then catch me up, offering a drink of water before letting me run ahead again. I had to step off the road as 3 wide load trucks went by with demountables on them.... getting desperate for entertainment up here!!!

Day 29: Rockhampton

Rockhampton was full of friendly people. Robby from Ascot Stone Grill invited us all to a scrumptious meal at Ascot Backpackers, good hot showers all round were welcome. Then things started to go wrong mechanically, luckilly right in Rockhampton itself. Toyota took the car in for a quick new clutch. Thank goodness for warentee!

Read more: Day 29: Rockhampton

Day 24 Bundaberg

At last, nice flat terain, nice big town, Beaurepaires put 6 NEW wheels on the bus, THANKYOU!!!

Also a Huge thankyou to The COSY CORNER INTERNET CAFE who stayed open til nearly midnight so Kadi could update the website. I spoke on the radio later the next day after another flat 30km north out of Bundaberg.

Lovely seafood and farm fresh produce along the way... all makes for happy running. We were invited to a farm out near 1770 by a motorist who stopped to talk to us at a fuel station. We took a detour during the day. I soon forgot about my tiredness and enjoyed the short day break out to the beach at 1770, Agnes Water and their farm. Ajay and Susie made us feel at home, letting us camp up for the night and showed us around their property. They taught us some natural tie-dying methods form plant based dies around their farm. The team helped out Ajay that afternoon with some fencing in return for their lovely hospitality. We had roast pig for dinner, the whole pig, which was recently slaughtered rotated on a spit as we sat around the campfire and relaxed

Chaohu China

 Chaohu Farm: April 5th 2008...the Rapeseed is in full flower and the fields from Hefei to Chaohu were golden with the flowers.It was very beautiful.Here is King as we walk through the fields of Flowers on Saturday at Chaohu
I have just returned from the most wonderful weekend, staying on a farm, in the small Rural village at Chaohu, where I stayed with King and his family in a beautiful white brick home in the middle of picturesque rice fields with Rapeseed in full golden flower. Here I enjoyed the most generous hospitality and friendship, and experienced real Rural China for the first time.
His father is a school teacher and his mother works the farm which produces a crop of Rapeseed, some wheat and rice. Rapeseed  is used to make vegetable oil, and they also produce  all the vegetables needed by the family, as well as eggs, chickens and ducks. Their farm is one of many small farms in a small Community where the people work together as a community and share the fields and community life. I also visited a Chicken farm and saw how the chickens are grown for commercial sale in large quantities in warmed huts where they simply eat and grow ready for the market.
The neighbours came to meet me, and it was wonderful sharing their lives and smiles, for this weekend.
This was a special weekend, as it was Qingming, a Public Holiday for cleaning the tombs of the Ancestors. The tombs were decorated with shining streams of colored tinsel after the family visited it with Prayer Paper, symbolic money and fireworks to scare away bad spirits. The most meaningful part was the paying of respect to the ancestor with a small prayer. The tombs were all visible because of the decoration.
King's Mother is a quality cook, and the meals were fantastic. I saw the duck being defeathered and cleaned, and then enjoyed it in a delectable dish alongside chicken, pork, waterlily, mushroom, broadbeans, bok choi, fresh fish, salted fish and salted duck, preserved eggs, even shrimps in a tangy sauce. Every meal was a gourmet delight, and accompanied by beer in tiny glasses, friendly toasts and much good spirits.
On Saturday we went to climb the mountain. Somehow we wandered across fields passing geese, and ducks, and one barking dog, an ox ploughing the rice field, and beekeepers collecting the honey from the hives. We climbed straight up the mountain following a very small track that led us past women picking wild tea on the slopes, and boys walking up rock faces. It was a very hard climb to the top to see Tiger Mountain and the scenery down below in every direction. I was scared because of the slippery track and the prickly thorn bushes we had to find our way through.
Then came the hardest part, winding our way back through the unknown on almost vertical slopes until we eventually came to the lake, after four hours of walking...straight up and then straight down a mountain.
It was quite a relief to see tombs of ancestors as that meant the village was not far away, and as we crossed the lake in the gathering evening light, we saw the hives and the Honey factory where we purchased some of the sweetest, most delectable and pure, golden honey, direct from the bees you can say, as the workers were draining the honey from the wax laden hivs, as we waited. 
The whole walk was very beautiful, and we enjoyed the experience. As we started back, the rain came, and so did King's father with a huge black umbrella, and we made it back home without getting too soaked.
The morning was spent walking over the fields listening to bird songs, watching the tadpoles and the tiny green frogs, and walking through fields of golden rapeseed in full tonings of gold with small pods forming below the flowers. The paths were rich in wildflowers...tiny violets, small wild orchids, small white daisies, buttercup, pink clover flowers, and purple lilac like creepers that poured out of the earth. The rice fields were rich with seed for the chickens, as it is ploughing and preparing time now in Spring. The vegetables were green and healthy, and there was spinach, potatoes, celery, and wheat growing green and rich. We even saw a snake, and King caught it and held it for us to view before sending it into the water to swim away smoothly out of sight. There were Magpies, and sparrows, and holes where the weasels lived. It was such a glorious adventure following King as he showed us his home. The ponds were spindly with new reeds budding in the mud, and the peach trees shed pink blossom on the waters of the small streams that ran through the homes and was the base for washing and cleaning.
There is a small rocky, fast river crossing the property and we saw large, smooth, wash stones, where the villagers wash their clothes and rinse them in the clear running water. It is a very beautiful life, but there is also a lot of hard work. Workers were constantly on the fields, with spades and hoes, and digging forks preparing the soil for the next planting. Everyone was very friendly and were very happy to stop for a smile and a short chat, and pose for a photograph.
I came back with over 500 photos, over 30 videos of birds and music and outdoor sounds, and some Local music played on the Chinese one stringed violin by Kings Father, as we played Snap and Memory with cards after dinner.
Coming back was another adventure, as the train had no seats because of the Holiday, and we could not get on the bus as it was too full. We took a three wheeler to the bus station, then back to the second bus station, and a bus to Sanghe, and took the fourth bus from there back to Hefei. It was a very bumpy trip and quite rough in places, but we did arrive here safely.
It was a wonderful weekend, and I really enjoyed the Experience and the Outing.
Thank you King and Mary for this wonderful weekend. I especially liked waking up to the birds singing in the trees, and looking out of the window at the sun rising over the rice fields, and reflected in the water, and I loved the walk up the mountains and the walk through the beautiful fields of golden Flowers with wildflowers on every side.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Ladymaggic/ChaohuChina5April#

Daedunsan Mountain Korea

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Daedunsan Mountain  South Korea

I went to Daedunsan Mountain with Mr Baek. It was a beautiful day to climb the Mountain. We took the cable half way up the Mountain, then walked up and across the red bridge, and walked up to the very top of the Mountain where the Monument is. The walk was almost 4 hours... It is a steep, upward climb all the way, and not very easy. The view from the top is beautiful.

Though relatively small, Daedunsan is one of Korea's most scenic mountains.

The climb to the summit (878m) is along a steep stony track. There is a 50m Cable bridge stretched between two pinnacles, followed by a long and steep cable stairway. The hike up takes 2 hours if you take the Cable, and three hours if you walk. The first trip I walked the whole mountain, and as it is virtually uphill all the way, it is quite strenuous.The scenery is magnificent both directions.The one way 5 minute cable car halfway up to the summit can save you an hour uphill hiking. Going down is less strenuous but just as energetic as the whole path is created out of stones, and in wet weather, slippery too.

The major attractions of Mt. Daedunsan are the suspended Geumgang Gureum Bridge and the 127-step Samseon overpass. The bridge stretches across the mountains and it sways when people make it move and can be quite scary. The scenery is spectacular and on one side you see the full expanse outwards and the peaks below, and on the other side is the sides of the mountain. This part is approximately half way up the mountain as you can see from the Summit which looks almost straight down to this bridge.

The Geumgang Gureum, or Cloud, Bridge is suspended across a crevasse 81 meters high. The bridge itself is only about 50 meters long, but the thrill of walking across is comparable to any extreme sport. Its like walking across up through the sky, and looking down is quite a long way to the tree tops and cliff faces below.

The Stairway is a steep ladder up the side of the Mountain. This time I walked the track which is far better for photographs, and less scary. The path winds up to the Summit with many spots to stop and contemplate the view. The walk up takes from 20 minutes to an hour depending on your rate of progress  to Macheondae, the peak of Mt. Daedunsan.

The last 5 minutes is the hardest part of the climb, as there is no indication that you are nearly there, and one crawls up a very steep path of the mountain, hanging onto a security rope that sways as you sway along the edge, and when you think you are ready to give up, the monument looms above, and you climb up rockface and work the steps in the rock until you can collapse on the rock pile where other people have also collapsed before you.

The view is spectacular. We walked around the foot of the monument, then walked to the extension Point where you see the whole valley before in breathtaking splendor. Then we climbed to the foot of the monument, which is as high as you can go unless you actually climb the monument itself, which is not  recommended.

The view below to the left is the sway bridge, and you suddenly realize how high you have climbed and pause for a moments exhilaration. The mountain peaks are wonderful, and it looks just like the artists drawings of the mountains and a moment of awe takes over the exhilaration. Looking around the whole vision makes you appreciate the vastness of the beauty that is Daedunsan.

It is with regret that we leave to make the climb back down, passing other sweating and puffing climbers whose feelings you know exactly, and you also know the joy they will feel when they reach the Summit.

The climb down gets quite steep and dangerous in places. I was wearing walking shoes, but wondered at those making the climb in normal shoes and even fashion heeled shoes. Climbers are quite friendly, and many exchanged a cheerful greeting or smile as we passed them on the descent. 

There is a Hotel at the foot and the Entrance which would be a great spot to stay overnight and enjoy the mountain walking a different track.

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Nonsan South Korea

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