Wool on Sunday...

Once more linking up with Janine of the Rainbow Hare Blog Wool on Sunday. This week Janine shared photos of a magnificent ripple stitch throw that she had crocheted and writes about her latest project...another throw.

I mainly knit throws these days and try to have a stash of main colours on hand. These are usually navy, black, grey which contrast well with bright colours. Most times I like to use wool for these main colours and the first preference is yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mill, a proud Aussie firm. 



I was lucky enough to visit BWM a few years back and saw the yarn ready for dyeing

Sometimes, I prefer a good quality acrylic yarn and have used Red Heart, Panda etc, but my absolute favourite is the British brand, King Cole. ( discovered while on holiday in the UK) Earlier this year, a friend sent me an email with a voucher from a UK company called Love Knitting. The voucher gave 10% off an order plus  free postage for my first order. So I took up the offer. Within 10 days my parcel arrived! 

And look how beautifully the yarn was packaged...organza bags!

And this is the project that I've been doing, using this lovely yarn...

It's yet another slipstitch pattern...a favourite of mine, honeycomb. 

The greenish yarn is an eBay buy from quite a few years ago. It's Robin Napoli which I suspect was discontinued many years ago. I bought 20 balls of it and after all this time, still had 17 of those balls left. ( I spent far too much money too...got carried away! Lol) So it was time to use them all up. 'Doing the maths', I suspected that the 17 balls wouldn't make the throw long enough, so after every 4 repeats of the pattern, I am doing one repeat using a contrast colour. 

The Robin yarn is rather lovely with little 'nubbly' bits of turquoise and aqua contrasting with the teal.

This throw is not intended for any particular recipient; it's just knitting for pleasure and to use up some beautiful yarn that's been in the stash too long! Mind you, the throw might end up being donated to the annual parish arts and craft show in July...you just never know! 😉

 

A Number of Questions Come to Mind...

In the last post I wrote about visiting a number of cemeteries. Well in this post, I'm going to 'revisit' the Wingham Cemetery...

See those gates?

Well just inside those gates was this...! 

Yep! Your eyes don't deceive you...it is a heater! So...those questions???

Has it died and its owner brought it to the cemetery for burial? ( here in Australia we often say when machines/appliances break down that they have 'died' 🙁) 

Or, were some relatives of a 'resident' of the cemetery concerned that their loved one might be cold? 

If so, where will they plug it in?

Or as my brother in law quipped, 'What sort of headstone, would suit a heater?'. 

Just shows you can find something that makes you smile in the most unexpected places. 😉

The Graveyard Safari ??

This post will certainly be a little different to the norm, to say the least!
During the previous fortnight we've visited a few cemeteries. The reason? Taking DH's cousin to visit family graves. This took us to not only Brisbane suburbs, but also to 3 cemeteries in the Taree district. Taree is a town in New South Wales and a 7 hour drive from Brisbane. So...

Visiting Grandmother Johanna's grave at Lutwyche Cemetery here in Brisbane...

Visiting Great Aunt Annie's grave at Dutton Park Cemetery in South Brisbane. Remember, until 2011, Adrienne had believed Annie to be her maternal grandmother. 

Despite having the numbers and section of the Dutton Park Cemetery for where the Mohr great grandparents were buried, we were unable to find their graves. The proximity to the Brisbane River of these graves led us to speculate that the headstones were washed away or damaged irreparably in the 1974 or 2011 floods. Other cousins had recalled that these graves did have headstones when they visited with their parents in the 1950s. By checking marked graves using the BCC's index we were able to isolate an area where we believed the family graves were...

 

The next cemeteries we visited were in the Taree area. The lady on the Information Desk at the Taree Council had already been very helpful via email and phone calls before we had even left Brisbane. Nothing was too much trouble and we left the building with maps etc, provided by Kimm.

The Dawson River Cemetery was in such a pretty spot! 

Some relatives' graves were found but as Billy Lindore's grave is listed as unmarked, we could only guess where his resting place would be.

Adrienne remembered visiting this cemetery in 1960 with her mother and a cousin of her mother's. ...the cousin knew where the unmarked grave of Billy Lindore was and used a large tree as a land mark.  The tree in the next photo looked familiar to Adrienne...but it was a long time ago!

Next stop was Wingham cemetery...and better luck here! 

We had expected unmarked graves for this family, judging by the council records,  but someone has purchased headstones fairly recently.

Last Cemetery for the day was the Redbank Cemetery which had several very old graves as well as some more recent ones.

Right up the back of Redbank Cemetery was an isolated section...this was the aboriginal section. I personally found this very confronting but I guess it was a product of its time...rather sad though. 

In this cemetery Adrienne did find ancestors' graves...the Bugg family, who apparently had links via marriage to the bushranger known as Thunderbolt.
Checking out these 3 graveyards had taken most of the day, but it was good to have achieved such good results for Adrienne. She will upload photos of the graves and /or headstones in the Family Tree on Ancestry.com.

Straddie Trip Part 2

How wonderful was it to be woken by birds singing in the trees outside our bedroom window? I just love rainbow lorikeets.

 

The front veranda was a wonderful spot for a leisurely breakfast...

 

After breakfast, we headed off to the North Gorge Walk...a wooden walk way along the cliff tops and what wonderful views!!  Adrienne and DH decided to leave the path and go for a bit of a scramble downhill to get closer photos of the waves and rocks. I opted to remain 'up top' due to 'the foot', but I used the opportunity to get lots of photos of those 2 photographers...

The views were magnificent! 

We drove a little way to another vantage point so we could look up at North Gorge from a distance. 

More wonderful scenery...

 

 

 

Adrienne noticed some trees growing on the cliffs and was fascinated by them. 

I was able to tell her that they were pandanus palms...I know she took lots of photos of these trees, including close ups of their strange aerial root system. I didn't take any such photos so I've borrowed this one from the net. 

Lunch stop was at a bakery for a delicious snack. Adrienne had been trying sausage rolls on this holiday as her mum used to make them for her as a treat. 

Another stop was at Brown Lake...so named because of its colour which is due to the predominant tea-trees and their  leaves staining the water.

Once again I found a comfortable spot to sit, under the gum trees and tea trees...the ground was very uneven. 

 

 

 

In the afternoon, we visited the Straddie Golf Club ( remember DH is a mad keen golfer so we always check out golf clubs when travelling 😉) and enjoyed a drink on the deck, all the while enjoying the views. 

Another stop was at the Stradbroke Island Museum...this darling elderly dog welcomed us at the door...

The museum buildings were very historic in their own right. The buildings originally housed a Benevolent Asylum funded by the colonial Queensland government to care for the sick and elderly who had no one to care for them.  http://www.stradbrokemuseum.com.au/dba

Even though I only took a few photos, it is a very interesting museum. The island has certainly been a busy place over the years! 

The English Woman's Weekly magazine...1950s vintage, just like I can remember my mother reading.   

A new friend perhaps?? 😀

The lens of the old Point Lookout Lighthouse...

We didn't spend much time at the museum because we wanted to get back to Amity Point by about 3pm as we'd heard that wild dolphins come around the jetty around that time. We got there at 3.30 and sure enough here were a couple swimming around.

The day had flown and soon it was time for those sunset photos at Amity Point! 

Next morning it was back to Dunwich to board the ferry...

My last visit to Stradbroke Island had been in January 1971. Yep! It's taken me that long to actually go back for a visit! This visit showed me that the island is still a delightful place...laid back and beautiful! 

Stradbroke Island Trip or a Few Days on Straddie. Part 1

The wonderful thing about having an overseas visitor stay, is that you get to do lots of things together as you 'show off' your home town/state/country. Well a combination of  her mother's memories of Stradbroke Island and the photos of the island on the Qantas ads in the US, meant that a visit to Straddie was on Adrienne's 'to do if possible' list. And DH and I volunteered to take her of course 😉. 

Stradbroke Island is just a 40 minute ferry ride from the mainland...

With the car parked on board it was time to adjourn to the onboard cafe...

The coffee, though served in paper cups, was excellent. 

The ferry docks at the Dunwich settlement on Stradbroke. Our accomodation was a house at Point Lookout, a 20 km drive  away. After arriving at the house, and unpacking the car, we checked out the house.

The views from the verandas...

Then, as Adrienne is a keen 'sunsets and sunrises' photographer, we then drove back to Amity another island community to take pics of the sunset.

On the way, we saw some wildlife...just by the side of the road...and a perfect photo opportunity for a visitor from overseas. Yep! A wallaby that seemed to pose for us! Lol

The sun was just near the horizon when we got to Amity and out came the cameras. I was wearing the moon boot as my ankle had swollen a bit the day before so I decided to sit on a seat to admire the view, rather than walk over the uneven ground.  So DH and Adrienne stood at the water's edge and I took photos of them taking photos as the sun went down. 

Next time I'll write about our busy second day on the island.