Life After Woodford Festival

After the buzz of Woodford wore off, we realised that living in a small tent in the heavy rains, really sucked! The warm shower at David's parents place, at the end of it all, was a welcome gift. The sludge of a weeks worth of living as a swamp thing, slowly disappeared down the drain, revealing a human-like form underneath.
We stayed for another 8 days with David's folks in their SDA retirement village located in Alstonvile, NSW. It's a community surrounded by macadamia plantations and fruit farms. I had a hand at cracking buckets full of macadamias with a hammer. So delicious! The rains didn't subside and ended up filling the empty dams and reservoirs with murky, crop snatching flood waters. Because of this, we couldn't venture too far in any direction without running into torrents of mocha toned rivers crossing roadways and bridges.David took me on a driving tour of the local area and beaches, as there wasn't much else that could be done in the sort of weather that was hovering.

One of David's favourite pastimes is boogie boarding on the local beaches which have incredible surf, but as we made our way to "Shelley Beach", the weather was so intense that the water was being whipped up and great frothy plumes pushed along the entire beach front. I took this photo and then heard later on the radio, that people shouldn't go walking in the froth, as the snakes in the area have taken to hiding in it for warmth or something and that over 40 have been spotted on the beaches by walkers.

Once the major flooding subsided, David and I went up to Allan's property (David's 85 year old Father) with Allan and collected fresh passionfruit. Allan also got out some delicious honey fresh from his hives and I ate a bunch right off the comb.

The wildlife is amazing up at Allan's property and I spent some time studying one of the unusual mountain grasshoppers, which have fat little abdomens. There were some amazing plants too.

David with Elkhorns and Staghorns on the property

An old Bedford truck on the property

Back at the house this lovely spider made an enormas web at the front door. She was a huge spider and quite beautiful. She was almost the size of my hand. I looked it up in my nature book and it's called a "Garden Orb Spider"