The Magical Mystery Tour …

Published on by FJB
DSCN4554 (1024x768)
Galle Face Hotel beachfront

Usually when I travel I spend hours, maybe days researching each destination, agonising over train times, printing out information and making internet bookings.  This time I have to admit that I have made almost no preparations. I am just going to sit back and let the Magical Mystery Tour of Sri Lanka happen !!

We arrived tired but safe at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo at 2:00am local time this morning.  Some of the group had been travelling for 24 hours and their body clocks were convinced it was really 6:30am, so they were truly tired. But after a few hours sleep, intrepid travellers that we are, we battled our way through an early buffet breakfast and then headed out on a tour of Colombo’s highlights, Hindu temples and colonial buildings.

Not on the itinerary was an “emergency” stop at a private home, where a gracious elderly lady friend of our driver allowed eight total strangers to troop into her immaculately clean house and use her toilet. Iced coffee was served, we chatted about her family living in Australia, and then we all trooped out of her house again. One of those “it would never happen in Australia” moments.

We finished the morning with a $3.00 food hall lunch of vegetarian curries – including green mango, jack-fruit, okra and loofah. “Like the one you use on your back only softer” … according to the stallholder.

Weather report: warm and steamy with occasional showers but not uncomfortable, especially at the hotel, which sits right on the beach and is today being buffeted by gusts of monsoonal wind. Tomorrow, an early start as we head out to the countryside and the home and garden of legendary Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa.

Inside a Hindu temple
$3.00 veggie curry
Galle Face buffet

Optimistic masochistic gardening …

Published on by FJBLeave a comment
DSCN3434 (1024x768)
Scarlet Fever Ginger

Depending upon which map you consult, Bellingen is either just inside, or outside the sub-tropical gardening zone. Either way, I knew that trying to establish a sub-tropical garden this far south was always going to be a bit optimistic.  The problem is that I am drawn to the lushness of tropical foliage.  Perhaps this is due to spending my formative years living in the outback desert town of Woomera ?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t an ideal summer to start the sub-tropical part of my garden … three months of spring drought, followed by a month of hot weather, then a severe wind-storm, a flood, then weeks of daily rain and no sun. Our rainfall total for the first three months of the year was 1084mm!

DSCN4379 (1024x768)
Rubbish Skip Bromeliad

Many plants have been un-affected by the weather, others have sulked and refused to perform.  The Ylang Ylang, which finished winter looking like a dead black stick, burst into life again, but other even more optimistic plantings just well … croaked !! The beautiful Barbeletta bamboo I purchased for $150.00 is stone-cold dead, whilst the bromeliads I rescued from a friend’s rubbish skip are looking fabulous and producing pups and flowers. Is this a lesson?  The more expensive the plant, the more likely it is to die?

DSCN1568_01 (768x1024)
Thai Beauty ginger

Some of the best performers this summer have been the gingers … the bees love them, they have flowered enthusiastically and their perfume has turned mowing from a chore into an aromatherapy session. The Thai Beauty which died down over winter, produced beautiful fragile blooms, but the torch gingers that I planted after falling in love with them in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, must have known they were doomed and didn’t even bother to raise themselves out of the ground.

DSCN3402 (1024x768)
Musa Velutina

As always, the bananas can be relied upon to go absolutely bananas !! The pink Musa velutina have flowered their heads off, and provided snacks for the honeyeaters, and the not-so-dwarf Cavendish provided me with a huge bunch of small sweet bananas. The Abyssinian has finally settled in and is producing spectacular leaves. ( I have five Abyssinian seedlings ready to go in the ground, and I suspect that these will be next summer’s stars.)

So now that summer is over, I should be having a sensible talk with myself … but next month I am indulging in some more masochism. Three weeks in monsoonal and truly tropical Sri Lanka and the opportunity to drool over plants that I couldn’t possibly hope to grow in my garden.  Or could I …. ???

Last Summer
This Summer

I heard a whirring sound …

Published on by FJB2 Comments

RSCN4312 (1024x768)A few nights ago, as I was lying in bed lulled by the sounds of the night and the rain gently dripping from the trees, I became aware of a new sound coming from the direction of the frog pond. I wasn’t really expecting to hear another new frog this late in the season, and the thought of leaving my bed and mounting a pond expedition was not exactly appealing … but it did sound almost frog-like, so from the comfort of my bed, I consulted the Frog App on my iPhone, and there it was, right at the end of the list …. a Whirring Tree Frog!!

Blast, now a nocturnal expedition was unavoidable !!

Getting a photo of this frog proved to be quite difficult since my pond is now so overgrown and frog-friendly that it’s not really human-friendly any more.  Add to this a recent sighting of a very pretty yellow and blue tree-snake, and the idea of wading to the other side of the pond in the dark with a torch and a camera was a bit daunting.  But finally, on the third night, a co-operative frog positioned himself in an accessible spot and I was able to take a photo.  Unfortunately this frog is really shy and went quiet every time I tried to sneak up to take a video. This is the best I can do – a view of one of my ponds, with Whirring Tree Frogs calling nearby, and a very quiet Whirring Tree Frog in the rain.  Turn up your sound to get the full effect, and that’s frog species number eight in case you’ve lost count !!

Island farewell …

Published on by FJBLeave a comment

DSCN4107 (1024x768)Our last two days passed in a bit of a blur … and we’ve decided that Kangaroo Island is a microcosm of Australia. Salt pans, dry creek beds, bush fires, bone-jarring dirt roads, lagoons, beautiful deserted beaches, and a home to over 1,000 native plant and bird species.  The island feels remote, but in contrast you are never too far from a vineyard, a cheese maker or a meal of fresh fish.

Wildlife highlights – Tammar wallabies on our front lawn, a dolphin skimming through the shallows only metres from our feet, and our visit to Duck Lagoon which even at the end of a dry summer has enough water to sustain a large number of birds.

The food highlight was at Kangaroo Island Spirits, a rustic and quirky little distillery located in a corrugated iron shed near Cygnet River.  They make an affogato to die for – drunken honeycomb ice cream, honey and walnut liqueur and a shot of espresso.  Absolutely worth a detour if it’s not already on your itinerary.

Five days on KI was not nearly long enough and we have decided to go back in October for wildflower season and to explore the western end of the island.