Monday, 21 July 2014

Before the 6am alarm went off this morning, Hendrix was awake hassling his Dad to take him fishing. How could a man refuse? So they jumped up, got dressed and headed for the tinny. They even beat Mr Busman. So at 5.50am they were off to catch a Barramundi, hopefully.

They returned a while later for breakfast after not catching anything. We all ate together before starting school for the day. Hendrix did really well and finished the work from last week. He then started this week’s work and got a good amount of that done too. Elokin on the other hand struggled. It took her almost 4 hours to do the maths unit and then we still had handwriting and spelling to finish for last week. It was only in the evening when the boys had gone fishing that we got to start this week’s maths unit.

Mr Busman came down for a chat and we learnt that his name is Jan (pronounced Yarn) and he and his wife live in the Adelaide Hills on 40 acres growing olives and making oil.

While Nath and Hendrix were fishing just before sunset, Elokin borrowed my camera to capture the kangaroos around the camp. She got a few really good shots which we were both impressed with. When the lads returned, they had been victorious. Nath had landed himself a Barramundi, although just undersize at 51cm, he was returned to the water. I noticed there were a few cane toads around again, so before dinner Nath, Hendrix and Elokin went toad hunting armed with Hendrix’s spear. They caught one and put it in the fire I had lit while they were hunting. Nath had to spear it again as it sucked its guts in and hopped out of the fire. It did not survive the second burning.

After dinner we had the Boobook Owl fly into camp as it had when Heather and Allan were here. I had been hoping that it would return as it is super cute. I snuck into the van and retrieved my camera while it stayed in its spot on the tree. We watched as it flew down near the ground right next to Elokin to grab something to eat and fly off. But it returned only minutes later and sat watching for ages. Again it took flight and landed at the base of the tree next to the van before flying off once more. When he returned the third time I had found the tripod and was ready to take a photo of it. Elokin walked under it and talked calmly to it. In one of my photos it is looking down at her as if listening to what she has to say. She was hoping that it would land on her arm, but when it flew away again, it didn’t return for the night and we went to bed.

It is anything but quite here at night as I lay in my bed listening to the screech and wing flaps of the bats, the “mo-poke” symphony of the 3 Boobook Owls, the splashes of the mullet jumping in the water, the sucking thumps of the Barramundi catching their food and the odd all mighty splash of a crocodile.

Until next time…. Happy and Safe Travels.