Showcasing our beautiful rural lifestyle: Living in the Oakey district of Southern Queensland, Australia

Beautiful Southern Queensland

I thought it was about time that I highlighted the beautiful part of Australia where I live! I hope with this post I can show off to my overseas and Australian friends the incredible beauty of an Australian farm and the local area surrounding it.

It has been a privilege to travel overseas in the last few years, but coming home is also a realisation that no matter where I travel, there are equally beautiful spots to explore in my home country.



The old windmill on our farm.

Late afternoon on my farm.

Australia is made up of states and territories and to travel throughout there are sometimes vast distances to cover. But in my area in southern Queensland, there are many highlights both nearby and within a 2 to 3 hour drive to explore.

Places like Brisbane, our beautiful sunny capital city on the Brisbane River, the Gold Coast and North Coast beaches and the Australia Zoo are within an easy morning drive on scenic country roads.

Tropical poinciana trees line the streets of Brisbane city.

Looking across to Brisbane city centre from the Art Gallery and Museum, Library area.

Contrast of historically old and new in the centre of  Brisbane, the capital city.


 

Sunshine Coast beaches

Toowoomba Region

My district is the Toowoomba Region and Oakey district. Toowoomba is a big bustling city with a country vibe! It has newly built shopping centres, plenty of cafes and coffee shops to welcome you, antique shops and a heritage railway station equal to any. It is most  famous for its beautiful gardens, its tree lined streets and welcoming parks.

It is a beautifully cool weather escape for tourists seeking relief from the hotter coastal and outback areas of Australia. The highlight of the year is the Australian award winning event, the Carnival of Flowers, which occurs in September when thousands of tourists flock to the city!

Beautiful Carnival of Flowers gardens on display.

Toowoomba also has some hidden treasures - firstly, the immensely popular Cobb and Co Museum. This attracts tourists from all over the world to experience a quality museum that displays carriage building including live wheelwright demonstrations, and is the largest collection of coaches and carriages in Australia.

 Another unique destination is the Royal Bull's Head Inn, run now by the National Trust. It is an original shingle roofed, timber slab construction coaching inn of the 1800's. The Inn had an added extension for the owner, William Horton, an ex convict, who used this as his private residence. This building is still standing and has been restored downstairs to its former glory with private rooms and dining areas. It has an upstairs reached by a narrow staircase, a truly amazing place to visit! This coaching inn was visited by all the important people of the colony and even royalty! A band of volunteers maintain it and open it to the public on Open Days once a month.

Royal Bull's Head Inn, an original coaching inn from the early settlement days at Drayton, Toowoomba.

Oakey

My nearest township is Oakey- a country town with a lot to offer visitors! It hosts a lot of regional functions and supports a well established community with good country hospitality, shopping, beautiful parks and picnic areas and a caravan park. You often see tourists at the local Bernborough statue which depicts a famous racehorse from this area.

The Anzac Memorial in Oakey.

There is a large Cultural Centre and library with tourist information in the centre of town. The town is also the site of a large Australian Army Aviation Base which includes a helicopter training facility and just beyond that there is a well established Army Aviation Museum which I can highly recommend.

Each year, there is an open day with highlights: this year, there was a Fly-In that included the mighty impressive wartime WW2 Catalina, the Black Betty! But, you will enjoy a visit there any time, as there is a wealth of aviation history on view.



One of many displays on view at Oakey Museum.

Close by, the Jondaryan Woolshed hosts an annual 3-Day festival in August to showcase its heritage attractions which include vintage farming equipment, blacksmithing demonstration, sheep shearing  and country crafts such as whip making and spinning to name a few. It has the best Australian dampers made in a camp oven on offer too!

Shearing the sheep demonstration.

The entrance to the Woolshed complex is via the old Bank of New South wales, moved here from downtown Oakey.



Entrance to the original shearing shed on Jondaryan Station.

Bunya Mountains

A bit further away are the Bunya Mountains, a subtropical rainforest where the indigenous population used to gather for a meeting of all the Aboriginal clans of Southern Queensland once a year. The Bunya nut is used in all sorts of delicious recipes at the restaurant there and you can enjoy long or short walks through the beautiful forest areas.

Beautiful Bunya Mountain walking track

In winter, visitors can enjoy the cooler climate which is offset by log fires within the beautiful chalet style accommodation that are available for hire all year round!



Would you to like to come and visit my home area? You will be made very welcome if you do with true blue Aussie hospitality!

How You Can Save Money for Further Travels

Yes we all know how hard it is to change our habits! For me, it's the little trips to town which is an hour trip return. Those little trips turn into a stop for coffee and cake, and inevitably quite a bit of overspending on other goodies unnecessary but what I consider essential at the time! But there are ways to save money to add to your travel budget... read on!

Tip 1:
Do it Yourself! Yes, I have been going DYO and online for all accommodation booking, ferries, attraction tickets and the like for many years now to save money. You do need to put aside everything else to trawl through many accommodation sites and I use comparative sites with many booking sites on them like Expedia, Booking.com, Hotel.com. I also use TripAdvisor and travel blogs to get lots of first hand information.

Tip 2:
Go out for dinner infrequently and limit your takeaway meals - this includes coffee! Going for lunch is also a cheaper alternative on the weekends. A lot of working people bring take away coffee with them from town each morning and it all adds up.

Tip 3:
Use cash, I use cash often as you can see exactly what amounts  you are using.

Tip 4:
Price everything at more than one place, ask for deals for cash and deals for more than one item! It is a lot of extra to-ing and fro-ing for research, but can be done online also.

Tip 5:
Use a senior card if you have one. I always ask where ever I go, it doesn't hurt!

Tip 6:
For women especially: cut down on weekly or the monthly magazine intake. For people like me, they can be addictive! From home décor to sustainable living and travel mags of course, you'd be surprised what they all total. Subscriptions can be the way to go as these are cheaper!

Have you got some tips that you can give for saving money to further your travels? Let's hear them and help other travellers!

Capetown and the Cape of Good Hope: Shipwrecks and Survival.

Capetown is a city of some 3 1/2 million, clearly a modern city but bearing all the hallmarks of a Dutch, British and even French military occupation in the 19th century. Territorial rights changed hands many times, but many buildings like the Castle, which is essentially a Fort complete with moat and Governor's residence, still exist.

We set out to explore this as it is within easy walking distance of the central city area. It has been extensively renovated and has a dedicated team of archaeologists and engineers working constantly on its restoration. We witnessed a kitchen area underground that has just been discovered, complete with fireplace, utensils and a well.

At 10 a.m. each day, there is a small but impressive key ceremony where the Governor gives the key to the fort to the Guard to open the lock on the Main Gate, a bell is rung and the Guard process around the vast courtyard area. The Governor's residence is impressive and furnished with heritage Dutch and British furniture, including portraits, maps and dining area to suit a hundred guests seated! The entry fee is modest, but it has tours available and very friendly and helpful staff.

Key ceremony at the former Governor's residence at the Fort.

Old Government House, a good example of Colonial architecture, next to the Company Gardens.

The beautiful Company Botanic Gardens with a view of Table Mountain.

You can visit the beautiful waterfront area of Capetown which is dominated by the huge Victoria and Albert Wharf complex. Here there is an immense two-story shopping area with elite shops, restaurants indoor and outdoor and a beautiful view of the yachts in the marina and shipping wharves beyond. There are taverns and a Wheel for a view of the city that seem to be in every major City these days! There is the local food to be enjoyed, some with a Portuguese flavour which I loved, but there are all types of food on offer from around the world. Topped off with the local Castle beer or a bottle of wine from the vineyards close by, just the shot for lunch or dinner break in sightseeing!

We also took a trip up the Cable Car to the top of Table Mountain, which left us with impressive views of the city and its environs. The aspect of looking up to the end of the cable way is quite unnerving, but proved to be not as much as I feared! If the wind is blowing, the cable car does not operate so it is a good idea to check daily! The inside of the car which holds 60 people also rotates slowly as you ascend, giving everyone an opportunity for good viewing and photos. The day we went, we were lucky as the fog descended after an hour or so and apparently this happens quite often. You can abseil if you have the nerve from the rocks, but we enjoyed a coffee out of the cold wind in a café with hot coffee and delicious eats!

Looking up to the top of Table Mountain with the cable car ascending to the clouds!

We took a half day tour of the area from Capetown to the Cape of Good Hope National Park. Quite an eye-opener to see this windswept coastline with its turbulent seas that were the end of many a ship's journey from the Portuguese navigators to present day. This is a coastline of hundreds of wrecks,  ships have gone down in its treacherous seas from the early days of the 1400's to 1977, when the Antopolis sank off the Twelve Apostles range South of Capetown.

The Cape of Good Hope. This coastline is  the site of many shipwrecks from the 1400's to the present day.

Diving, whale watching and all water sports including surfing and even cage viewing of sharks, are popular in this area. We visited a protected African penguin rookery at Simon's Town, a Naval Base, on the way south. We walked down on platforms through the foreshore with so many of these small penguins with their chicks right by, so close you can touch them! At the beach, Penguins were practising swimming, and this was a sheer delight to watch!

African penguins coming in from the surf!

Continuing South, we reached the National Park itself a vast Heath area where there are no trees to be seen but many protea bushes. We were lucky enough to see some large animals, like the kudu, ostrich and springbok. There were baboons too, but their reputation precedes them and you are told not to feed them and they are considered dangerous to encounter on walks. At Cape Point, our first stop, you can climb up to the lighthouse or take the funicular for a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean and rugged sheer cliff faces! Another stop took us to the beach at the Cape of Good Hope, where the waves spread a vast mist of spray all over the area for miles. You can hike through the Park and enjoy these wilderness areas with their natural beauty further if you have more time.

Where to from here? Lighthouse signs indicate the vast distances the early navigators had to cover in those small sailing ships!

Magnificent view from the lighthouse at the most southerly point of Africa.

Our return trip was through Chapman's Chance, a drive taken at your own risk, that winds around high cliffs with many rockfalls evident on the sides of the road. We also saw many shanty town areas near very expensive suburbs, and a reminder of the poverty and high unemployment levels in young people here.

The incredible tunnels built into the cliff face at Chapman's Chance with an overhanging rock face above your vehicle!

All in all, a visit to this area of South Africa is not to be missed, it has an amazing history to unfold and areas of great beauty, including wilderness and heritage areas to explore. Its Botanic Gardens and wineries are of world class and the people very hospitable!

The Protea, the national flower in all its glory at the flower markets, Capetown.

My tip: Rethink your impressions of Africa as a dangerous destination. There are dangers, just as in every place in the world, but the beauty outweighs these and with reasonable caution, there is a vast continent and its wilderness to explore!

Luang Prabang: Life at a leisurely pace in Laos!

We arrived in Luang Prabang and instantly became calmed by the change in pace from the busy streets of the capital city, Vientianne. Riding bicycles becomes easy on these typically country village streets and you can walk easily to any significant sites. Luang Prabang sits on the beautiful Mekong River and we only had to walk down a laneway to access the numerous restaurants that overlook the main waterway. It has a French influence and cafes and bakeries are everywhere. Flat bottomed boats and canoes pass up and down and there is a fascination in watching the comings and goings that take place.

French style lampposts blend in with a Laos streetscape.

Bicycling is easy on the quiet streets!

 There are many restaurants, bars and cafes in Luang Prabang. Food is very cheap and beautifully diverse. My favourite place for dinner was on the riverbank. It was run by a wonderful French chef who had given up the streets of Paris to build up a business with his restaurant and across the road, a B and B, which he was renovating with that touch of French class! He showed us through, and we wished we had known about it as it was beautifully restored and cheaper than ours! C'est las Vie!

Enjoying French cuisine and coffee by the river!

The main temple, Wat Xiens Thong, was a short walk from our digs, it has beautiful buildings with the most amazing gilded features. From there it was over the bamboo bridge across the Nam Khan River. This bridge is washed away each year and rebuilt! At dusk, everyone walks through the street markets to go up the hill to catch the view of the sunset over That Chomsi, 300 steps up. It is very crowded but amazing views!

The ornamented tree of Life at Wat Xieng Thong. 

Finely decorated temples.

Crossing the Nam Khan River at sunset.

Sunset over Luang Prabang.

Colourful street markets: spices and dried fish.

We booked several tours locally while there. One was to the waterfalls nearby where tourists can swim in the rock pools and I paid to visit a bear sanctuary on the way to the falls.. These sun bears are rescued from poachers who milk them for their bile: only a small fraction apparently of this despicable trade. I had a beautiful soup and noodle dish, while at my feet was a cat and a rooster! Only in Laos!

Waterfalls at Kuang Si.

Bears sleeping in the Bear Rescue Centre!

Our trip up the Mekong River to the Ban Pak Ou Caves was a lengthy one and a half hours, but the scenery was superb. There are 170 or so steep steps up to the cave entrance, inside there are thousands of small buddhas. To my surprise, we found that Australians had contributed to the complete restoration of this cave. On the way back, we stopped ashore at a whisky village which made local whisky and rice wine. Dead snakes, centipedes and cockroaches add to the flavour - tasting is optional but I tried some without additives! There were beautifully crafted silk scarves and clothing though to compensate for the tasting! Our night cruise of the river with dinner included, proved very entertaining as we stopped at a small bamboo riverside stage where ethnic dances were performed by a small group of local villagers. The costumes as always were beautiful.

Inside the restored Buddha cave.

At the base of the caves, only 300 more steps up to go!

Snake, scorpion and cockroaches are added to the wines!

Choose your poison, I mean whisky!

But the main attraction in Luang Prabang was the dawn parade of monks who receive alms and rice from the tourists and villagers. There were about 200 monks, young and old, and they processed in single file down several back streets. Many people were entirely respectful, but some tourists were not and stepped in front of them with flashes going off, something you are told specifically not to do. We saw many of these parades all over Laos and Myanmar and they were so amazing each time.

Young monks gather at the temple site.

Monks young and old follow in single file for alms at dawn.

My Tip:
Take your sense of humour on tours as it can be quite uncomfortable in longboats and prepare for those stops beside the river where you have to get to shore on small bits of wood! Water bottles and snacks are essential for long boat or bus trips and laugh with the locals as they are always obliging!

Have you ever encountered disrespectful  tourists on your travels?

Glimpses of a Beautiful Past in Granada, Spain.

What springs to mind when the word Granada is uttered is the beauty and serenity of the La Alhambra and General Life complex that sits on the top of a mountain overlooking the main city area of Granada below. Located in Andalusia, Spain, this is a palace and fortress complex that was constructed on top of older ruins in the mid 11th century by a Moorish Emir. The palace was built in 1333. They were left to decay and rediscovered in the 19th century and restoration was begun.

Lower entry portal to the Alhambra



Palace of Charles V courtyard.

We arrived on the train from Seville and booked our tickets for the complex, which included the Granada Cathedral and a hop-on/hop-off bus pass, for the next day. Alhambra is high up and has a great view of the Sierra Nevada mountain alps, where the residents of Granada want the Winter Olympics, so they announced on the bus. It takes a full day to see everything on offer as it is absolutely packed with tourists and you have to book for certain sessions to see the various parts. In fact, it is better to book online before arriving in Granada due to its popularity. By getting there early, you can escape some of the huge crowds! There are a few outlets for food items, but we carried our own bread rolls made up for lunch, some fruit and stopped for snacks where necessary! Also it can be very hot: hats and water are a good idea!

From a balcony of the Nasrid Palace.

Firstly, we visited the Palace of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor where the courtyard has high columns rising 2 stories, reminiscent of the Roman ampitheatres. Next it was our group time to visit the main Nasrid Palace which has had many parts restored to their former beauty and is undergoing constant renovation work. It has areas of beautiful tiles, elaborate wood carvings and tranquil pools and fountains, gardens and balconies. The Moorish influence is everywhere, the highlight being the Patio of the Lions with its beautiful fountain! Words cannot do justice to the intricacy of the patterning and tiles in this Palace.

Courtyard in the Palace.

Patio of the Lions, a beautiful fountain!

Ornate ceiling in the Palace.

From there, we visited the military fort Alcazaba, which is nearby. Here there are archaeological digs going on and you can climb the watchtower for great views of the city. From there, you can walk up to the spectacular gardens of the General Life. There are perfectly shaped cypress trees leading into gardens  with beautiful water features, fountains hedges, flowers and trees. It is quite a long walk but well worth it!

View from the Watchtower.

A stroll through Generalife gardens.

Serenity in the gardens.

After a quick look at the baths of the Mosque, we decided to walk back down to the city through the winding path and cool trees. We found a welcome restaurant in the Plaza Neuva for well earned tapas and refreshing beverages!
 My Tips: Plenty of water for rehydration, good walking shoes, plenty of patience for those determined crowds!
Have you ever been in an area of such beauty that it makes you sit down and just meditate on your surroundings?