A Surprise Visitor to Paluma – Nankeen Night Heron

A surprise visitor to our verandah in downtown Paluma this morning……a juvenile Nankeen Night Heron. Something different from the usual mob of rifle birds, catbirds and honeyeaters looking to see if we had put any fruit out for them. The ‘NNH’ moved with all the speed of a tired cuscus on the verandah rail when it wasn’t standing stock still. A very naive youngster who didn’t see us as a threat at all and let me approach to within a couple of metres without any sign of alarm. Didn’t mind me taking 100 shots in the low morning light (1/25 @  f8 ISO 1250 on Canon 5DSR). He/she was there at break of day and was still standing looking like it wanted to come inside out of the rain when I sent this post at 0900. Now all I have to do is sort through 100 photos and decide which few to keep!

Text & Photos by Peter Cooke

A Weekend for the Birds

Most residents at Paluma are avid bird watchers and as the seasons change, so does the variety of bird species that come and go round the village. As winter approaches, many of our favourite species are becoming regular visitors to local gardens and verandahs as they check out what’s on offer at the bird feeder.

Last weekend was a great time for a spot of bird watching, with Jan and Peter Cooke taking up their favourite vantage point on their elevated verandah set adjacent to the rainforest. Some splendid feathered visitors arrived to enjoy the free fruit and easy pickings at the bird feeder.

Below are some of Peter Cooke’s fantastic photos from the verandah. What a way to spend the weekend!

Lewins Honeyeater
A hungry Catbird
Female Riflebird or a young male Riflebird? Can you tell the difference?
A male Riflebird at his iridescent best!

Photos by Peter Cooke & Text by Michele Bird (A ‘Cooked-Bird Collaboration’).

Cherrypicker, Chainsaw & Chipper

Paluma residents might have thought that the village had been taken over by a Lumberjack’s Convention last weekend as the reverberating sound of chainsaws and mechanical chipper echoed around the village. It just so happens that some locals decided to take advantage of the fine weather to get some major pruning works underway. It all came about when locals Colin and Jill arranged for their son’s mate Jason, who is a professional arborist, to come to Paluma to prune some large rainforest trees on their block. 

There was movement in the village and the word was passed around……..!

As it often does around here, word was quickly passed on that an arborist was in town and here was an opportunity not to be missed. While Jason had originally planned to spend a couple of days pruning trees at Paluma, he was quickly snapped up by neighbours far and wide for additional pruning jobs. He now has a week’s worth of bookings and he will be staying on for a while. Paluma often has that effect on people…..!

Jason has an interesting career. When not pruning trees, his regular day job is working on movie sets. He moved from Townsville to the Gold Coast to pursue this work. Most of his time involves setting up stunts for film-makers. He happens to be in North Queensland at the moment due to Covid-19 and travel restrictions. He is taking advantage of the enforced stay in the North to do some extra pruning jobs, with Paluma residents happy to oblige.

Jason’s expertise in his work provided much entertainment for locals as he worked from dizzying heights in the cherrypicker and from harnesses. He often had a small audience watching his every move as he worked away, high amongst the tree-tops to trim and tame some rainforest giants and also the tall pine trees at The Guesthouse. 

Jason working high among the branches of the tall pines at The Guesthouse.

As always around this little village, the pruning became a community project with everyone ‘chipping in’ to lend a hand. It was all hands on deck at the chipper on Sunday afternoon. Not a branch or tree limb has gone to waste and the resultant mulch will be added to local gardens, flowerbeds and vegie patches. 

The frenetic mulching activity at the chipper on Sunday afternoon.
Paluma residents ‘chipping in’ during the pruning works.
Wilfred & Popey get serious at the chipper. Is mulch produced by Popey called ‘Paluma Pulch’??

Text by Michele Bird. Photos by Colwyn Campbell & Michele Bird

TMR Range Road Update – Geotechnical Works

The Department of Transport and Main Roads would like to advise that geotechnical investigations will occur on Mount Spec Road from Tuesday 12 May to Thursday 14 May 2020. These works complete the investigations started in March this year.

Mount Spec Road geotechnical investigation works 

Work duration: Tuesday 12 May to Thursday 14 May 2020

Work hours: 7am to 5pm

Impact on motorists:

  • Reduced speed limits of 40km/hr (through works area). 
  • Traffic controllers on site to guide motorists past works area.
  • Delays of up to 3 minutes may occur when investigation works are taking place on narrow sections of Mount Spec Road.
  • There will be no road closures during these works.

TMR would like to thank the local community and businesses in advance for their patience during these works. Should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me on the details below. 

Kind Regards

Meghan

Customer and Stakeholder Management (Northern) | North Queensland Region
Program Delivery And Operations | Infrastructure Management & Delivery Division |

Department of Transport and Main Roads

Floor 6 | Townsville Government Office Building | 445 Flinders Street | Townsville Qld 4810
PO Box 1089 | Townsville Qld 4810
P: 1800 625 648 | F: (07) 4421 8711
E: engagement.northern@tmr.qld.gov.au
W: www.tmr.qld.gov.au

TMR Range Road Update – Road Works Completed

Good Morning,

Please be advised that road works on Mount Spec Road have now been completed.

Kind Regards 

Meghan

Customer and Stakeholder Management (Northern) | North Queensland Region
Program Delivery And Operations | Infrastructure Management & Delivery Division |

Department of Transport and Main Roads

Floor 6 | Townsville Government Office Building | 445 Flinders Street | Townsville Qld 4810
PO Box 1089 | Townsville Qld 4810
P: 1800 625 648 | F: (07) 4421 8711
E: engagement.northern@tmr.qld.gov.au
W: www.tmr.qld.gov.au

A Sucker for Succulents

It’s no secret that there are some fanatical gardeners in the village of Paluma. At many a social gathering in ‘BC’ times (‘Before Coronavirus’), the main topic of conversation revolved around our passion for propagating, planting and growing our favourite plants, be they native or exotic species.

One such fanatic has to be Jennie at Cloud Cottage. Jennie has developed a serious addiction to succulents of many varieties, shapes, sizes and colours. Her collection is ever-growing and her dedication to growing these plants is very impressive.

Jennie’s addiction developed just over a year ago, with just a couple of plants. A friend, fellow gardener and neighbour (another Jenny), inspired Jennie to grow some of the different varieties of succulents.  Since then her collection has rapidly expanded and she now has over 250 individual plants. Her favourite varieties are the Crassula’s and the Echeveria’s. Combined, she has over 90 different species and sub-species of these types of succulents. 

Just some of the many varieties of succulents grown by Jennie.

Why grow succulents? Jennie says they are very easy to grow and easy to propagate. You can get free plants and expand your garden with very little effort. There are a huge variety of shapes and colours to collect. They are very adaptable and forgiving plants – if you forget to water them they will continue to thrive with neglect. 

Jennie has some tips for ensuring successful succulent growing at Paluma (try saying that three times really fast!). Most importantly, they need protection from our heavy and continuous rain, so shelter is very important. They require bright, indirect light and some varieties like full sun, for at least part of the day. Good drainage is essential and they don’t like wet feet. Don’t kill them with kindness by watering them too often!

Jennie has taken to propagating many of her parent plants and she is also growing several specialist and rare varieties. She is potting up plants to sell in the future at the Rainforest Inn and at the Paluma Market (in ‘AC’ times – ‘After Coronavirus’).  She continues to be creative in finding new and innovative ways to use succulents in the garden and in home displays and arrangements. Her latest creation is a ‘living clock’ made entirely from ‘baby’ succulents.

What time is it? Time to get into the garden!

As with most ‘fanatics’, Jennie is always happy to talk about her passion and to share her vast knowledge and expertise in growing succulents. Just be aware……if you happen to ask Jennie about her succulent collection, prepare to be informed and inspired! 

Text by Michele Bird. Photos by Michele Bird & Jennie Robinson

ANZAC Commemoration, Past Pandemics and Covid-19 – Lest We Forget

Article Contributed by Michael Drew in the lead-up to very different ANZAC Day commemorations in Australia in April 2020.

The human experience of war and pandemics/epidemics are oddly similar in that they each require, of necessity, social isolation and lockdown together with stringent disease control measures.

Most Australians under 50 have no first-hand experience of pandemic disease, but are now having to come to grips with what earlier generations learnt about self-preservation.

In the  period 1880 to 1940, North Queensland was blighted by an endemic mosquito-borne malaria parasite (not virus). Observations by the Cairns-based, German Emigre, Dr Edward Albert Koch, hypothesised that the Anopheles Farauti mosquito was the vector of the often fatal disease, long before scientific research confirmed mosquitos as the culprit, rather than the ‘miasma’ of swamps, (which is why the large swamps behind the Townsville Strand were not drained and built on until the 1900s).

In the late 1800’s Dr Koch set up a screened isolation ward at Cairns Hospital which prevented malaria infected patients from spreading the disease….sound familiar? This of course caused much angst among residents who feared the worst for their loved ones who could, (and did) die without the benefit of clergy or family being present. Thus, it became a personal and economic tragedy with many home remedies being touted as the cure! (eg. the ‘kerosene bath’, favoured by my grandfather, but not enjoyed by my father).   (See Wikipedia Listing: Edward Albert Koch 1843-1901). 

105 years ago, 8000 young Australians died at Gallipoli and in the isolation wards of field hospitals on Lemnos and in Egypt, with many deaths being caused by rampant viral and bacterial  disease. The survivors went on to The Somme, Ypres & Villiers Brettoneux where again diseases required isolation, lockdown and vigorous hygiene regimes to control cholera, typhoid, dysentery, gastro and pneumonia spread by fleas, flies and rats. (It’s a wonder the bubonic plague didn’t come back!).

Again, many died tragically away from their loved-ones in Australia, their last hours spent being comforted by the Australian Army Nurses, who were famous for their care of young mortally-ill Diggers ….sound familiar?

Indeed for decades afterwards “ Base” Hospitals in Australia were run on strict military lines as a consequence of their success in combatting diseases in the era of no anti-biotic drugs, which were only developed for the D-Day Landings in June 1944.

The returning Diggers in 1918-19 brought with them the deadly pandemic, so-called  “Spanish flu”, which is estimated to have killed between 17 million and 50 million persons world wide (more than the Great War total casualties!)

In Australia, the Nation went into lockdown and with isolation procedures eerily similar to those currently in legal force for COVID-19. Public wearing of face masks was the norm.

The economic effects were tragically enormous given that 60,000 young Australians (including young female nurses) had lost their lives in the conflict and twice that number were permanently disabled, both physically and mentally. These casualties set against a total population of 4.5 million meant that Australia was  economically trashed and the lack of young men to father the next generation caused an urgent immigration program which recruited British, Irish and southern Europeans in the early 1920s, thereby changing forever the Australian cultural mix. The flu pandemic added to the death toll of young people who were particularly vulnerable to this virus. (COVID-19 affects 40% of under 40s today, exploding the myth that it is an elderly person’s disease).

In the 1930’s the “horror of parents” pandemic, Poliomyelitis Virus, commenced to ravage young Australians and continued until the mid-1950s when Dr Jonas Salk (USA) produced a very effective vaccine to the huge relief of parents world wide.

In the North, the early 1930’s efforts at treatment of Polio by Chiropractor Ernst Kjellberg at his large-scale Millaa Millaa “ tent hospital” produced very good results which caused him to establish polio treatment centres in Cairns, 11 Sturt St Townsville and The Avenue, Hermit Park. 

Sister Kenny was his famous disciple who treated a young Joh Bjelke-Petersen who suffered lifelong effects of polio.  (See Sister Kenny Park next to the Tobruk Pool on the Strand, Townsville).

Panic-stricken parents (mine included) frantically isolated their children from families who were struck down (and locked down) by this capricious, deadly, paralysis disease which saw many die or be consigned to massive “ iron lung “ machines installed in hospitals. These were the ventilators of the day….sound familiar? 

The economic cost of polio is still with us today as the loss of earning power of many victims affected their subsequent families’ standard of living.

Any history of North Queensland epidemics should include the horrible deaths of many 1930’s cane cutters who contracted a leptospirosis infection, known as Weil’s Disease, which was ultimately discovered, by scientific observation, to originate in rat’s urine as, in those days, rats and their snake pursuers, were in plague proportions in the North’s cane paddocks. A very major cane cutter strike occurred in 1934 after the bosses refused to act. This caused huge economic damage to the fledgling cane industry. The problem was eventually solved by an observant medico who recommended burning the cane before cutting…problem solved with the crack of a match!.If only COVID-19 was so amenable to a good hot burn!.  (These days …no cane cutters, therefore no burn!) 

The greatest pestilence is war. 

Anzac Day is an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices of those who have died in serving the Nation’s interests even though for many observants the causes of the conflicts are, sadly, shrouded in the fogs of elapsed time. For example, who knows the reason why Australia joined in a European War in which the English Monarch was the first cousin of the opposing  German Kaiser, who was allowed to go into post war exile in Holland after an estimated 6 million persons died on both sides of the conflict.

In Paluma we have our own history of a budding life and intellect cut short in the death of 23 year old Flight Sgt Bruce Plant, a son of our District, who rose from the status of a Mess attendant at Garbutt Base to a Fighter Pilot at Amberley and a Canadian-trained Lancaster Pilot in the very short time of 18 months! He had matriculated at CBC Townsville 5 years earlier and would have been in the cream of the post-war achievers had he survived the deadly bombing raids over Germany in September 1943 as part of RAAF 460 SQN based at Binbrook,UK.

He suffered the ultimate isolation from his wife and young child, John, whom he never held.

We should also reflect on the fate of the 20,000 men of the 8th Australian Division, 2nd A.I.F, who were captured by the Japanese in Singapore in 1941 and forced to perform slave labour building the Burma Railway until 1945. Notwithstanding the heroic medical efforts of Colonel “Weary” Dunlop, the starvation diet, contagious “jungle” viruses, bacterial infections, cholera, typhoid, beri beri, dysentery, gastro and festering ulcers resulted in one in three Australians dying as a P.O.W. away from their loved-ones and family.

It is also apposite to think of the 30,000 men of the famed 7th and 9th Australian Divisions who left Australia in 1940 for Tobruk, El Alamein and the Sinai Desert and thence to Papua New Guinea to relieve the Militia (CMF- Army Reserve) on the Kokoda Track and to repulse and eventually defeat the Japanese at Milne Bay, Buna, Sanananda and Gona, as well as sea assaults in Borneo on well entrenched fanatical Japanese troops. These men were isolated from their families for years and suffered the exhausting privations of the soldier on a diet of tinned Spam (which would make a goat throw up!)

They suffered all manner of infectious diseases and stomach cancers which for many led to life-long illness, including not well understood “war neuroses”.

On the home front in North Queensland 1940-45, there was social isolation and lockdown of two different types.

Firstly, the civilian population of the North suffered “panic virus” and largely fled south when the triumphant Japanese captured Fortress Singapore, attacked Pearl Harbour destroying many naval vessels and then bombed Darwin 22 times, killing many civilians, and subsequently bombed Townsville from their New Guinea north coast air bases. Those who remained felt very isolated in the face of a notoriously vicious enemy.

Many families were split up with some “essential” workers remaining for civil defence and troops food supply services. Hospitals could not cater for civilian surgical cases necessitating a long rail journey to Rockhampton or Brisbane….sound familiar? 

Secondly, the North’s largely Italian farming families suffered as a result of  “knee jerk virus”, which  manifested itself after some far off bureaucrats decided that the majority of northern Italian males should be interned down south and leave their womenfolk and young children behind to tend the farm and fend for themselves. Talk about social distancing! Talk about gross economic loss and damage! All on the unproven assumption they must all have been supporters of Mussolini! This great injustice has never been properly addressed.

Two little Biloela girls on Christmas Island………. sound familiar?

In 1940, John Curtin, in a famous speech, devoted the entire resources of the Commonwealth of Australia to the prosecution of the War against the enemy….sound familiar?

In 1942-44 the North became an enormous military complex for Australian and US forces of all types, land, air and sea. Our own village became the site for an early warning radar array for Townsville which was guarded and manned by US Troops with explosive charges set to bring down McClelland’s Bluff, according to the late Tom Connor. Later, Paluma would be requisitioned  as a RAAF Rehabilitation Unit  – a far more jolly use if one has regard for the hall photos of the inmates of “Hotel Australia”. Isolation was relaxed and rehab was designed to serve the future post-war economic needs of the inmates….sound familiar?  (eg. “the road out the other side”). 

Having regard for the above events of Northern history, any grizzling about not being not able to visit boutiques and coffee shops and to be seen there snuggled up to the glitterati, the cognoscenti and perhaps, the illuminati, seems petty and stupid, when we consider the hardships endured by the past five generations of Australians in times of trouble, strife and pandemics.

As with all calamitous times, this pandemic will pass as did the others referred to above. Our safety and its duration and its economic damage are entirely a matter for us complying with the science-based medical advice. 

Do the time now and reap the early rewards of flattening the curve lower than a run-over cane toad! 

As well as commemorating war’s casualties on 25 April each year we should remember the strength of our nation’s underlying resources and wealth (our Commonwealth), as well as the seemingly bottomless well of scientific and managerial expertise devoted to putting the Country back on track. 

Airlines come and go creating short-term economic chaos.

If one thing we have learned from this pandemic it’s that most business/social travel, air or otherwise can be successfully replaced with online technology …..and as a result…. the Earth will Zoom ahead!

What Katydid…?

Katydids, also known as bush crickets, belong to the Tettigoniidae Family and are closely related to grasshoppers.  Around the world, apart from Antarctica, there are 6400 species known, of which 900 live in Australia.

This little critter is a Leafy Katydid that I found hanging on my bedroom curtains. It is the biggest katydid I have seen and I thought it may be unusual, however after consulting Google, I discovered that 6 cm is a normal adult size for this species, Paracaedicia serrata.  Their life span is a year or less, with most being eaten by birds and small mammals before they reach adulthood.  However in the tropics, some can live longer.

The wings are green and leaflike with a fine yellow streak along the edge.  The hind legs are finely serrated.  Leafy katydids inhabit rainforests and feed on leaves, grass, flower petals and sometimes fruit and aphids.  When disturbed, they will remain motionless and can barely be distinguished from the surrounding leaves.

Eggs, looking like tiny seeds, are laid along the edges of leaves or along stems and when hatched, the nymphs will go through 5 successive moults before reaching maturity.  The stridulous mating call is achieved by rubbing the front wings together. 

So, next time you are gardening, see if you can find one of these cleverly camouflaged critters.

Text & Photo by Colwyn Campbell