A small but very enthusiastic crowd gathered at the Community Hall on Saturday evening (2 November 2019) for the latest event on the Paluma social calendar with an International theme.
Continents and countries the world over were represented as many of the attendees donned their finest (and not so-finest) international costumes to celebrate multiculturalism, Paluma-style. There were Mexicans, an Egyptian, two Fijians (fresh off the cruise boat), North Americans and European nations all represented. There were a few Aussies, a Scotsman and even a Drop Bear (of uncertain nationality and with a strange rear appendage) made an appearance on the night.
A wide selection of dishes from around the world meant that there was plenty of good food to enjoy. Some patrons told their best and very worst jokes on the night. The group was pleasantly surprised by the return that very afternoon of the Cooke’s (Peter & Jan) who have just made their annual migration south (from NT) for the summer. Great company of friends and neighbours ensured a good time and many laughs were had by all.
The stars weren’t the only thing shining at Paluma last Saturday night, with the inaugural Glamour & Glitz Social at the Community Hall. The night was filled with glitter, sequins and precious jewels, all on display. Some stunning outfits were worn by the ladies, the frocks to rival any H(B)ollywood red carpet event. The razzle dazzle and glitz was so great that some patrons had to wear their sunglasses all night! Even the menu had sparkle with a dazzling chocolate and silver masterpiece (cake) made by Jennie, in (belated) celebration of Lynn’s birthday.
While only a small crowd attended this event, it was quite possibly the most successful social this year for fun and frivolity. There was much laughter and camaraderie and anyone passing the Hall on Saturday night might have thought that 100 people were in attendance. The music was sensational with a soundtrack of classic dance tunes. Some patrons took a whirl around the dance floor before tucking into the menu of savouries, casseroles and other delights.
If you didn’t attend the Glamour and Glitz Social then you missed the opportunity for a night of fun and frivolity – but most importantly, you missed the chance to meet and mingle with your Paluma friends and neighbours and to support your own community association. Social events are fun, but they are also vital to raising much needed funds for the PDCA, so that all those very important matters like road repair and maintenance and the preservation of all those things we most love about Paluma can remain on the working agenda.
See you at the next Social planned for 2 November. The weekend is short, but friendship and strength of community goes on and on……!
It was a big weekend at Paluma on 29th and 30th June. The annual Bush Dance with the Wattle n Gum Band was held at the Community Hall on Saturday night with many locals and visitors dancing the night away.
On Sunday morning the weather was superb with clear blue skies and a cool breeze. A bumper crowd attended the Paluma Market and there were plenty of stalls to browse. The wares on sale included handmade gemstone jewellery, leadlight glass ornaments, original paintings, knitted and crocheted clothes, shawls, scarves, beanies and blankets, a variety of bric-a-brac, DVD’s, books, cards, plants and delicious homemade cakes, biscuits and condiments. There were bargains galore!!
Members of the Wattle n Gum Bush Band put on an impromptu performance at the playground, while members and volunteers of the PDCA sizzled sausages at the rotunda. A great morning was had by all with many people lingering to relax and enjoy the music, the sausage sizzle and the cool mountain air.
An early morning walk to Mc Clellands’s Lookout at Paluma is always a treat, but especially so at this time of the year. With the humidity and cloudy skies of summer and the wet season now gone, the early mornings are crisp and clear, without a cloud in the sky.
For the first time this year, the temperature dipped to single digits on Sunday morning (12 May) with a cool 9 degrees in the village. Gone is the heat-haze of summer, so that the view from the Lookout is particularly special. So clear is the view of the coast and offshore islands that you can clearly see their outline and you can even identify each individual island – especially with the assistance of the interpretive signage from the Lookout’s best vantage point.
There is no better place at Paluma village to sit and contemplate the view, whilst thawing out and soaking up the warmth of the sun’s early morning rays. On Sunday morning the visit to the Lookout was enhanced by the sound of dingoes calling from somewhere downslope, deep within the rainforest. With the cool clear air, the eerie sound of their calls seemed to carry for miles.
A cup of lemon myrtle tea and a slice of mandarin and almond cake at the Rainforest Inn topped off a rather delightful early morning stroll.
Just another day in the paradise we know as Paluma.
There has understandably been a lot of talk about rain and rainfall records over the last few months. While the daily falls that Len Cook recorded in February (see previous post and also additional info at Higgins Storm Chasing) are impressive and probably unprecedented (over 2.5 metres in 11 days!), it begs the question of how many records were broken in Paluma this wet-season and just how wet Paluma is compared to other areas in the north (and elsewhere).
For those who are unfamiliar with the quote alluded to in the title of this post, the famous author Mark Twain once remarked that there are 3 types of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and statistics. This post may serve to underscore his point that you can prove just about anything you like if you carefully choose your statistics.
We now have 50 yrs of rainfall records for the Ivy Cottage BoM station (1969-2018) but due to some months with missing data, there are gaps in the records of annual totals. Fortunately, the late Roy Mackay kept his own records and I have been able to use his graph to fill in the missing annual totals (1992,1996-99). Lets start with how this year’s wet season in Paluma compares to the long-term record. Well, we have had the wettest February on record with 1986.7mm. In addition this wet-season from November ’18 to April ’19, even though we have no official data for April, has already been the the wettest on record with 4,636.9mm for November to March. Whether or not the 11 day accumulated total of 2571 is also a record breaker would require a deeper analysis of daily totals over the last 50 years – not something I, or anyone else detectable from a google search has been prepared to do. Nevertheless this year was a record breaking wet season in more than one way. We have already had enough rainfall from Jan-March to exceed 90% of the annual records, so there is also a reasonable chance that 2019 will be the wettest on record.
While we are discussing the long-term record for Paluma on its own, it is worth asking whether or not there have been any obvious trends or patterns in our rainfall. The graph below indicates that there has been no appreciable increase or decrease in mean rainfall over the last 50 years, but there does appear to be regular cycles of wet and dry periods with rainfall peaks separated by 7-9 years.
Charlie Allen recently forwarded me a graph from a now closed BoM station at Mt Spec (somewhere near the summit). The records go from 1933 to 1967 with no overlap between it and the Ivy Cottage station. Interestingly, the records indicate much higher rainfalls at Mt Spec. The median annual rainfall for the 32 years of complete data was 3324mm, which is almost a meter more than Ivy Cottage (2355mm). Also there were 8 years at Mt Spec with annual falls greater than 4m (25% of all years) and of these 3 exceeded 5m. At Paluma, we have only had 4 years exceeding 4m annual rainfall (12.5%) and none that exceeded 5m. The Mt Spec record also shows a clear decline in rainfall during the recording period. These data from Mt Spec raise the question of whether rainfall at Paluma was also higher in the 30’s to 50’s with a subsequent decline. We may never know.
Do any of these new records mean that Paluma has toppled our two wettest towns in Australia (Babinda and Tully) off their pedestals? The short answer is no. After scratching around amongst the totals, I did find that our new record for February is higher than the highest February rainfall in Tully but not for Babinda. However I can report that our highest daily rainfall ever recorded in Paluma (634mm in January 1972) is higher than any daily totals for Tully or Babinda! Also it is possible that our recent 11 day cumulative total exceeds anything recorded there (it’s too much work to check on this!). But before we crack open a bottle of bubbly, bear in mind that having had one exceptional wet day, or series of days doesn’t really make us generally wetter than towns with much higher averages (see comparison table below). And besides, it turns out that other places in Australia have had much wetter single days – Crohamhurst in SE Qld recorded 907mm on a single day in 1893, and if we look globally, La Reunion holds the world record for daily rainfall with a staggering 1.825 metres in 24 hours.
If all of my efforts to find some way in which Paluma can be considered uniquely “wet” seem a bit over-the- top, spare a thought for Babinda and Tully.
In terms of the key statistics I have seen, Babinda easily exceeds Tully in terms of average annual rainfall (4.287 vs 4.092 metres per year) and the same goes for median rainfall, making it an easy pick for the wettest town in Australia. In recognition of this humble achievement Babinda has placed a small golden gumboot in the window of its post office . Not to be outdone, Tully (in the spirit of overcompensation) has argued that it has the record for the wettest year ever (7.898m in 1950) and has erected a massive 7.9m high golden gumboot in a local green space.
Ironically neither the town of Babinda or Tully come close to being the wettest “place” in Australia. That title goes to the nearby unpopulated summit of Mt Bellenden Ker, which boasts a massive annual average of 8.12 metres and a record year of 12.46 meters in 1973. Makes Paluma seem positively arid in comparison!
Paluma traditionally celebrates ‘La Feile Padraig’ [The feast of Patrick] on the Saturday nearest to the actual day, 17th March. This year we were one day ahead on Saturday 16th. Due to the afternoon tea in celebration of the late Roy Mackay the starting time was delayed to 19.00hrs, but in the event it was near 19.30 hrs before we were eating. There was a great selection of dishes with an Irish flavour including, potato bake, chicken casserole, devilled eggs and many others. Desserts included a wonderful green creamy delight, Guinness brownies, bread and butter pudding and pavlova.
With over 30 people attending, it is needless to say the bar did a brisk and lively trade but, surprisingly, there was some Guinness left over. There was a lucky shamrock under a chair and it is amazing how difficult it proved in finding just which chair!
Many attendees wore their best green gear and several leprechauns appeared out of the Paluma mist, so that the community hall was a sea of Irish green.
Lynn took on the role of Quiz Master for the evening – she said that Les’ questions were too hard – challenging geographic, musical and Irish general topics. There were several participants who scored 13 out of 17 which is an extremely good show of knowledge. The tie-breaker question saw the winner – Wendy Kaus – collect her bottle of wine. Les threw in a few Irish jokes and the buzz of conversation lasted late into the evening.
The highly efficient washing up crew’s work was greatly appreciated. It was a most enjoyable night.
Assistant Editors Note: Many thanks to Les and Lynn Hyland for their hard work in decorating the hall, stocking the bar and making the event a great success!
One of Paluma’s most popular and well-loved residents, Don Battersby will celebrate his 69th birthday this week. To mark the occasion, Colwyn Campbell hosted a birthday party for Don on Saturday night (19th January) at her residence. The house and verandas were bursting at the seams with the event well-attended by many of Don’s long-time friends and his Paluma family. As usual, there was food aplenty with an array of Indian-inspired dishes and other cuisine, as well as a tropical passionfruit birthday cake. There was good food, great company, many laughs and the usual warm community spirit that exists uniquely in our village of Paluma.
Happy Birthday Don from all your friends and family at Paluma!
Last Saturday night (8 December) the annual Tropical Xmas BBQ was held at the Community Hall to close out the Paluma Social calendar for 2018. Up to 20 residents attended the event, with a few people coming and going over the course of the evening.
A sumptuous feast consisting of BBQ meats and an array of salads and sweets was enjoyed by all. The ‘BBQ-er’ for the evening was Ross Hyne, closely supervised by ‘Mr. BBQ’ himself, Don Battersby. As usual, the Bar and Beverages were expertly dispensed by Les Hyland.
The ‘dish of the night’ was awarded to Jennie Robinson for her very special and unique recipe for ‘sweet but salty’ berry dessert cake! The encouragement award goes to Jim for his very special ‘do-it-yourself cucumber and egg salad’.
It was great to see many people embracing the ‘Tropical’ theme with their colourful shirts and other attire. We were lucky enough to have two of Santa’s Elves attend as well (Ross & Sonya).
As with all Paluma Social Events, many of us ate too much food, drank a little too much wine and laughed a lot! A happy and fun-filled Paluma time was enjoyed by all. Merry Xmas!
For some months now we have had a Pale Yellow Robin resident close to our house on the five acre blocks. He [or very possibly, she] perches in the Murraya tree close to our kitchen window and mounts an attack on the window pane on the left hand side from our perspective looking out. His claws land on the glass and he drops down onto the lintel at the base of the window. He usually pauses for a few seconds before repeating the attack two panes to the right and again usually pauses looking quizzically at you if you happen to be at the sink, totally unfazed by the sight of humans. He then proceeds to circle the house, usually anti-clockwise but not invariably so, attacking windows randomly before returning to the tree and repeating the antics over and over for maybe an hour or more before going off duty for a period. We think he must be eating during this gap as he has an annoying habit of leaving a calling card on or below the windows in the kitchen.
More recently he has discovered that the car has mirrors and he is fascinated by the second bird and spits at the reflection in the mirror and leaves copious deposits on the curve above the door handle which have to be washed off frequently to avoid damage to the paintwork. You may deduce that we are a bit cheesed off with this behaviour and have taken to thwarting the car attacks with our car cover which is pretty successful as he can’t even get at the windows. He still looks for the now covered car windows but has more or less given them up as a lost cause.
But he still does the house daily – we don’t know if our presence engenders his behaviour as we can’t see what happens when we are not there ! He is extremely hard to photograph but the photograph below is at the kitchen window by the sink.
One of the many benefits of residing in the village of Paluma is that we are living close to nature. Encounters with the local wildlife are common for those of us living with the rainforest and the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area literally at our back door. On my house verandah there are numerous spiders, of varying sizes and species, happy to cohabit with me. My favourite spider is a rather large, hairy-legged huntsman that I call ‘Harry’.
‘Harry the Jungle Huntsman’
‘Harry the Huntsman’ lives in the kindling box by the back door. He takes refuge in the kindling box by day, but by night he stalks the verandah and house walls looking for prey. His favourite past time is to sit by the back door at night and jump towards me when I least expect it.
‘Harry’ is a Jungle Huntsman which are fast moving rainforest spiders (don’t I know it!). They are long-legged and mostly grey to brown in colour. They can grow to a body length of 30mm (Harry is approaching this size). Jungle Huntsman feed on a range of invertebrates including moths, crickets, cockroaches, flies and other spiders. Jungle Huntsman are covered in fine sensory hairs which are very sensitive to air movement. This helps them to detect the movement of prey and also the approach of predators.
These spiders lay eggs which are encased in a flat white silk egg sac. The female spider stays with the egg sac until the spiderlings hatch. The eggs hatch in 30 to 60 days (depending on the temperature) and several hundred spiderlings can emerge from one egg sac. (If ‘Harry’ is actually a ‘Harriet’ then I may have many more Jungle Huntsman on the verandah in the future).
Jungle Huntsman grow by shedding their exoskeleton, or moulting. The life span of most Huntsman species is 2 to 3 years. These spiders are non-venomous. Their predators include birds, geckoes and large wasps.
A sumptuous feast consisting of BBQ meats and an array of salads and sweets was enjoyed by all. The ‘BBQ-er’ for the evening was Ross Hyne, closely supervised by ‘Mr. BBQ’ himself, Don Battersby. As usual, the Bar and Beverages were expertly dispensed by Les Hyland.
