Spotty Gum Lodge

On Monday we drove down the mountain to our little speck of peace and beauty by the sea: Spotty Gum Lodge. Called thus because it's a little wooden house in the midst of tall Eucalyptus maculata (the opposite of Immaculata, i.e. spotted), iron bark gums, and cycads whose ancestry dates back to the time of dinosaurs and before. (Ah, the wonderful ancientness of this country!) There are also a number of spindly wattles which are not doing terribly well because the spotty gums take all the light up in the canopy. We are visited regularly by rainbow lorikeets, king parrots, wattle birds, currawongs and magpies, plus the odd (noisy) possum and wallaby all looking for a free feed.

In the past I've seen Wonga pigeons, tree creepers, bower birds, Superb wrens, peaceful doves and other beautiful, delicate, intent little birds scouring the forest for whatever it is they scour it for. There are lots of other birds too, but getting more shy and rarer as people keep building in the bush and taking up their habitat. There was a family of tawny frogmouths here a few years ago (well, 12 years ago, actually), and they come back to check out the environment from time to time, but I fear they have fled for nesting purposes to more remote, less human-infested spaces.

Meanwhile, I have to report that my father's association of the amount of sand at Josh's beach with the dominant weather conditions seem to be borne out yet again: Josh's is absolutely crammed with sand. Towel Rock, upon which we used to drape our towels to dry in the old family days of the late 60s and other later times, is easily accessible for this purpose again – at other times, it towers above the sand level, too high to use for draping. Daddy always said that the sand came in with the drought. High rainfall over SE Australia leaves Josh's beach a horrible fanged mess of green slimed rocky spines, not a grain of sand to be seen. Which has had an unexpected benefit: when the beach inspectors visited (we surmise), they came at the time when there was no beach, just rocks (Josh's beach has another name: Disappearing beach). So they decided not to put up that wretched sign that forbids dogs from walking unmolested, unleashed (even at all), on the beach. I am very gratified to say that our old Jessye the Wonder Dog frolicked on that beach a score of times unhindered by rules or regulations. Or leashes.

Anyway, Josh's is agog with sand and gorgeousness. Why is it that winter makes the water look so irresistibly inviting? So clear, clean, delicious, like liquid glass? The waves were absolutely majestic today – rolling in against an off-shore breeze (like lions coming, said D.H.Lawrence), turning their magnificent aqua-spearmint shoulders into the white tumult of foam and froth. The blown spume and the flung spray... misquoted, no doubt. How I love watching it. How mighty is the great Pacific Ocean.

I took lots of photos today, something I rarely do. And blow me down if I didn't check out David's blog this evening and find he had taken uncannily similar photos, but his are the black jagged volcanic rocky shore of Maui in Hawaii: mine are humble local photos of the beautiful Eurobodalla coast. I shall put a selection of these photos up in due course.

In the meantime, our recent culinary acquisition – the Weber Baby-Q – has produced a couple of stunning dinners for us. Last night we cooked a superb whole (free range – of course!) chicken and tonight a fillet of beef. But what I really need is a book of accurate, specific recipes to tell me precisely how long to cook things, because at the moment it is very reliant on guesswork. For example, I'd like to know how to bake vegetables such as potato, pumpkin, sweet potato etc. Last time I tried, they were overcooked to a burnt nub. But it certainly does beef fillet and chicken well!