OZ Blog # 21, Return to Cairns, InkMasters and Kuranda Birds and Butterflies.

I am now back in Cairns for a few days to attend the InkMasters Workshop on Itaglio Printing.

But first another foray back to the Cairns Art Gallery. Every time I visit they have a new impressive exhibition on!

This one however was quite for me disturbing. This is Patricia Piccinini’s take on what could happen to the animals, the environment and society in the future because of today’s major world issues around global warming and pollution etc!







I certainly brought up in me allot of thoughts around what we are doing to the planet now and its not good!

Back to the Ink Masters workshop held just across the road from the Cairns Botanical Gardens 

The tutor Carme Dapena, from Barcelona, was very friendly and definately hands on!

This type of Reduction Intaglio is a very old process and is a three colour process patented back in 1719.

A copper plate is etched and then burnished and etched.

I wasn’t aware that the copper plate had a plastic film on it, so I had to revisit the etching process!

Taking the first print, starting with yellow!

This is the inking and rubbing off process, which in itself is a major skill set taking months if not even years to master! 

I took this photo in Malanda, and very ambitiously this was my project. 

We made 5 prints always changing things as we progressed, This one I think was for me the most successful. 

The three colours build on each other and therefore the other colours are possible!

Here is some of the other students work.

An after workshop relaxing sunset bike ride around the Botanical Gardens.

Heading back to the Atherton Tablelands I stopped in Kuranda to visit Bird World.

I also visited the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary. I much preferred this as we were in an enclosure with hundreds of butterfly’s.

It was so easy to photograph them.



They are constantly releasing fresh butterflies every day!







Here is one laying her eggs

Back at the Caravan I notice another new (for me) insect.

Apparently I’m told this is a common wasp, not at all like our NZ Wasps!

Preparing for our return next year I line the floor of the Canopy with rubber and some artificial grass



 A few days cooler and wetter weather created these little fungi!

I had volunteered to help out at the Tablelands Folk Festival, held in Yungaburra only 30klms away.

On the Friday before I helped setting up some of the tents and lugging heavy speakers around to the various venues.

As a volunteer I could go to any of the concerts and workshops for the whole of the Festival

This Folk Festival’s theme this year was a focus on the International Year of Indigenous Languages.

A local man made this 8meter Puppet called Memetica a giant Aboriginal Elder.

I took the Chris Matthews workshop. He’s from WA is totally self taught, and an absolutely masterfull musician and performer.

It’s not every day you see a harp balanced on the chin, ...well it was Irish music!

After the Festival on little walk around town I noticed this old timber mill.

Only recently (a few years ago) a cyclone came though and put its restoration in the too hard basket.



Here I am catching the bus down to Cairns and soon my flight back to NZ

That’s enough photos for this OZ Blog, the next one will by the final OZ blog heading across the Tasman for 2019. And picking up the vibe of New Zealand.

Till then, stay safe, be creative and have fun.

Jimu & Christine.

Oz Blog # 20 Weipa, Rinyurri National Park The Lions Den, the Bloomfield track and Cape Tribulation

So after getting to the tip of Cape York the only option was south back along part of the road, however I took a more devious route. Below is what you come across when you head into Weipa.

It’s quite big place with a huge Bauxite Mine. This would be the only traffic lights in at least 500 kilometers and is where the road crosses the huge dump truck road that heads to Port Weipa.

 As you can see the red dust of Australia is everywhere on the machinery





I happened to be there on a Sunday before a Monday holiday and the whole place was shut.

Except for the Weipa Bowling Club...this is in the foyer...it’s a Crocodile skin

It was only 11am on a Sunday and I joined the custom in Australia, the one that it’s never too early to have a beer. However the TV was on a Melbourne kick boxing event and the extreme violence, even when a man is down, was simply too much for me to watch. That, and the 30 deg heat, saw me heading south again.

I returned to the Archer River Roadhouse, to have another one of their huge veggie burgers, real jaw stretchers!

These were very old pumps, which had to be attended by staff for every customer.

A commemorative rock to Toots, the legendary truck driver who always got her truck through with supplies for the people of the Cape after the wet season.

This is Old Laura, a unique historic station which is, shall we say semi preserved.

There were pictures of this truck at work as a then brand new truck.

I then headed off the main corrugated track/road into Rinyurru National park, which was no less corrugated.

Quite a different landscape in this area.

No trees, or ant hills, but there were birds.
Self service, where I booked my own campsite at Kalpowar for the huge sum of  $6.20.

The sign says Achtung: Crocodiles in this area, so here I chatted to some guys (with a beer in their hand and feet in the water) on the Cape York Motorbike tours who are riding on the much rougher 4 wheel drive tracks, heading for Cape York.
They ride all day and drink beer at night, a perfect biker combination.

They invited me in for a chat and a beer.

I rode into their camp on my unicycle and earned my beer by giving them a juggle and a whistle performance.

Some of these guys were from Tasmania and WA and were loving the tour.

A lot more safety gear is in use compared to when I used to ride dirt bikes back in the day.

The first two bikes are the leader’s Husqvarna and tail end Charlie’s KTM,

the rest are Suzuki 400’s with long range petrol tanks fitted.

As I headed towards the Daintree area the countryside became so much greener, it was starting to feel much like NZ.

I was heading down to the infamous Bloomfield track which in earlier days was extremely difficult at good times of year and impassible in the wet.

Nowadays there is only 39 kilometers of dirt road, with some sections steep at 31% gradient, and those sections are concreted. However it is still a low ratio 4 wheel drive.

This is the nearest I got to seeing a snake, although I did see a 4 meter croc well out in the middle of a river.

Crocodile infested water - they are in there, but am not prepared to test it out.

Onward to this beautiful beach at Cape Tribulation, so named by Captain Cook because he hit the reef around here and had to jettison a lot of weight to become afloat again, eventually finding the area now called Cooktown to complete repairs.

This might have been the first unicycle on this beach, who knows.

Certainly not the first tanker passing this way.

Back in Cooktown catching up with the outside world via Telstra connections.

Cooktown as the signs show, does have quite a story.

20 km south of Cook Town is the Lions Den Pub, which has a great little campground attached.

Outside the pub this road train with its load of hay heading north towards drought stricken FNQ farmers.

My last night’s swag camping was only 30 km north of Mareeba at a free camp called Rifle Creek Camp. I unusually decided to move on without breakfast and to have that in Mareeba. During breakfast and reading the local rag I found out about an upcoming (in a few days) Intaglio Printing Workshop in Cairns. Got onto the web site, found they still had places and enrolled all from the cafe in Mareeba.

With an immediate change in plans I headed for Cairns.

While browsing in Cairns I found these aboriginal paintings inspired fabric pieces.

And also got my hair cut in line with supporting the All Blacks Rugby World Cup efforts.

Heading ever so much closer to home the rest of the journey will be reported in the next OZ Blog #21.

So till then stay safe, have fun and be creative!

Cheers

Jimu