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2-5-09
St Helens, Birdport

I took the little dirt road from St Helens up north to Gladstone and then over to Tomahawk and then over to Birdport.

It was a nice ride and somewhere I crossed this nice little river (Great little Musselroe?) which had made sort of a little lake here. There was a gal just pulling out with a trailer filled with some of those plastic kayaks so I guess they must run guided tours on the river.

I think this was near Gladstone… a waste dump area.

I was checking out the old gravestones when I saw this one with no markings on it. Very strange.

Actually there were several and when I walked around to the other side I see that they are Chinese markers. Every one was planted the same with their feet pointing north but these Chinese stones were pointing south. When I stopped in at Gladstone I asked the postmaster what was going on. She said for some reason the Chinese wanted their stones faced that way and that is what they did. Humm, I wonder why? I know in California that the Chinese all wanted to be taken home and buried in China. I suppose if possible they didnt the same thing here if they had the money to be shipped back home.

I really like this dry stack rock wall in town. I don’t see many of these walls down here.

Out on the dock at Tomahawk bay.

This is the protected side of the island and the beach was really nice.

They must have made these little silage bales this spring and left them in the field.

I like this tree line. Do you suppose the wind blows here?

They put up dry hay bales too.

I stayed the night in Birdport. I tried to use the library internet service to do my email but they didn’t have wifi service. I could however use their computer he said. I cranked it up and went to my yahoo site and typed in my username and password….. BLOCKED!!! WTF???

‘oh yeah, you can’t do email on our computers’ he said. Another big WTF? He said I could go down to Scottsdale tomorrow and use the computers in that town and do email. So I went down and NO wifi but could use their computers to check my email. She said I could download to a usb thingy and blah, blah, blah…. Ok so I did a quick email and downloaded some pages to my usb thingy and when I plugged it into my computer I didn’t have anything. Sheesh…….

I decided to take a little dirt road to Ralphs Falls, Pyengana, Derby and then back to Birdport.

These are sure a favorite flower around here. they must be easy to grow.

A hop grower along the highway.

Here was a guy pointing the way I needed to go towards Legerwood.

When I turned the corner into town I came across a bunch of tourists in the highway and this along side the road. Someone had cut the trees off and carved figures in the stumps.

My favorite was this guy with his dog.

Down the road a ways was this interesting mailbox. It even had a nice jewel collar.

The little house across the street was nice too.

This is one super nice windbreak. They have carved the side of the trees on the left going down a little road which is too bad as they sre are beautiful trees when left alone. It is like a giant hedge.

ok, now dirt road to Ralphs Falls. It sure was a nice little valley I rode up out of. Humm, looks like a dead opossum in the road here. They are a common road kill.

There sure were a lot of these flowers along side the road. I guess they are just wild flowers. Are they Foxglove?

At Ralphs Falls they had built this nice little building with rain water collection system as usual.

It sue is nice that they make these grills available to the public. I sure see a lot of people using them in the parks I have been in. They even had a nice wire brush for cleaning the surface on each grill. It is actually a near flat stainless steel surface with a hole for drippings in the middle. They run on propane and when you push the button it heats for five minutes I think.

The foot path to the falls was really nice walk.

A sign said it was the highest free flowing falls. I will put these all together but cant stitch them, I forgot how to do that. J

This was that little valley I started from.

The little creeks and even the rivers are sort of a light brown color. Kind of like weak tea. I guess it is from the decaying vegetation. It is so different than they clear blue water that I see in the ocean water here. Everything is just the opposite from the Pacific Northwest with clear rivers and cloudy green seawater.

I stopped at this little roadside restaurant and though I would strike up a conversation with this guy that has one of those new Suzuki V-Stroms. Yee Gads, what a huge plastic wonder this thing is compared to the little Ozdog. It turned out he wasn’t even slightly interested in talking, so I hopped on my little dog and beat feet out of there. I guess maybe he was embarrassed having to ride that thing. (Sorry Ken, but damn, what a big plastic monster these things are and only 650cc.). I would be embarrassed too, or maybe he thought he was just so much better than I was. Hard to tell when they won’t even talk to ya. I was hoping it would fall over right there in the parking lot. Damage, easy eh? His helmet is wired up for sound or communications or what ever.

I stopped along the highway and took a little walk in the Rainforest. It was so different in that forest from the rainforests in the Northwest US. It was completely dry under here. They must get the rain in the winter and not all year like the redwood forests. As I came out of the forest I met a guy that wanted to talk ‘Suzuki DR650’, yeah, I talk that talk….

He was interested in buying one as soon as he got settled in Tasmania. He had just sold his home up in Brisbane and put his furniture in storage and was in a little pickup traveling around looking for a new place to land. He had sold his Ducati and wanted to get a little bike like mine to travel the back roads around Tasmania where he wanted to live. As we were visiting an old Ducati came roaring by. The guy said it was an old one maybe mid 70’s and he used to have one like it. He said they have the bevel gears rather than a timing chain. I don’t know squat about those bikes but the one that went by sure did sound good. He said it was a 650 or maybe he said a 750 I am not sure now. It was leaned out like a café racer and was bright yellow. An Italian yellow dog….. He was sure a different kind of guy than the V-Strom dude.

Rainbow Trout, rock.

I stopped in at a little restaurant and had some lunch. Outside were these flowers.

this bee was working hard.

Hello there California Poppy….. you are a long way from home.

The V-Strom dude came cruzing by while I ate my lunch. He didn’t even glance sideways at the Ozdog as he went by…..

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