On Monday Ruth Carter came down from the Old Orchard at Kalang and took us along with Co and Carla back up for an explore and for dinner. We walked around the Carters' land, as we had last year, and were astonished by how many additions and improvements they have made - they are adding two small guest cabins, and Peter has installed two bee hives which are about to start producing (having ordered a mail-order queen!). They have a chicken run and a rather palatial hen-house, and some ducks are arriving next week.
They were above the recent flooding but were cut off by the flood waters from Bellingen for a few days.
We went back out after dark and were treated to a beautiful display of blue glow-worms, which provide a truly magical show; they lay little traps of fine mucus beads in long hanging threads, rather like a spider's web, and then turn on the lights to attract hapless insects that fly into the threads and are trapped - easy meals!
We also saw a Splendid Bower Bird bower - the male accumulates bits of blue trash to attract the female and impress her - in former times these would have been blue berries, flowers and so on but now they are bits of blue gaffer tape, Lego pieces, cotton reels and so on - amazing to see.
John's mother has sent up some last-minute clothing gifts for the island kids, and these are being packed away in what little space we now have remaining. We are also installing a virus-filtering water filter on our domestic supply, as a little extra safeguard.
We are happy exploring a while, but may well be off early next week. We'll keep you posted.