Cochroach wars....

I moved into my tiny little dive apartment a few weekends ago.....No heat, no air conditioning, the refrigerator didn't work plugged into the socket behind it, so, I have had to run an extention cord across the room.   The oven doesn't work, the large element on the stove only comes on one setting - extermely high.   Someone had their washer hooked up to my hot water (in the communial area underneath the house), the shower sprays water everywhere, the fire alarm doesn' t have a cover on it, oh yeah, and THERE IS A BOAT PARKED IN MY PARKING SPOT!    I sent an email to the rental agent, but, she was on leave for a week with no back up.   Now, 11 days have gone by.  No response.   That's ok, I'll contact the owner directly.  That will get her attention!!

My severe and chronic cockroach phobia dedicated that I get the place professional sprayed before moving in.  So, I forked over $100 and assumed that I was safe for at least awhile.     The guy who lived there before was a total slob and a computer gaming geek.  He never opened any of the windows.  Uck!!!   So, I was airing out the place with all the windows and doors open.    All the windows/doors have screen except for one over the kitchen sink.   The apartment is on stilts, so, it never occurred to me that those lowdown scum of the earth creatures would crawl up the stilts to get to me.  But, they did…..  I went into the little bedroom to get ready for bed, and then went back out into the kitchen.   There was 2 GIANT cockroaches racing up the curtain!   I freaked out!    I didn’t have any roach spray (I hadn’t even begun to unpack), so, I grabbed some toxic oven cleaner out of the cabinet and started it all over them!  UCK!!!!    The one raced out the window and the other one disappeared behind the stove.     EWWWW!!!!  So, I slammed the window shut and ran back into my room. 

I got in bed and pulled up the covers, quaking on the inside.      I kept telling myself, it was just because I had the window open, it was just because I have the window open!.  There aren’t any more!  There aren't any more!   But, then a little voice inside my head said…”what if some others had crawled in?   What if they came up from the drain and reinforcement troops were on their way?  what about the one behind the stove???”.   I leapt out of bed and jammed a row of socks along the door frame so that little monster couldn’t come after me in my sleep, then jumped back in bed and pulled the covers tight around me.   I kept trying to convince myself that I should plan a surprise counter attack and leap back into the kitchen, snap on the light and see if I could catch any more and shoot them down with the toxic oven cleaner, but, I just couldn’t muster up the necessary courage.  So, I huddled under my covers for the rest of the night, and, trust me, it wasn’t visions of sugar plum fairies going through my head.  

The next morning, I slowly and cautiously opened the door.   Sure enough, right in front of my bedroom door was the cockroach, laying flat on this back, his legs pointing up in the air.  He was on his way to get me!  But,  I had thwarted his dastardly plan this time around!   Today, at lunchtime, it was off to Big W for supplies for tonight’s battle.  I bought not 1, but, two bottles of roach spray, one with a special nosal for hard to reach areas, the other, promising extra toxic poisons to be spewed into the air upon spraying.  Oh goodie! Extra toxic!   I topped of my arsenal with roach traps, the kind that carries the poisons back to the nest.  I plan to set them up as sentries forming a protective parameter around the bedroom and kitchen.   Now that I am armed and dangerous, I plan some stealth attacks, turning off the kitchen light, going into the bedroom and closing the bedroom door.   Then, after a few minutes, yank open the door, sprint to the light, turn it on and blast ‘em with toxins!!    Wooo hoooo!   Now, if I can just get up the courage to go home.  

As I stelthfully climb up the stairs to the apartment, I take out the killer toxic spray....I unlock the door and cautiously push it open.   Without entering, I snake my hand around and turn on the light...my spray posed and ready for battle....

Stay tuned for the next epiosoide of...Cochroach wars!

Beautiful Binna Burra

I have been to Binna Burra section of the Lamington National Park, just an hour 1/2 drive from my house.  However, I have never had the pleasure of doing this hike, called the Coomera circut (17.4 km) before.  Wow, what a magnificant rain forest!

Fabulous!!!

Welcome to Lamington National Park!

I just start my hike, and, I saw this little guy lumbering down the path....

It's an Enchidna!  I have never seen one in the wild, only in the zoo!   What a treat!

He kept burrowing his little head into the side of the embankment. I think he was trying to hide from me. I can't see you, so, you must not be able to see me!

Look out! sharp spikes!  I touched them, they felt like plastic.

Lots of magnificant waterfalls...

beautiful spring flowers...

view from on high...

Check out this mushroom!

And the grand finale - the view near the end

Yet Another Mad Bike Riding Trip!

Ah yes, another fine Spring day in Queensland, Australia. The day off from work, the sun is shining, off we go on another bike ride.

Having remembered the dramas from the bike trip the weekend before, I carefully check my seat pack - yep, there is a tube in there. Strange, I didn't remember replacing the tube that I used last time with a new tube, but, sure enough, there is a tube in there, so, it must of just slipped my mind.



Having learned from my mistakes from the last weekend, one being, that my tire pump does not work with the bike tube I currently have, I acted responsibly and stopped at the bike shop to purchase a new pump. Damn, the store was closed. I look up at the sun, I look at my bike, beckoning me from within my car. I have only had a flat tire a few times in my years of riding experience. What are the chances that I would get 2 flat tires in 2 consecutive weekends? Slim. Very slim. The bike beckoned. The sun shined. Heck with it, let's go ride.



Armed against swooping magpies (notice the native headdress below), I had off into the sun....

I found a lovely area to ride that has back roads, beautiful scenery and not much traffic. Some of the roads are only one lane like this one.

After a few hours, I decided to turn around and head back. As I approached Adkins Damn, I pull into the park and head toward the restrooms. When I noticed that the road had turned very rough…unless…no, it couldn’t be! It was! Another flat tire! In 2 weekends! Damn it! What were the chances. No pump. No one to call, what to do, what to do. I remember that there was a store/gas station at the entrance to the park. Maybe I could convince them to give me a hand.

I clacked into the store, wearing my biking shoes, which make you waddle like a duck. A woman with long gray hair standing behind the counter listened dispassionately to my woes. Just as she was about to dismiss me, this little old man came up and pointed to my bike. I pushed it towards him, as he began to make more gestures. It was then that I saw the hole in his throat and realized that he had no voice box and could not speak. He motioned for me to follow him. We left the building and walked back to a big workshop. He had all sorts of tools, including an air compressor. He rigged up some sort of straw that he hooked to the air compressor and then to the bike. I got my replacement tube out of my pack, only to realize that it was the blown tube. Geez! I knew I had not replaced the tube yet! So, now we had to figure out how to patch the tube. We looked at each other in dismay. Tick tock, tick tock. Then, a smile light up his face, he held up his hand, motioning that he would be right back, and he reappeared a few minutes later, triumphantly carrying a bike tire repair kick. He filed away at the tube, got some glue and patched the tube. He somehow got the straw to feed the air from the air compressor into the tube. I was making motions to show him that he was an angel – flapping my arms around and making halo motions over my head, when he pointed to my mouth and to his ear. Right. Just because he couldn’t talk doesn’t mean that he couldn’t hear. Which is good because , as I found out, it is quite difficult to gesture to someone that they are an angel, if you don’t know sign language.

Because of my angel here on earth, I was able to ride off into the sunset, smiling as I ducked and dodged, fending off magpies the whole way home.