EUCALYPTUS TREES 2

I have the ability to recognize and name the origin of many of the mature trees that I see in my travels. This talent became obvious when undertaking a day tour with Eberhard through Los Angeles in 1990. Streets were frequently planted with just one species like Camphor Laurels or Liquidambars. In the garden of a house, formerly owned by Jane Mansefield, I spotted a beautiful specimen of the Bunya Pine Araucaria bidwillii. The tour guide must have overheard my quiet comments to Eberhard, because as the bus was driving down a boulevard, he asked me the name of the trees lining the road. I instantly responded, much to his surprise, “Canary Island Palms.” It didn’t surprise me that I could name the trees as the climate of Los Angeles and southern Queensland are similar and I was familiar with all the trees I saw that day.

I tell my friends that I retreat to my garden to recharge my batteries. In the same way I like to travel once a year overseas to allow my mind to relax from the pressures of life. My brain can then absorb and evaluate what I am seeing.

I particularly like to observe trees and their relationship with the environment around them. It was only when I began to travel overseas that I realized how silent were the forests of China, north America and Europe. Not only Australian forests, but the whole of Australia, including our cities are filled with the calls of a vast number of different bird species. We don’t just have the sparrows and pigeons of the northern hemisphere in our cities and towns - many Australian birds have adapted to city life, partly because  Australian trees and shrubs have been planted in suburban gardens.

Hong Kong eucalyptus

When I saw this eucalyptus tree in the  Kowloon Walled City Park - once a lawless, Hong Kong high-rise slum which was transformed into an award winning park in 1995, I recognized it as a relatively young specimen of a tree that I know by its local name as a Chinchilla White Gum. Carol, my eldest daughter, who accompanied me on this trip to Hong Kong lives in the town of Chinchilla, Queensland. This tree, like most Australian eucalyptus, has the ability to drop off lower limbs each year and concentrate its growth ever higher. Read the rest of this entry »

EUCALYPTUS TREES.

With this post I’m going to share an extract from my book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. The wilderness regions of the Granite Belt are comprised of large rock outcrops and an abundance of eucalyptus forest, but it was not always like this.

Granite rocks

When the explorers rode their horses through this country they had to avoid the rocks, but they did not encounter the dense eucalyptus forests that now cover the hills. One of my Grandfathers, Hugh Mulcahy, was born in Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt in 1876 and he was able to tell his children of remembering this country as open forest. What did he mean by open forest? Forest in which the trees grew sufficiently far apart to allow riders to pass between them, where grass grew and cattle grazed.

Aged eucalyptus trees

These two aged trees on our farm at the rear of Das Helwig Haus B&B show the spacing of open forest country.  But look, they are surrounded by sapling eucalyptus trees. What changed the country? Read the rest of this entry »

THE DARLING DOWNS

When I was a child I was taught that the Darling Downs possessed one of the best areas of agricultural soil of the world - the black color indicating the wealth of humus. But what is the Darling Downs? It is a region of country west of the Great Dividing Range of eastern Australia in south-eastern Queensland. Toowoomba, at the crest of the Great Dividing Range, is the city gateway to the west. This city has become notable not only for it annual floral ‘Carnival of Flowers’, but as a city of boarding schools plus a University to serve students from the south western portion of the State.  It is also a haven where the elderly retire because of large hospitals, other medical facilities and a cool mountain climate. Warwick is a smaller city at the southern end of the Darling Downs. Dalby is at the northern extremity and by the time you have reached Roma in the west you have left the Darling Downs and entered the grazing country of the Maranoa.

In my youth I lived north of  Dalby near the Bunya Mountains and attended boarding school in Warwick - another city of private schools which provide high school education for children from more isolated regions. When I married Stewart McIver I lived on farms at Bell prior to moving into Dalby. When that marriage ended I moved to Toowoomba where I met and married Eberhard Helwig and we later moved to Stanthorpe in the border highlands south of Warwick.

Map of the Darling Downs

Last weekend we left home on the Friday morning and drove via Warwick and Toowoomba to reach Dalby 3 hours later where I spent the afternoon signing books at the Dalby BOOK CITY store. The next day we caught up with family and friends at Bell where my 94 year old father was the guest of honour at a Campdraft. Sunday we spent another 3 hours driving home on the western route through Millmerran to Inglewood before turning east to our home just south of Stanthorpe. I sketched this map so you could follow our travels. Read the rest of this entry »

BOOK SIGNING

As a published author I must now undertake book signings at the shops stocking Wildflowers, wilderness and wine. As many of you know I had a life prior to moving to the Granite Belt with Eberhard almost seventeen years ago and the opportunity presented for me to visit the districts of Dalby and Bell again this past weekend.

BOOK CITY Dalby

I was amazed when a man I had known 50 years ago at a time that we were both members of a Rural Youth organization approached me, with an expression of delight, to renew the acquaintance. We chatted about old times for an hour or so before he bought the book.

An important reason why I had chosen to appear at BOOK CITY on Friday was that I wished to attend the Bell camp draft where my 94 year old father, John Mulcahy, was to be honoured. Read the rest of this entry »