G'day All,

Another little sojourn for us out an about this time we are going to track down some scarecrows, up in the Mary Valley which is roughly 2 hours north of my place . They do an annual competition to see who comes up with the best in different categories from Artistic ,Children's, Traditional, so as of today we have roughly about 40 scarecrows to track down so will do some of them on the way to Kenilworth where our friend lives.

So after getting up at 12 midnight to go to work i finally got home about 10.30am and after a quick coffee and shower we were off and hunting, Cedric was so excited to be allowed on this trip, he was so miffed at missing out on the whales even after i explained that squirrels are not good on a boat and he would of spent his time in the loo rather on the prow singing My Heart Will Go On (from Titanic) and spotting whales.

We decided instead of going straight up the highway we would turn off and head up the mountain via a few dodgy roads as there were a couple on the way and we would have lunch at a pub on the way. We had a good run with no hold ups and soon we were on Steve Irwin way you know the Crikey crocodile man they have his theme park up the road here, but we won't be calling in and the gps was set for the Conondale township via a little town called Peachester and hopefully this will find us the scarecrows we are after (forgot to pack a Map) .

On the way up we stopped off for a quick look at the glass house mountains, when Captain Cook on one of his world tours discovered them and named them as the way the sun reflected off them they looked like they were made of glass (The following was stolen from the Qld Government website).
Craggy volcanic peaks tower over a scenic patchwork of pine
plantations, bushland and cultivated fields. Many of the peaks are
protected in Glass House Mountains National Park, while the pine
plantations and a range of native vegetation types are managed in
several State forests and forest reserves near the park.

Named by James Cook during his epic voyage along Australia's east
coast, the Glass Houses are rhyolite plugs formed by volcanic activity
millions of years ago. Remnants of the open eucalypt woodland and heath
vegetation, which once covered the coastal plains, provide a home for an
interesting variety of animals and plants, including 26 near threatened
plant species .

The Glass House Mountains area was a special meeting place where many
Aboriginal people gathered for ceremonies and trading. This place is
considered spiritually significant with many ceremonial sites still
present and protected today. We stopped off and took some pictures of Mt Tibrogargan whose side looks like the face of an Aboriginal elder, so after taking soem pictures and a bit of a rest we were again heading north west and finally turned off to the town of Peachester and followed the road to the Stanley river Maleny road.

It was not long before we found the connecting road called Postman's track hm i hate it when they give names like that, so after about 200 metres into the road a big huge yellow and red sign pops up and says STOP no through traffic if you are over 10ton or have a Caravan, the road was a good challenge but soon we were at the first scarecrow named Hula girl and it lived up to its name,after a minor detour we found the second and finally we were back on the main road neither Peachester or Conondale had a pub so we ventured on and finally came across one of the scarecrow places that offered a meal and what a pleasant surprise it was nestled in a little valley on its own you could hear the bell birds singing as we had what we thought was a small meal .

After lunch we continued on to Kenilworth and our hostess and accommodation, I had a rest as Nancy and Ruth caught up on the local gossip and then we decided to go to the pub for dinner and the meal was nice after a few drinks and a hearty meal we came back home and watched some TV and discussed the plan of attack for tomorrow, hopefully will be a better day as it had been raining later in the afternoon.

OK little ones time i was in bed been a long day so will see you tomorrow good night.

Cheers Stewart and Nancy


Hello hello everybody,

Tis I the intrepid reporter Cedric of the true facts of this mission to find a scarecrow, can you imagine the look of horror on my face when Stewart said to Nancy lets go scarecrow hunting, what the hell is this why are we going to scare the hell out of some ugly black bird that would no sooner poop on your head then sit sedately on a fence post and tell you in no uncertain way where to go and how to when it cries out that call farque call.

It soon dawned on me that we were going to see things that scare crows away not actually us but even still i was not looking forward to being a victim of indiscriminate dive bombing, especially in a country i hardly know, but alas it was soon to pass that i was again shoved into a dark bag and had to fight my way to the top so i could see out and have a look as we drove along . From what i could over hear this was suppose to be a fun trip and an exciting one for me as i was going to meet some of them (scarecrows), like hell i said to my self there is no way i a self respected member of the Canadian Rodent Archaeological Persons society or CRAPS for short was going to accept that.

After fighting my way to the top of the pecking order in the bag the undies nighties and tissues were delegated to the bottom and i to the top i could see out and start to enjoy the view albeit passing at the speed of light just as i saw something and was about to ask what it was, whoosh it was gone no longer to be seen, soon i could hear the music getting a bit scratchy as we drove into the mountains, we made a sharp left turn and Stewart said oh look the road must get a tad narrow up ahead as there is a sign saying no trucks or caravans, i was enjoying the look of the Australian bush and as we progressed further down the road i noticed we were getting rather close to the edge of the road and when i say close i am saying if we had to pass another car one wheel of our car would be scraping the rock cliff face on our left and the other car would virtually be hanging on the edge of the road we were traveling at about 10kph through some Dips in the road and going down this mountain range i made a mistake of looking over the edge and all i could see was bush and more bush straight down, so quickly hid in the bag and threw a pair of undies over me so in the event that we had a nasty accident i would not be the first to wear it .

Soon we were on the flat again and Stewart said there it is and off to our right was a thing how can you describe it, It was a hula girl stuck onto a piece of pipe and dressed up to scare the crows well let me tell you it was awesome to see and if i was a crow i would have the Pina colada's out and ready and having a wonderful time, they got out took pictures and away we went off looking for another one this time the Gps showed us a road that was supposedly having one called Spider boy on it but nothing on the road side so Stewart the ever intrepid hunter continued down this road only to come to a Farm and lucky there was the owner there servicing his biggggg truck it was a B double ( has Two trailers and can be 100 metres in length), he said no the council and government stuffed up as usual and that there was another road further up with the same name so we turned around and finally found the spider boy this one was entered in the Kids section and was done very well it looked like a little spider boy in his web .

We finally arrived back in civilisation and found the scuba boy at the Conodale swimming pool it was very nicely done as well after this Stewart said lets look for a place to have some lunch and found a little Gem of a Cafe in the middle of nowhere, they also had some scarecrows on display but theres were on motorbikes or resting with a nice cuppa very well laid out Stewart said they have been past this Cafe many times before but each time it was closed so was surprised to find it open but the owner told us he has taken it over and yes will be open more often, so after lunch it was off to find some more scarecrows and into Kenilworth for a rest and overnight stay with their friend Ruth, we arrived at her place and there was a scarecrow on her fence so even she had gotten into the spirit of the event.

Ok people have fun this is one tired old grumpy squirrel signing off till next time
Cheers Cedric (CRAPS)