Coastal Art-Maggi

Relax 8 Hours of Birds Singing and Water Sounds-Nature Sound Relaxation-...

2014-06-28T04:25:00.001-07:00

Sunset Russell Island 1 June 2014

2014-06-01T01:34:00.001-07:00

Chinese Poems in English, by Maggi Carstairs

2013-03-28T17:14:00.001-07:00

Chinese Poems in English, by Maggi Carstairs

Poetry, by Maggi Carstairs

Chinese Poems in English

Original Chinese poetry written by the Yangquan Women Writers Group and translated by Mr Wang.

Illustrations by Marguerite Carstairs

Goodbye 2012..

2012-12-31T13:12:00.001-08:00

Goodbye 2012..

Christmas ABC

2012-12-22T16:14:00.001-08:00

Christmas ABC

Ladymaggic's photostream

2012-12-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

Ladymaggic's photostream on Flickr.

Lamb island Moreton Bay Queensland...

eBook - ebooks

2012-03-30T15:37:00.001-07:00

eBook - ebooks

Are you reading ebooks?
This is where you can download ebooks.....

Lamb Island Queensland

2012-03-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

Ladymaggic Shop

You can purchase an item with original Art from Maggi Carstairs

Beach at Byron Bay

2011-01-07T12:30:00.001-08:00

Beach at Byron Bay, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

Byron's beaches are like a dream come true, which sounds like a cliché until you experience them. If Australia does one thing really well, it has to be the beaches, and Byron's are among the best in Australia. Stretching between the headlands of the northern New South Wales coast, many are sheltered from the southerlies and offer great surf breaks. Clean and undeveloped, the beaches are not overcrowded with high-rises, or in fact with buildings of any sort.

Here, where the Coral Sea to the north meets the Tasman Sea in the south, Cape Byron protrudes into the Pacific Ocean and forms the most easterly point of the Australian mainland. Dramatic views from the headland are your reward for walking to the lighthouse (you can drive, but it takes the drama out of the scenery, and it will cost you $6 to park your car). From the Cape you will see stunning views over the Bay to Mt Warning and the Border Ranges, or south over Tallow Beach to Broken Head in the distance.

It may be a surprise, but Cape Byron is not all sand and surf. If you walk up Lee Lane from the Captain Cook lookout (off Lighthouse Road) you will find yourself in littoral (coastal) rainforest, with banksias, Bangalow palms, cabbage palms and melaleuca species. Emerging from the rainforest, you'll be rewarded by a wonderful view to the south along Tallow Beach and maybe by hang-gliders taking off from the wooden platform.

A few more hundred metres and you come past the historic lighthouse cottages, to the lighthouse itself (www.lighthouse.net.au) and then down the path to the extreme easterly point. Continue down the hill to Little Watego's and Watego's beaches and back along the paths to Byron Bay. You will almost certainly see pods of bottlenose dolphins from up here, and possibly rays and sea turtles.

In the appropriate seasons, Cape Byron is one of the best vantage points for whale-watching. From the end of June to August, the huge mammals migrate northwards to calve in the warm northern waters. Then, in September and October, they return with their new babies, sometimes stopping in the Bay for some whale R&R and to teach the young ones 'breaching' and 'slapping'. Most whale sightings are of humpbacks, distinctive by their spinal shape, but it's also possible to see other species.

However, back to the beaches. Gleaming white tiny-grained sand and clear turquoise-blue water only occasionally sullied by the debris of storms are what you can expect in Byron. Sometimes after a strong northerly wind 'cornflakes' - scraps of floating seaweed - appear in the waves, turning them a greenish-brown rather than the usual aquamarine. But nearly all year round, the water and the beaches invite luxurious sunbathing and clean swimming.

Byron Shire offers over 30km of beaches, from the busy, patrolled (in summer) beaches near the town, to isolated coves, nudist and dog-friendly beaches within 10-15 minutes drive. Ranging in temperature from around 18°C in the winter to 26°C in the summer, the water is perfect for most of the year, and only slightly chilly in winter. All year round, wear a hat and high-rating sunscreen as, even in winter, the Australian sun burns

Rick from byronbay.com here... Just a quick note;

We've been publishing the popular byronbay.com website since 1997
(more details on attached PDF).

We are just about to launch a huge update to the site... as part of
that we are going through our existing content...

We noticed that you have used some of our content, we are happy to
allow this so long as you credit www.byron-bay.com with a link to us
on your page.

Our page; http://www.byron-bay.com/byronbay/beachguide.html<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=trwimeOe-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0470640138&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align:left;padding-top:5px;width:131px;height:245px;padding-right:10px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" align="left" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=trwimeOe-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=174179160X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="align:left;padding-top:5px;width:131px;height:245px;padding-right:10px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" align="left" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Lighthouse at Byron Bay

2011-01-07T12:12:00.001-08:00

Lighthouse at Byron Bay, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

Byron Bay Lighthouse

Standing on a bald rocky headland with a precipitious cliff on the east side, and a sheer drop of approximately 100 metres, Cape Byron Lighthouse is the most easterly light in Australia, and one of the most powerful.

Built in the style used by NSW colonial architect, James Barnet, Charles Harding his successor, prepared the plans for the Cape Byron Lighthouse. Due to the elevation of the site, a tall structure was not required. Construction began in 1899 with the levelling of the site by contractors, Mitchell and King. The total cost was £10,042 (pounds) to the contractors, £8,000 for the apparatus and lantern house, and £2,600 for the road from Byron Bay township.

Tower Construction
The tower is constructed from concrete blocks made on the ground, lifted and cemented into position and finally cement rendered inside and out. This technique saved erecting framework.

The Lens
The eight ton optical lens was made by the French company, Societe des Establishment, Henry Lepante, Paris. It is a dioptric first-order bivalve double flashing lens and contains 760 pieces of highly polished prismatic glass. The lens revolves on a bath of 7cwt mercury. The original illuminant was a concentric six-wick kerosene burner. This was replaced in 1922 by a vaporised kerosene mantle burner, which increased the intensity from 145,000 cp to 500,000 cp. In 1956, the light was converted to mains electricity increasing the intensity to 2,200,000 cd.

The original lens weight driven mechanism, which works on a similar principle as that of a grandfather clock, was also replaced with an electric drive motor when the light was converted to electric operation. An auxiliary fixed red light is exhibited from the tower to cover Julian Rocks to the north.

The Event
The installation of the lighthouse was regarded as a great event in the district of Byron Bay. A banquet was arranged and special trains carried visitors from Lismore and Murwillumbah for the opening. The Premier of the day, the Hon. John See (later Sir John See), was accompanied by a number of his colleagues who left Sydney in the Government steamer 'Victoria'. However, bad weather prevented the vessel from arriving on time, and when the party should have been banqueting the steamer was some thirty miles away. She arrived in the bay just before midnight on 30 November 1901, but again, the weather made it impossible for the party to land until dawn.

The Lighthouse Opened
After landing, the party was informed that the banquet had taken place on the previous evening, and the necessary toast had been heartily drunk in the absence of the Premier and his party. Mr See, after making an acrobatic performance in landing, was cordially cheered, and later formally welcomed at the Great Northern Hotel. Interestingly, the lighthouse was christened with a rich and sumptuous vintage burgundy - not dashed against the tower to waste, but sipped by the ladies and legislators to compensate for having missed all the good things of the banquet held the night before.

Visit our Cape Byron Headland Reserve page for more information on the Cape.

Courtesy Cape Byron Trust

UnderwaterCoral Reefs at the Phoenix Islands

2010-12-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/phoenix-islands/skerry-photography?source=email_photo

The heavy iron anchor and chain tumbled noisily into the water. We lowered two red skiffs from our research vessel, loaded our diving gear, and sped off toward the lagoon. After a five-day sail from Fiji to Kanton island, we were anxious to see if reefs here had survived a rare ocean disaster—a lethal spike in the temperature of local seawater. During the El Niño of 2002-03, a body of water more than 1°C (1.8°F) warmer than usual had stalled for six months around the Phoenix Islands, a tiny archipelago in the central Pacific. We'd heard that the hot spot had severely bleached the region's corals. As I descended toward the lagoon floor, I was hoping things weren't as bad as we'd been told.

Settling down beside the reef, I saw dead coral everywhere. What had been flourishing, overlapping, overflowing brown and auburn plates of corals were now ghostly, broken reminders of their former beauty. When I'd first visited the Phoenix Islands a decade ago, these reefs had supported numerous species of hard corals, as well as giant clams, sea anemones, nudibranchs, and great populations of fish, from blacktip reef sharks to parrotfish to bohar snappers. Because the islands have remained undisturbed for so long, they'd largely avoided overfishing, pollution, and other harmful impacts of modern civilization. But they hadn't been able to avoid climate change, which most scientists believe amplifies El Niños.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/phoenix-islands/stone-text http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/phoenix-islands/stone-text

Palm Island

2010-12-13T02:03:00.001-08:00

Palm Island 2, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

We stayed at Palm Island mooring amidst the islands where it was protected from the open winds.
It was very beautiful there. Shore was rich with trees and greenery and white cockatoos called from the trees.
The settlement was ahead.
Most of Palm Island is simply open land and full of bush and birds... a real Sanctuary.
The next day we went by Dinghy to Famtome Island which was the Leprosy Hospital base.
The shore was laden with coral and smooth colored stones.
As we walked into the Island there were piles of conch shells that had been eaten by a campfire.
The island is rich with trees, flowers and birds.
It is a very beautiful island currently uninhabited.

Sunken Yacht had been dragged by the current over 11 miles

2010-12-07T17:47:00.001-08:00

Sunken Yacht had been dragged by the current over 11 miles, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

We found it on Tuesday.
Coastguard said it had sunk at 1am on Friday and was dragged away by the currents.
It had traveled 11 miles to where we located it at Wheelers Reef

Palm Island Hospital site

2010-12-06T21:23:00.001-08:00

Palm Island Hospital site, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/info/ind/community/missions/mainland/f-g

Fantome Island

Fantome Island was gazetted as an Aboriginal reserve in 1925. Aboriginal patients suffering from venereal disease were first taken to the island in 1928. Fantome Island became part of the Palm Island reserve in 1938. The island was proclaimed a lazaret in 1939 and opened in January 1940. All Aboriginal patients from the lazaret on Peel Island in Moreton Bay were transferred to Fantome Island in 1940.

In 1941 it was decided that as a treatment facility for venereal diseases and a lazaret existed on Fantome Island, the areas allocated to the two institutions should be clearly defined. This resulted in half the Island being re-gazetted as a reserve for Health Purposes (for the reception and medical treatment of lepers) and the other half re-gazetted as a reserve for the medical treatment of Aboriginals suffering from venereal disease.

Nearby Orpheus Island was also considered as a place to establish a camp for Aboriginal people suspected to have leprosy. In 1939 the island was visited by missionaries from Mona Mona mission who were seeking to remove suspected lepers from Mona Mona. Orpheus Island, however, was found to be an unsatisfactory location and no suspect camp was ever established.

In 1945 the Lock Hospital was closed down and the administration of the lazaret was taken over by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. According to the 1944/45 Annual Report of the Director-General of Health and Medical Services the use of penicillin at Palm Island had made it possible to close the isolation settlement at Fantome Island. The lazaret on Fantome Island did not close until around 1973 when the remaining six patients were removed to Palm Island. In 1975 the island was de-gazetted as a reserve for the treatment of leprosy patients.http://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/Search/AgencyDetails.aspx?AgencyId=4501

ESTABLISHMENT AND FUNCTION:
Under the "Health Act of 1937", the Governor-in-Council, by proclamation, could appoint any place to be a lazaret for the reception and treatment of lepers.

On 11 May 1939, Fantome Island in the Palm Island Group, North Queensland, was proclaimed a lazaret for the treatment of aborigines with leprosy. In Jul 1939 there were 15 patients at Fantome Island and, in Jan 1940, a further 49 patients were transferred from Peel Island Lazaret.

With improvements in treatment the number of patients gradually decreased, particularly in the 1950s, and, in 1973, patients with Hansen's Disease, as leprosy was now called, were transferred to Palm Island Hospital.

Beach at Palm Island

2010-12-06T21:15:00.001-08:00

Beach at Palm Island, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Island,_Queensland

Palm Island, also known as Great Palm Island, or by the Aboriginal name Bwgcolman,[3] is a tropical island with a resident community of about 4,000 people. The settlement is named variously Palm Island, the Mission, Palm Island Settlement or Palm Community.[4] The island is situated 65 kilometres north-west of Townsville, on the east coast of Queensland, Australia 800 kilometres north of the Tropic of Capricorn. It is the main island of the Greater Palm group, and consists of small bays, sandy beaches and steep forested mountains rising to a peak of 548 metres.[5] Neighbouring islands outside the Palm group include Rattlesnake Island and Magnetic Island.
Palm Island Jetty

Palm Island is often termed a classic "tropical paradise" given its natural endowments, but it has had a troubled history since the European settlement of Australia.[6] For much of the twentieth century it was used by the Queensland Government as a settlement for Aboriginals considered guilty of such infractions as being "disruptive", being pregnant to a white man or being born with "mixed blood".[7]

Maggi by the Statue at Yangquan China

2010-09-06T19:31:00.001-07:00

Maggi by the Statue, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

I am at Yangquan in China
Yangquan is inland and far from the coast.
It is 6 hours drive from Beijing.
It is a huge city with many exciting features and sights.
I have been to the Supermarket and a local market.
The city is high and surrounded by mountains and 20 kms from the Great wall at Yangquan, which we passed when driving here.

Movie_NoodleMakerYangquan

2010-09-06T19:26:00.001-07:00

Movie_NoodleMakerYangquan, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

The noodle maker makes the noodles for boiling and selling at a roadside stall in Yangquan
He is very skilled at his task.

http://sunrisetoday.wordpress.com

View from front window to Gate in China

2010-09-06T19:24:00.001-07:00

View from front window to Gate, originally uploaded by Ladymaggic.

This is the view I get from my apartment window in China.
I am at Yangquan which is 6 hours drive from Beijing inland.
Please view my blog in China http://sunrisetoday.wordpress.com

It is the only website i can access whilst living in China

New Moon and first star of 17 August at Burrum Heads

2010-08-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

As I walked down to the beach to wait for the sunset, the new moon welcomed the evening.

Here is the daily weather for Burrum Heads

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/qld/wide-bay-and-burnett/burrum-heads

Pink Sunset at Burrum Heads Queensland 17 August 2010

2010-08-30T16:43:00.000-07:00

The sunset on the 17 August was pink like you have never seen.

The waters reflected rolls of pink that went into deep shades of pinks and purples.

It was amazingly beautiful.

The world was swathed in pink like being swaddled in pink layers of film.

Tree at Mullers Lagoon Horse shoe Bay Bowen

2010-08-30T16:35:00.000-07:00

I tried to get accommodation at both the Caravan Park and the Resort but they were fully booked out.
The Resort overlooks the Bay and is a wonderful location.

Located in the northern region of the Whitsundays, Bowen is just 40 minutes drive north from Airlie Beach. Yet this typical North Queensland town remains one of the region's undiscovered gems. The picturesque seaside town offers beachcombers a veritable paradise with eight award-winning, palm-fringed beaches to explore. Keen anglers have the choice of reef, beach and estuary fishing. Snorkellers and scuba divers will revel in the variety of soft and hard corals - and tropical fish - that can be seen straight off the beach. With a daily average of eight hours of sunshine to enjoy, Bowen can also lay claim to having Australia's best climate.
http://www.cairnsunlimited.com/bowen.htm

Horse shoe Bay Bowen Queensland Australia

2010-08-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

Bowen is situated on the Whitsunday Coast in Queensland, between Townsville and Airlie Beach. Surrounding Bowen are several beaches and coves backed by attractive parkland and picnic areas.

The beaches include Horseshoe Bay, Rose Bay, Murray Bay and Coral Bay. There is a pleasant walk along the beachfront past all of the beautiful bays, as well as a lookout at Horseshoe Bay.

If you don't fancy the walk, you can also drive to Horseshoe Bay, and then stroll out to the lookout.

Along with the beachfront parkland you will also find Mullers Lagoon, which is close to the beaches. This large park offers more pleasant walks, plenty of open grass areas, as well as an attractive lake.

Mission Beach Coconut Palms line the shore Australia

2010-08-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Beautiful coconut palms at Mission Beach.

Wind Sculptured Trees at Dayman Park Beach

2010-08-23T15:53:00.000-07:00

Gyrocopter flies at the Point at Hervey Bay

2010-08-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

New artwork now graces a Hervey Bay site that Fraser Coast inhabitants have regarded as "one of the best places in the world" for thousands of years. The artwork includes a shelter, two seats and designs embedded into a decorative concrete pad.
The artwork was by local Butchulla people. Those involved included artists Shawn Wondunna-Foley, Jan Williams, Shirley Blake, Annette Broome, Shortea Broome, Deleece Henderson and the Scrub Hill community with Auntie Francis as the overseeing Elder.
http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/funding/dayman-park.html

Hervey Bay is a well-frequented holiday destination, a huge retirement centre, and the most popular access point to Fraser Island. Essentially a string of associated villages - Urangan, Torquay, Scarness, Pialba and Point Vernon - it stretches along the bay in a series of small shopping centres and a seemingly endless run of holiday units, motels, caravan parks and flats.

Located 300 km north of Brisbane and 37 km east of Maryborough, Hervey Bay's great attraction lies in the diversity it offers - whale spotting, fishing, walking, water skiing, scuba diving, fishing, exploring nearby Fraser Island. There is a bird sanctuary and an aquarium. There is also an interesting and substantial historical museum and a memorial to the kanakas who worked the sugar fields in the area.

Hervey Bay has had little respect for its past. Once a series of quiet and sleepy villages it is now in the process of exploding into a Gold Coast style series of holiday destinations. It is now a city (officially proclaimed in 1984) encompassing a series of small villages, all of which now blend together. With this development has come the inevitable problem that much of the character of the area has been sacrificed by the construction of modern project homes for people (apparently most of them came from Victoria) eager to retire to the sun. This problem is compounded by the fact that much of the beach foreshore is taken up with Caravan Parks (it actually boasts that it is the 'Caravan Capital of Australia') creating a very one dimensional feel about the place - shops on one side of the Esplanade, then Caravan Parks, then a narrow hard sand beach.

The first European to reach the Hervey Bay area was Captain James Cook who sailed past Fraser Island naming many of the prominent features. Cook did not sail into Hervey Bay. In fact he was some 6 km offshore as he sailed north. This did not stop him naming the bay after the 'English Casanova', Augustus John Hervey, a sailor of some note who acquired a fierce reputation as a womaniser.

Matthew Flinders passed through the area twice. In 1799, Flinders sailed around Fraser Island entering the bay and going ashore at the present site of Dayman Park. He was the first European to step ashore at Hervey Bay.

It is one of the ironies of history that Flinders, who returned to the area in 1802 on his historic circumnavigation of the Australia, did not located the Fraser Island Straits on either of his voyages.

The first settlement of Hervey Bay occurred in the 1850s. Hervey Bay was originally part of a cattle station, the Toogoom Run, which was settled in 1854. The first permanent white settler at Hervey Bay was Boyle Martin who, with his wife and child, arrived in 1863. He worked cutting timber and it is suggested that he was the first person to grow sugar cane in the area. By 1859 the first subdivision of land around Hervey Bay took place.

The attractions of the area were obvious. The fishing was good, the place was quiet, the weather was excellent, the area around the bay was flat and accessible. All these factors quickly led Maryborough businessmen to take up large waterfront blocks of land for weekend retreats.

In the 1870s many Scandanavian settlers moved into the area and for a short time Hervey Bay became known as Aarlborg. At this time the area was basically used for dairy farming.

In the 1880s sugar was introduced to the area and the Kanakas were brought from the South Pacific islands to work on the sugar plantations.

In 1896 the Bay was connected to Maryborough by railway and in 1917 (progress wasn't exactly rapid) the Urangan Pier was completed and Urangan became an important port for the export of sugar.

Modern tourism started in the 1950s when Hervey Bay became a popular retreat particularly for retired Victorians who were initially attracted to the area by the warmth of the climate and later the added appeal of 'no death duties'. It has continued to grow in popularity so that in 1984 Hervey Bay was proclaimed a city.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/Queensland/Hervey-Bay/2005/02/17/1108500203391.html