Road to Luanshya

We stayed at Lowden Lodge again last weekend.  I had forgotten how peaceful it is out in the country with the beautiful flowers and trees around.  Lowden Lodge is located off the road to Luanshya which is not a very busy road so things are pretty quiet there.  At the Lodge there is a framed history of the road to Luanshya.  This incident happened in the 1920's when motor vehicles were new and there were lots more wild animals roaming the area.   

An Englishman was driving to Luanshya and going quite fast in his new automobile when he hit a leopard!  He stopped and noticed the leopard wasn't moving and wondered if it were dead.   Finally he decided to go out and check and sure enough....the body was still.  He started to think how nice the leopard pelt would look in his den.  So little by little, he managed to drag and pull and push the large animal into the back seat of his auto.  Finally, with his prize pelt on the backseat and floor, he took off again for Luanshya thinking of how proud he was of his trophy.  He glanced back for a look at the pelt and noticed it was sitting up on the seat!  It looked a little dazed but was a live leopard after all!  He immediately stopped the car and got out.  Fortunately the leopard soon remembered an appointment he had and sauntered off into the trees.   

Now there are only a few guinea hens left of the wild animals in the area and those even appeared to be quite domesticated.  I didn't realize guinea hens made such a noise but they are sort of like peacocks....they can disrupt the peace a little.  Still they are my favorite bird here.

First a video to show the rain....lots of water....so impressive to us.  We are used to the desert and 9 inches of rain a year....here we get about 57 inches of rain, all during the 4 months of the rainy season!  I expected cloudy days all during the rainy season but there are rains, beautiful clouds, and sunshine!  Big rains bring beautiful flowers.  See the weather and the flowers of December!

A more exotic version of the Hibiscus.

Janet, the owner of Lowden Lodge, says they call these the Candlestick Flower.

Cosmos and other flowers in the bed.

Mums, of course, are part of the display.

Two really well fed guinea hens....with good vocal cords!  They sound a little like a rusty gate or plumbing gone wrong....but they are so cute!

Hydrangea...reminded me of Bev and Paul's wedding reception in Portland, Oregon.

These looked like Indian Paintbrush Flowers to me.

A flower from the Plumeria tree.

These flowers grow on the edge of the pond...just gorgeous!