2 Texans Down Under

A part of our Easter trip to the Granite Belt of southern Queensland was out of this world, literally.

We chose to stay at the Twinstar Guesthouse on the New England Highway in Ballandean because it advertises itself, accurately, as “a cozy B&B with stargazing facilities.”

This relatively inexpensive three-guest-room lodge near Girraween National Park is owned and run by a Japanese couple whose last name we’ve misplaced, Naomi and Eiji.

Eiji, whose name is pronounced much as the last name of the American writer James Agee (long “a” and then “gee” or “age-ee”), has been an amateur astronomer for much of his life and he loves sharing his extensive knowledge.

It was our bad luck to be Twinstar guests during full-moon nights with lots of rapidly-drifting clouds, but we did get some brief and rewarding looks through Eiji’s 46 cm reflecting telescope one evening.

Inside a backyard dome that revolves when Eiji pushes it along its circular track, the telescope collects, he told us, 4500 times more light than the unaided eye, so we were not disappointed.

Even in bright moonlight Eiji’s scope let us see the rings of Saturn; a beautiful cluster of stars known as “the jewel box;” Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, only (only?) 8.6 light years away; and Omega Centauri, which, Aiji told us, is a cluster of one million stars that hang out together about 16,000 light years away.

Best of all, perhaps, was Eiji’s authoritative identification of the Southern Cross, which we saw without the telescope. After nearly three years spent mostly beneath light-polluted city skies, we had not before been sure we were seeing this constellation that appears on the Australian flag.

“You should advertise great food and great stars,” we told Naomi and Eiji, and we meant it. All that, along with the foil-wrapped chocolate Easter bunny that awaited us when we arrived, made us begin planning a second trip. We’ll pick a time of dark nights and hope for clear skies.

Other aspects of this B&B that appealed to us included the extensive garden of roses and other flowers, a pen of chooks (chickens) that provide eggs for breakfasts, and the fact that rain tanks and a self-contained sewage system makes Twinstar almost self-sufficient.

As we were photographing one of the enormous roses that were blooming near the backyard vegetable garden, we were surprised to see — on the rose itself — a brilliant green frog about the size of an adult person’s thumb.

Ah, wildlife! Small. Unremarkable, perhaps. But pretty. And it didn’t show any signs of wanting to attack us.