Not Before Time

    Well, life’s still cruising along, even if we aren’t currently cruising anywhere.  I haven’t updated for a while, mainly because there hasn’t been too much to report on.  As planned, we left Alice to return to Adelaide where I had to have some minor surgery which has happened and went well.  Just have to hang around for another 3 weeks until I see the doctor to get the all clear for travelling.  Funny thing, but doctors don’t like doing surgery and having their patients go off galivanting around the country straight away, doesn’t matter how good they feel apparently.  Anway, another couple of weeks and we’ll be heading north again – back into warm weather, and more importantly, warm weather clothes – shorts and singlets!  We’re both really fed up with jeans and jumpers and cold weather.

Some good things about being stuck in Adelaide is that we’ve caught up with our good friends Steve and Jill again – been practically living at their place, so undoubtedly they will be glad to see the back of us and get their life back to normal.  David and Steve have been busy in Steve’s workshop and so far have made a metal storage box which will go under the van to carry our outdoor table, chairs etc, and they have also made me some wooden drawers for the pantry.  Our pantry is tall and narrow and very deep – (60cm deep [or 24 inches]) which means I can’t reach the stuff at the back, and of course whatever I want always seems to have migrated to the back of the pantry!  My new drawers will make it much easier to find stuff.  Thanks guys, you’ve done a great job.

We also caught up with Sharon and Barry who hung around Adelaide for a few days until we got here – had a good couple of days with them before they headed over to the west – we’ll catch up with them again in the new year probably.  My sister Gail and her partner Russell also passed through Adelaide on their way to Darwin so we got to spend a few days with them too – and we will catch up with them in Darwin in a few weeks.  Lovely sister that she is, she called me from Darwin where they were sitting on the dock on  a beautiful balmy night, waiting for their dinner to arrive and watching the sun go down!  She just wanted to share that with me!

This coming weekend our son Ben and his partner Kat will be visiting us – so we’re really looking forward to the weekend.  It’s Ben’s birthday on Saturday so the weekend will consist of lots of great food (we’ll be eating out a lot)  and drink and catching up.  Can’t wait.

Hmmm, while I said I haven’t had much to report on, reading the above, we’ve been really busy and had some great times, so I guess I’ve just been too busy to write about it all until now

I’ll let you all know when we’re ready to move again.

We’re still in Alice Springs and still working!  Whilst the jobs have served their purpose, it’s not what we want to do and after 15 months, it’s a bit of a shock to the system getting back into full time work mode!  We’ve both enjoyed our jobs, but will be glad when we’re finished and back on the road again.  We also probably picked the wrong time of the year to work as it’s freezing here in the mornings, and a 7 or 7:30am start is not good!

We still really like Alice Springs.  There’s always something going on here – from the Beanie Festival a couple of weekends ago, to the Alice Springs Show last weekend, and the Camel Cup and a Moto Cross event is on this weekend.  The fun never stops! I’ve been really slack with taking photos, but I’ll try to add some to the website soon.  I took some photo’s of some beautiful cattle at the show last week, so I’ve gotta post them.  I love the Brahman cattle.

I had my first close up taste of the local wildlife this week – at work of all places.  I had to run off some labels, and pulled the printer out so I could access the manual feed on the top.  All of a sudden there were dozens of teeny tiny little spiders scurrying everywhere – so I’m thinking babies,  and I’ve obviously disturbed a nest, so where’s the mother?  Well, after a bit of searching I found a white ball in the back of the printer where the power plugs in, and it was surrounded by lots of cobwebs.  Not knowing much about spiders, and they generally don’t bother me, I just thought they were a bunch of some sort of house (or maybe money) spiders.  I showed it to the cleaner when he came in and he told me he thought it was a redback nest, although he wasn’t sure.  After talking to another couple of people in the office I found out Alice Springs is Redback City and it was definitely a redback nest.  Okay, that was it – Harry (the cleaner) was given clear instructions that he had to suck it/them up in the vacuum cleaner – there was no way I wanted them there when I got in the followng day.  Redbacks are one spider I’m not keen on.  Well, the next morning I got in to work and Graeme the cable guy was working on some cabling under my desk and he told me he’d found 2 more redback nests (which he’d thankfully gotten rid of for me)!  Like I said, spiders don’t generally bother me, although I’m not keen on them either, but last night and all day today, I’ve felt like something was crawling on me.  And I still haven’t found the mother!  Wish I’d taken photos.  Forgot I now have a camera mobile phone!

Other than spiders, there is some beautiful wildlife in Alice Springs, especially birds.  I’ll try to take some photos of the birds in the caravan park this week and post them before we leave.

We’ve had beautiful days in Alice Springs, but have I mentioned how bloody freezing it is at night and morning??

 Once again I’ve been really slack at updating everyone about our whereabouts!  Well, we’re in Alice Springs right now, and we’ll be here for another 5 weeks before heading back to Adelaide for a couple of weeks.

We are both working full time right now.  It’s been very traumatic for us having to get up early to go to work!  But, we’re both enjoying what we’re doing and because we know it’s for a limited time, it’s not that difficult.  I’m working in an office (don’t know how that happened, it certainly wasn’t the plan to go back to office work) and David is driving for Toll which he’s really enjoying.  He gets to do lots of physical stuff like loading and unloading, forklift driving, and of course actually driving and delivering stuff around town.  He knows Alice really well now.

We love Alice Springs – it’s a great town and the people are really friendly.  Haven’t met anyone who was actually born and bred here though, most people have arrived here from other places, either just travelling through and staying for a short time, or having come here for a short time and ended up staying.  Since Alice is a hub for travellers heading in all directions there is a huge transient population.

We’re staying at the G’Day Mate Tourist Park (which is a lovely park), and it’s just about full every night  with travellers passing through.  There are 4 or 5 caravan parks in town and from what I’m hearing it’s the same at all of them. 

The Finke Desert Race was on last weekend and David went along to check out the buggies, bikes and quads.  Didn’t head out and camp on the track like a lot of people, but maybe next year if we’re in the area.  It’s a great event.

I’ve found a great crafting place where I can hang out and learn some new crafts.  I’m currently learning to spin!

 We’re really enjoying it here, except it’s freezing at night and early morning.  Minus 2 degrees this morning!  The days are beautiful though, generally around 18-20 deg and sunny with clear blue skies.  The colours are amazing here – really beautiful deep colours and the scenery is spectacular. 

 I’ll try and update more regularly, and hopefully will post some photos next time!

Well, we left Adelaide this morning, heading north to Alice Springs, with detours to Coober Pedy and Ayers Rock. It’s so nice to be back in warm weather, wearing shorts and tops rather than layers which you constantly put on and take off because the weather can’t make up it’s mind! And jeans! Normally we love our jeans, but not having worn them for a while it’s amazing how uncomfortable they feel when you start wearing them again. It was also very wet in Adelaide, which has been lovely for the locals, but, well, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we’re a bit over the rain. It’s been following us around for a while.

We’re staying tonight in Port Augusta and it’s a gorgeous day – about 25 degrees, and sunny and the weather’s only going to get hotter as we go north. I believe it’s about 32 in Alice. Despite the weather, we had a great time in Adelaide. We spent a lot of time with our friends Steve and Jill and their daughters and grandchildren. We also did a bit of touring around, mainly to the Barossa where we tried some lovely wines and had a great meal at Saltrams winery (they do a fantastic moreten bay bug ravioli, which is what I ordered and what David thought I was going to share with him, silly David! You’d think he’d know me after 35 years together).

David and Steve got a few projects completed on the truck and van – they made a tripod for the front which has made an amazing difference in the movement inside the van, they also made rear outrigger stands (extra legs for the back) which has also made a huge improvement to the stability. They lined the floor of the truck with some heat insulation so the floor doesn’t get so hot from the exhaust. They also completed a project for Steve – installing a GPS in his car. Now he, like David, gets to hear a lovely woman’s voice telling him where to go! Don’t know why they had to spend money for that when Jill and I could do it for free!

Our plans have changed slightly – we aren’t going to Darwin right now. We need to be back in Adelaide at the end of July for a few weeks (bugger, it will be freezing!), so we will probably see if there’s any work in Alice for a couple of months. Don’t know which direction we will go after that – might go over to Perth and up the west coast. We’ll see. We have a very fluid lifestyle! Not sure what internet access will be like in Alice, although they’ve been advertising Next G being available there, so should be ok. Will update soon, if that’s the case, hopefully with photos of the lovely gemstones I’m going to find fossicking around Coober Pedy, and of David climbing Ayers Rock 

We’re currently in Adelaide, staying just north of the city close to our friends Jill and Steve. David and Steve are having fun in Steve’s shed working on a couple of projects David has come up with for the van. I’m using the time here to get doctor and dentist visits out of the way. The rest of our time is spent eating, drinking and catching up. Having lots of fun.

Berri

After Mildura we spent a couple of weeks in Berri just relaxing, fishing, walking and stuff. Berri is in the riverland area of South Australia and there are numerous wineries and orange groves. There is a great farmer’s market in Berri where local producers bring cured meats, fantastic fruit and veg and cakes and biscuits. It was a really enjoyable couple of weeks.

While in Berri, we visited the Cobdogla Irrigation and Steam Museum, a very interesting place. They say they have the only working Humphreys Pump in the world and it is only started 4 times a year, today was one of the 4. It is a pump that was used to draw water from the Murray for irrigation of surrounding properties. For the technically minded this is a very quick explanation as I understood it, it is an internal combustion engine of sorts that uses water as the piston, the incoming water is pumped into the cylinder, as the water level rises and falls the inlet and exhaust valves control the air into the combustion chamber, at the correct time residual fuel from a wood fired engine (see photo of stacks and startup pump) is mixed above the water (combustion chamber) and is fired electrically, forcing the water out into large tanks and then into the irrigation channels. Apparently using residual fuel from the wood fired engine makes for a very slow burn which moves the water rather than blowing the head of the Humphrey Pump. If I heard the guys correctly it can pump up to 40,000 litres per minute. This is a great place to visit with a man’s shed with all sorts of stationary engines, a steam train, steam tractor and many other exhibits. Whilst at first it seems to be a blokes place, Maggie said that she had a great time as well so it must have been good.

Mildura

Well, we’ve been in Mildura for nearly 2 weeks now. We’ve been doing some tourist stuff, but not a lot. It’s just been nice hanging out in the park, reading, watching tv etc. Nothing very exciting I guess, but just, nice.

We went to Mungo National Park yesterday – it’s nice, but I think our expectations were too high, so we were a little disappointed. We had seen photographs of the park in a magazine which were just stunning, but I think the time the photos were taken as well as the lens used made the photo’s much more dramatic than it really is. The main feature in the park is The Walls of China which is a lunette formed by the wind into an almost lunar type landscape on the western side and sand dunes on the eastern side, and is worth seeing. The rest of the park is mainly made up of saltbush, blue bush, rosewood trees and belah’s (causarina trees). The area used to be a series of lakes which dried up approximately 18,000 years ago, then Europeans moved in with their sheep and cattle for a while before it was declared a national park in 1979. To get to the park you have to drive over 100km on dirt roads. The road is maintained very well so the drive wasn’t too rough although I’m glad we didn’t take the van in, I think we would have had a few broken dishes!

Cowra

After our week with Marg and Terry we started heading towards Lake Mungo National Park which we wanted to see, deciding to stop at Cowra on the way there. We drove to Cowra via Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (beautiful views) and Bathurst. David has been to Bathurst a few times for the car racing but I’ve never been there so David took me (and the van) around the track. While I’d heard that it was really steep in parts I didn’t realise how steep some of the track was until we went round it. I also found it interesting that for people who live in the area the race track is the main road to their property. I’ve got a photo of David tearing round the track with the van at an incredible speed of 40 km/h! We spent 3 nights in Cowra visiting the Japanese Garden and the POW Camp. I really like Cowra – it’s a really pleasant town and the people are really friendly. For those interested in the craft side of things, there are 2 patchwork shops and a patchwork ‘lesson centre’ here – very impressive for a small town. I spent probably an hour in each today and the owners in each of them are lovely ladies. I had a great morning and now have some more fabric to find projects for! We went looking for a good fishing spot (we’re pretty determined!) and ended up at the Wyangala Dam – unfortunately, as you can see by the photo there’s not much chance of finding fish here! The dam capacity is down to something like 5% at the moment. They need rain up here desperately.

Port Stephens

We had arranged to meet up with David’s sister Margaret and her husband Terry for a week and we all decided that Nelson Bay at Port Stephens would be a good place for that to happen. We couldn’t get into the park we originally wanted to and had to find another one to go to and we are really pleased that it happened that way – the park we stayed in was great, right on the beach and within walking distance to shops, cafes etc. We had a lovely week with them, walking on the beach every morning then balancing things out by having a nice morning tea at one of the café’s, fishing (again, the fished just about jumped out of the water laughing at us!) winery tours in the upper Hunter Valley and generally having a great time. One of the highlights was a dolphin watch boat tour which was fantastic – the dolphins come into the bay and the boat is surrounded by dozens of these beautiful creatures. The hard part was taking their photo – they move very quickly. There were quite a few with a young one and they seem to dive in tandem. The water in the bay is crystal clear so you could see them under the water too. There were also a couple of huge manta rays in the area that day. It was a really good tour and the Daniel the skipper was really good to talk to and passed on lots of information about the area and the dolphins.

Casino again

After we left Hervey Bay we headed back down to Casino where we caught up with some friends we met in Tamworth. We had a lovely week with them before they headed off north. We will be catching up with them later in the year in WA. The second week at Casino was really quiet. Just caught up with routine domestic chores etc. I also got an opportunity to join in the craft groups at the village which was really nice – they are a lovely bunch of ladies and I always enjoy meeting up with people with similar interests as me.

Maryborough

Now this is a tree! This tree is in Queens Park (Botanic gardens) in Maryborough and is absolutely stunning – in fact the whole of the parks are stunning. While we were in the park (Valentines Day) there was a memorial service being held at the War Memorial and while there weren’t a lot of people there, a number of them were quite young and obviously were there in respect to their parents/grandparents. It was really moving to watch.

All up we spent 5 nights in Hervey Bay. It’s a beautiful area – I really love Queensland country towns – they’re different from towns in Victoria and NSW, and while we also really like the places we’ve seen in those states, there’s something about Queensland that’s unique! Not sure what it is yet, but will let you know once I work it out. While Hervey Bay is a large town, with all the shops, café’s and restaurants you find in our cities, it still has the atmosphere of a small town – we’ve found people to be really friendly and welcoming. So far we’ve visited Childers and Maryborough – both gorgeous towns, very historic and with beautiful buildings and parks. Another moving experience is in Childers at the memorial to the 15 backpackers who died when the Palace Hotel in Childers was (deliberately) burnt down. We’ve also been to a few of the beachside towns that are still unspoilt (like Burrum Heads) and next time we’re up here we plan on spending a lot of time in the area. David and I also bought ourselves some fishing rods – we like the idea of catching our dinner. Unfortunately the fish just laughed at us and ate our bait! The guy who sold us our fishing rods told us it was really easy, anyone can do it. I thought at the time, if it’s so easy how come there are so many books and dvd’s on how to do it!! I probably should have listened to that little voice. It’s fun though and we’re planning on practising a lot more as we travel around.