Wilderness Weekend

Well it's late or early depending on which way you look at it but thought I would do a little update before bed.  Recently a couple of friends & I went on an adventure to the West Coast of Tas. I have waited 27 years to go there.  I drove 753 km over 3 days, laughs - lost count of the amount of times we did that.  Food we still came home with plenty. Rain, well there was plenty of that too.  Photos, video - well common, we were doing the tourist bit. Good times, yep we had it & great scenery.  Couldn't have asked for anything more although a little less rain would have been ok.

                                               Halloween dinner

                                              Gordon River Cruise
                                               Hogarth Falls

me thinks she needs to go

Forest Pixies

Moooocha & Maxine

                                                      Lettes Bay Outhouses

Heritage Jetty walk

Weeeee, having fun

it's us in the Spray Tunnel

                                                 meals on wheels

Dragons Abreast

In Jan 2010 I was one of the crew for DPIPWE Corporate team in the 'Dragons Abreast Corporate Race Day', held on the Derwent River in Lindisfarne.  It was a beautiful sunny morning.  We had 3 races, winning 2 out of 3 but I still think we won 3 out of 3 as the last race was a running start, which we had to do due to wind as you couldn't keep the boats sitting still long enough for a normal start.  It was a lot of fun & there were numerous practice sessions leading up to the big day.  It is such an awesome sport & you paddle in time to the beat of the drum which someone pounds at the front of the boat.

                                             Yeah go us .......................
                                         
                                             ..............2 of the "Threatened Species"

                                 Our team on the left "Threatened Species"

The Dragon Abreast Ladies went to Peterborough in Canada in June 2010 to compete in the International Dragon Boat Festival.  These women have all suffered & survived Cancer in varying forms. Aren't they awesome!  In the pics they're the ones in pink & blue tops who shared themselves around on the day to fill crews & beat the drums.  When we were learning the fine arts of paddling, it was a bit like listening to Queens - We will Rock you as we would paddle & tap the side of the boat.  Pretty cool stuff.  Look forward to the next one.
 

Holiday Moments

Yes it's been a while since I last did my own blogging & a certain someone has been onto me about doing some updates, so here it is.

Longreach, Qld is a town with 2 very large museums; QANTAS Founders Museum & The Stockmans Hall of Fame.  Both of which you can easily spend a full day or 2 wandering around & gain knowledge in history.   I found it fascinating to learn that one of the QANTAS founders, Sir Wilmot "Hudson" Fysh, was born in Launceston 7 Jan 1895 & attended Launceston Grammar & Geelong Grammar.  He lived for part of his youth in St. Leonards until 1914 when he enlisted in the Light Horse at the start of World War I.  Here at the museum there is so much to see & do.  Tours are available on a Boeing 747-200 Jumbo Jet "City of Bunbury" and the Boeing 707-138 "City of Canberra" (which you would have seen in a movie starring John Travolta).    This is the only place in the world where you can tour a fully equipped operational 747 jumbo jet.
The 707 was restored overseas & flown back home to Australia.

Not every day you get to stand in an engine & thankfully those wheels were not rolling & as you can see I'm not that much taller than them.

Ring, ring, why don't you give me a call.  My oh my, I sure am glad the phones have gotten smaller.  Check out these monstrosities

Check out the detail on this saddle.











After our 2 days in Longreach & still not seeing everything to see & do we headed on out towards our next destination, Winton, along the Laundsborough Highway, 180 km North.  Winton is another town filled with lots of history & is also part of the Dinosaur Trail & home to the Jolly Swagman & has the oldest outdoor movie theatre of which we were fortunate to attend while we camped by a billabong, alias the Pub, being the free camping spot at the North Gregory Hotel. Just as well we made it before sundown to get a spot & also to enjoy the beautiful sunset while sitting outside another hotel sipping orange juice.  These ole towns are full of hotels & each have lots of memorabilia hanging from the ceiling & walls of interest.

Jamming it up at Winton at the 'Musical Fence'                                                                              

Saturday Brunch

                                           Raspberry Waffles

                               Sweet Potato waffle, eggs, bacon, onion relish & fried carrot

 

                                          Choc Raspberry French Toast 

 Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm yummo - brunch at the Raspberry Farm.   Oh how I love 'girls day out'.  Beautiful day, beautiful friends, beautiful food, beautiful memories.  What more could I ask for.

Karumba - Nth Qld

What magnificent sunsets I enjoyed here

ah yes.....me doing the 'oh waht a feeling' we made it to Karumba,
Yippee!

....another sunset

and another
and did I mention I love taking photos of sunsets
Ok.........this is the first of my 2009 holiday journal. So o o o o o o expect to see some more 'as time goes by'.
In July my friend Maree & I set off on an 8 week holiday in 'FE FE' the camper, my nickname for the van. Our first main destination was Karumba, up in the Gulf, Nth Qld, Barramundi fishing capital, where the caravan parks are alive with fishermen from all over the country. Each morning I got up early to watch them head out in their little 'tinnies' for their big catch. It really was peak hour at sun-up out at the boat ramp with Authorities checking them as they moored. The car park was full of vehicles with empty trailers. The Barramundi can grow up to 60kg, that's one heck of a fish but usually ones caught are around 5-6 kg. I was able to feed some 'Barra' at the Discovery Centre & they suck the fish right out of your hand, one slurp & their gone as they have no teeth, thank goodness.
Plenty of croc's in the area but I didn't see any & once that sun went down I didn't like to venture down on the water edge just in case I did have an encounter with a smiling crocodile.
Temperature was 32 each day, so nice in the middle of winter, while back home a wet season was happening. Oh how I'm glad I missed that. Spent a few days here & on the last night had a bit of a jam session with our neighbours in the park, complete with dancing & singing.
We were fortunate to be given fish 2 nights running of which we cooked on the BBQ. My kids couldn't believe I ate the different fish as I'm not a big fish eater but I'm finding I can stomach some & these were all very nice including good ole favourite 'flattie' which 2 ole guys fishing for bait gave us & cleaned it & 'Pelican Pete' got the rest.
Glad we came here, even if there were thousands of km's of dry dust & long straight roads we travelled.(some really I'd call a track not a National Highway).


1 kg of prawns $12 which Maree ate on her own

Scenes of Summer

Maxine dancing to Aussie tunes

Bridport Sunrise


Early morning light on the water at Bridport

Sand sculpture on Australia Day


Check out my Aussie biscuits

New Beginnings

Da da......yep that was my intro. I've done it, made a blog. Excited, hmmm maybe........... that's just something else to occupy my time with & like I have oodles of time on my hands. I guess it's a way of keeping a journal of events of life. I enjoy everyone elses 'Blogs' so why not join 'em.