Feb 14
Happy Valentines day!
Or not … all I got for Valentines day was to start a new diet. No more Tim Tam lovin’ for me 🙁
Banana, Pear and Yoghurt for breakfast. Some kiwi fruit for a snack. Salad wrap for lunch and 2 lamb cutlets for dinner.
Going to continue for 3 weeks like this apparently.
Got out at lunchtime for a 3.5km walk around the block. It was toasty out there! Still managed to do an average of 5.2km/h. This is much improved over my first efforts a year or so ago of 4km/h.
Ahhhh, Balnarring. All of 30kms from home. Yet it still qualifies as a weekend away. It worked out really well since Blake had an important engagement on the Saturday that he was still able to attend.
Balnarring is located due South of Frankston and is easily found by following Coolart Rd.
Feb 1
Took the plunge the other day and actually booked both the long service leave and also the annual leave to go along with it. Today it was all approved!
That makes the countdown clock in the sidebar accurate. First day of the trip is 9/7/2011. Guess I better get on and finish planning out the remainder of the days then!
Jan 26
Well I’m posting this from Creswick. We’re the last ones left – that doesn’t happen often.
It’s Australia day today and the world was washed clean here after some gentle rain overnight.
We had 9 vans here for this rally and we took up sites 41-52 … we pretty much had the run of the place. We we’re a short distance to the amenities, but exercise never hurt anybody … unless you count slipping over while sprinting in the rain whilst busting for a wee…
Attendees at this rally were Tony & Lynne, Billy & Diedre, Alan & Sandy, Lloyd, Kitty & Lucky, Dave, Char & Jarmie, Fred & Rita, Brenda & Ian, Sue, Max & Sam and Anthony, Kellie, Blake, Hannah & Poppie. Since we were close to home for a few members we also had drop-ins from Jan & Pete, Judith & Peter, Danielle, Robert, Taylor, Shaolin & Damon.
The weather was lovely without being too hot from Friday, when most had arrived, until Sunday, when most left. There’s not much evidence of the floods here. The caravan park dodged a bullet … despite being on the banks of the creek the only casualty was the spa. Had the water gone only a smidgen higher then it would have encroached on the park proper, starting with the managers house. The lake behind the park is overfull, but the water is contained. Apparently they trained here for the 1956 Olympic diving as the lake is over 30m deep. There’s still a massive diving board here, but the water is currently too murky to even think about jumping in.
As far as Creswick goes, we didn’t find too much to do. Relaxing and having a chat is good. There’s plenty of history to be found though. We can recommend the local take-away which was quick and capable. Pizza’s, fish and chips, etc … they’ve got you covered. Creswick used to have a population of 40,000 with over a hundred pubs. Considering there’s only 2 pubs left out of those hundred and neither pub is capable of providing dinner for large groups … like 2 or more people … If those are the best 2 pubs remaining then it’s easy to see why the population has dropped to 3,000.
Managed to get the family out on Saturday/Sunday to do a few Geocaches. These never fail to turn up the most interestng places to discover. Old mines, unmarked walking trails, secluded billabongs, the locals secret swimming spot … the caches around here had all that and more.
I snuck off on Sunday night about 11:30 to head home for work on the Monday. The traffic was certainly better at that time. I was home by 1:15. Back up to Creswick on Tuesday night to find only our solitary van left on the grass. A rare quiet night in the van before heading home again about 11am Wednesday.
All up, a great weekend away in a Jayco.
Oct 24
Feels like ages since I wrote something in here, and it has been.
There’s been a bit going on.
We went to the caravan show at Sandown and bought a few things including a generator.
We went to Rawson for the weekend and had a good look around up there including Walhalla.
I got a new chainsaw.
I got a new weight distribution hitch setup for the van. Makes it much better to tow. Still haven’t passed a weighbridge to see what it all weighs yet. Anybody ever seen a weighbridge open?
We went to Ballarat overnight in the van with Xanthe & Travis to see Powderfinger. It was cold, wet and muddy, but Powderfinger were great.
I got some LED lights for the inside of the van. Instead of 30W per fitting they are now 4.8W. Six times the battery life and the LEDs won’t need replacing ever. Still need to find some replacements for the outside.
Still haven’t decided on the camera setup yet.
Set a target GO date for the big trip, 9/7/2011. All things going according to plan sees us back at the end of October. Gotta get cracking on the planning a bit more. Most of WA is done, VIC/SA keeps changing. NT keeps growing. QLD/NSW/VIC for the way back is also just about done.
Started back into my walks to get used to the long distances needed. Got my eye on some lightweight camping gear. Will need to try that out down at the prom once I get it. Got some already, but need plenty more.
Got a rap abseiling course to do shortly too. Will try and get Blake to do it with me. 😉
And a refresher on the first aid.
The plan is slowly coming together.
Sep 26
Well it was a lovely sunny day Sunday, so after getting a bit of business out of the way in the morning, the opportunity of getting a bike ride in was just too irresistible.
First run of the season, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that all the bikes needed a bit of maintenance. Luckily none of them needed much that duct tape and a hammer wouldn’t fix.
Everybody was keen, even Poppie. As soon as she saw the bikes come out, she was ready and rockin’.
All up it was 17km’s, all on very good track. It’s mostly flat, or at least feels flat nearly all the way. Plenty of other people and dogs for Poppie to guard us from so she was very happy. She managed to run for the first 3km’s at a brisk pace, but soon let me know that she’d had enough. So, I bundled her into the backpack and she spent most of the rest of the trip with her paws on my shoulder ‘parrot style’. This naturally gets a few odd looks 😉
Stopped for a bit of a break just before the halfway mark. Poppie had a huge drink and flaked in the shade and we all had a little snack before continuing on. made Poppie run the last 800m.
At the halfway mark there was a geocache to find and Hannah found a bit more than she bargained for. There, sitting in the long grass, not far from the cache, was $10. That brightened her day considerably! She probably wouldn’t have noticed it if she wasn’t so intent on finding a snake.
Hannah turned out to be the weakest link, requiring frequent stops, and rapidly ran us all out of water. She wasn’t too happy when I explained that many hikes we’ll be doing next year will require her to walk this far. Plenty of time to get her fitness up though.
The biggest complaints were sore bums … so we’re well out of practice. No sore bones the next day though, so no damage done, and reason to up the ante next time.
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Sep 17
I’ve been itching to get back into hiking again after the winter has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat. This morning I had an opportunity since I woke up early anyway. The weather was fine, but cold … too cold … it’s not quite spring yet.
Nonetheless, first walk of the season out of the way.
This also gives me a chance to try out the maps functionality and see how that works.
For the round Australia trip, I hope to do a map like this for each day and put some of the days photos on there too.
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Aug 15
Toora is always cold, wet and windy.
Didn’t notice the weather that much on Friday night as the park has a great “Nomads club room” complete with pool table, table tennis, foosball and other games.
It also has the all-important TV to watch the Friday night game and the even more important coonara to keep us warm well into the wee hours. The lights went out at 11pm, but a few stayers persistently hung around trying to get to the bottom of the muscat cask … unsuccessfully.
We fluked it and got a great day on Saturday. Not too cold, too wet or windy.
There’s a bit of a hill and lookout at the back of the park, so Poppie and I climbed up the top to check it out after brekky.
The dominating feature around the Toora skyline is the local windfarm. There’s quite a few of them scattered about the place. Did I mention Toora is windy?
Headed off for a bit of a look around after brekky to try and find some of the local geocaches and see what else was on offer. There’s a big hill just out of town, overlooking all the surroundings. We stopped there to find the first cache of the day and Alan, Sandy, Dave and Char turned up while having an explore too.
We all decided to continue on for a bit and check out Agnes Falls … one of the tallest in Victoria.
Managed to snap this one of Blake and Hannah at the falls pretending that they can stand each other.
The walk to the falls and subsequent fruitless search of the area had made us hungry and thirsty. As if by magic, Sue called up to say that lunch was at the Toora pub … see you shortly.
Lunch was great … no complaints heard, and there was plenty to choose from on the menu.
Back to the park for the AGM at 3pm and then a lazy afternoon reading and watching TV. We were going to go over to the rec room again that night, but Blake and Hannah wanted to watch a movie and have a quiet one.
Blake said that, “We’d all been sociable enough last night to last the whole weekend!”, so popcorn and movies it was.
A reasonably early start to Sunday (for me anyway) saw us on the road about 11ish. It was supposed to be cold, wet and windy all the way home so I had anticipated a slow trip, but we made good time as the weather was co-operating.
Managed to get a couple more geocaches on the way back, including Kel being first to find one of them.
