Travel Plans 2013

While our new caravan sits about waiting for our attention, we are heading to Vietnam in February to see our son Dale get married to Yen (pronounced Eyan) at a smallish town outside Saigon.

We are delighted that he has found someone with whom to share his life and look forward to adding Yen to our family, which is very small.

After the Vietnam "holiday", we are off on a cruise from Sydney to as far as Japan and back with numerous stops enroute to such places as Airlie Beach (Queensland) and Darwin, Australia, Hong Kong, Shainghai, and Brunei. It's a 40 day tour on a very large ship and a totally new experience for both Christana and me. Neither of us has been on a cruise before, so we are really looking forward to it.

In the second half of the year, we intend to head to the north of Western Australia with our caravan and wend our way south eventually coming back to central Australia via the Nullarbor Plain and the Stuart Highway extending north from Port Augusta in South Australia.

While doing this, I will be doing some copy-editing and instructional design tasks for a client which will keep me busy for a day or two most weeks. Christina will work casually at the Alice Springs Hospital Midwifery Department during our time at home.

We've both adopted the semi-retirement life very well. I incorporate two or three games of golf each week into my less than busy life and Christina spends more time sewing and using her iPod and iPhone with which she has become very proficient. When the daily temperatures decrease a bit, I'll also spend some time fixing up our garden, a task that is long overdue, but among the many skills I have, gardening isn't one of them.

Stay well.

Robin

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2012

The forecast for Christmas Day in Central Australia is 39 degrees Celsius ... so much for a "white" Christmas. It's a tad hot for roast meats and vegies straight out of the oven, so we plan to do our cooking Christmas eve in an outdoors barbecue after dark and then have cold meats and salads for lunch.

We usually start with a pancake breakfast around 10 am after we have opened our presents. Our pancakes are topped with jam, cane sugar syrup and cream (for anyone keen enough to bolster their cholesterol levels) accompanied by fruit juice, coffee, and a variety of seasonal fruits.

Around 2 pm we begin to feel hungry again, so it's back to the table for another round, this time pork, chicken, turkey and beef roast and a variety of salads eg, potato salad, bean salad, , prawn salad, and that green leaf stuff that has no nutrition, tastes like cardboard and doesn't seem good for anything ... lettuce. (By now I expect you will have guessed I don't like it).

At lunch we will probably crack a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine or Champagne depending on how much we have already consumed and who wants what. We have quite a collection for a family that doesn't really drink all that much (in comparison with other Territorians that is).

After lunch I usually get the job of cleaning up, (thank goodness for dish washers) have a nap for an hour if time permits and then in the evening Christina and I are off to Ilparpa (five or six kilometres away) to have dinner with friends. By then we probably won't care what our son, daughter and grandson are doing. All the excitement tends to wear us out these days.

It's a good thing Christmas only comes annually, although I seriously think that in Australia we should have it in July, not December. I may start up a Christmas in July Lobby Group to try to change our traditions. There is another group hell bent on eliminating Christmas, so my pressure for a change in timing shouldn't be such a bad deal.

We hope you and yours, wherever you are have a wonderful Christmas and New Year if it is part of your tradition and if not, we wish you all the best for 2013.

Robin

Mt Gambier - Volcano City

Mt Gambier is a beautiful city at the south-east corner of South Australia near the border with Victoria. Locally the region is called the Limestone Coast obviously because of the volcanic nature of the area and the subsequent limestone deposits.

We had never been here before, so it was lovely to visit and see all the beautiful gardens and the main features related to the city's volcanic history.

At the edge of the city is the Blue Lake, an ancient volcanic opening which is now filled with beautiful blue water ... the town's drinking supply. Underneath the city is a vast system of caverns, and waterways, many of which are frequented by scuba divers who explore the caves. On the surface are numerous sink holes where the tops of caves have collapsed creating holes of varying depths. Several of these have been turned into public parks with chairs, tables, and free gas barbecues.

There are dozens of walking paths around the city and nearby areas. It's truly a lovely part of South Australia, but unfortunately, in November (southern hemisphere Spring) it's still chilly, so it's obviously a cooler place unsuited to dry, hot weather people like us.

Click on the photo strip to see the following examples of Mt Gambier, with a description of each from the top down:

1. A park at the edge of the Blue Lake has a block of limestone with a small solution tube (water and acid eat through the limestone leaving a circular hole)
2. Christina stands at one of the viewing platforms erected in the 1800s
3. The Blue Lake taken from a lookout some kilometres away
4. Inside the Umpherstine sink hole which is now a public recration area
5. Looking into the Umpherstine Sink Hole
6. Bottle brush flowers are plentiful in the Umpherstine Sink Hole Park
7. A possum lives in a cave at Umpherstine Sink Hole and is obviously accustomed to visitors of the two legged variety

Today is our last day at Mt Gambier and we had for the Coorong before going to Adelaide and then back up the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs.

Robin