2 Quiet Weekends = 1 Bad Internet Connection....

Hi!

Well. Here we are, Sunday afternoon, bright and sunny, breezy, clear blue skies - lovely after at least a week straight of rain and fog and damp and miserable Melbourney kinda weather. That's not the kinda weather we endure Queensland's awful summers for! We want our bright blue skies and sunny warm days with freezing cold nights! So, hopefully this is just the start of winter getting back to normal...... Otherwise, there are a few birds out there going about their Sunday afternoon business...... The tourists and shoppers duke it out for premium parking along my street, which can bring some slight amusement when a car (usually something over the $50,000-range) pulls into our driveway, not knowing it loves to eat the underside of cars, followed by an almighty crunch. It's great. I giggle. Hopefully that'll teach them not to turn around in our driveway again! Otherwise, got some groovy classic jazz tunes courtesy of SkyFM, got the nice glass of stand-by red wine (there's a nip in the air after all) - life is good!

So. Work. Yep, is pretty good. Still learning new stuff, which is nice considering I've been there just over a year and a half and am on my second job in the company (yet still on contract - how do I mange to keep doing that?). So to still be learning new stuff is pretty cool. That, or they really just need the help and the one gal that's away having her baby (or, well, looking after the baby she just had) was super smart and I'm a pale comparison standing in her shadow and they have to have me do something to pass the time until she gets back........ Oh, have I mentioned that super smart baby-having gal is only like 23? Yeah. These kids today! So yes, work is good - always happy to have gainful employment!

And then there were a couple weekends in there...... Well, you didn't miss anything last weekend, that's for sure. Just did the chores, caught up on sleep, watched a couple movies - the usual quiet weekend. But this weekend, well, we were scheduled to go up to my friend Jan's house up at Rainbow Beach but it got rescheduled to the weekend of the 28th due to too much rain rain rain. Shame, but who wants to spend the weekend at the beach watching it pour? So this weekend, while very similar to last weekend, was livened up Saturday evening when we headed out to Jan's house at Dayboro instead for a spot of champagne before heading to the Dayboro Crown Hotel (pub) for dinner - fish and chips - not bad! Then, happily filled with as much fried fish and (steamed) veggies we could eat, we wandered down the road a couple steps to the Rendezvous Cafe & Bookshop (again, you may remember it from a previous episode not too long ago...) for a very interesting talk and book-signing by Annette Henderson who lived in the Congo (Gabon) for a short time in the '70s and was subsequently inspired to do conservation work with/for the local wildlife (namely apes). It was really good and the place was packed! Granted, the cafe's not big to begin with, but to see the place so full for a book-signing, for such a tiny little village, it was pretty cool to see. Mom even bought a book and had the gal sign it - coooooool. Way to support the locals! And, amazingly, we got home from that around 11pm! Who knew an innocent book-signing could go so late?! Mainly it's the drive to/from Dayboro - that clocks in at around 45 minutes each way. But, it's a pretty drive and the night, well, it rained, but if it wasn't raining it would've been lovely. It's quite a nice spot Dayboro; you don't have to go very far out of town to be around rolling green hills, trees, horse properties and views from Redcliffe down to the Gold Coast (a place always prettier from afar, in my opinion). Pretty nice. The commute alone would drive me crazy, but I'd be happy to visit often.

And today, well, chores, chores, chores. And thankfully the weather cleared and the hygrometer swung around to not-as-humid, so I was able to get laundry and floors done and dried in the same day! Sad to be so excited about it, but true. Hey, the floors haven't been done in a while. And for guests who stay at Casa de Cuadro de Mierda, cleanliness is job one (or two, as the case may be, tee hee). That, and we're off to Cairns this coming weekend (it's mah birfday, it's mah birfday! Again, you may remember it from last year's birthday episode) and then it will have been like 20 years since I'd done good chores and mopped. Oh yeah, so, heads up, won't be checking in next weekend (to all two of you out there) as we don't return from the Cairns Adventure until Tuesday evening..... Hooray for Adventure!

And there you have it. Quiet, but that was almost to be expected with all the rain we've been having and when there's an Adventure waiting in the wings. But, hope you're all well up there - drop a line to let me know you're alive or if you have any questions about planning your trip down thisaway!

BYE!

J!

(P.S. This check-in was delayed due to some serious technical difficulties... internet connection flakey...... wouldn't upload photos or do much of anything, kept timing-out......... so much for wireless broadband.... I think my dial-up was faster and more reliable...... I got way too frustrated to fight it........ many, many apologies...)

Adventures to Be Had in Glorious Winter Weather!

Hi!

Well. Here we are, a little late but here nonetheless. The weekend got away from me as they sometimes do and left me to catch up on Monday. But we're here now, the sun is shining bright and happy, which is nice compared to the last few weeks of rain, damp, dark and cold. The birds are out there happily chattering away in the eucalyptus tree outside my little place, there's a lovely cool breeze, got the standby glass of white wine - life is good!

So. Work. Yep, is pretty good. Not too busy, not too quiet - it's just right. Although we're in the long-haul as far as holidays/free time off go - the state government, in their infinite wisdom, lumped all of our public holidays together in the first six months of the year, thus leaving us to struggle with not going postal until Xmas; tho Brisbane city does get one day in August so we can all go to the Ekka (country fair in the city, kinda like the Del Mar Fair. You might remember my going a few times in previous episodes). Well, you're "supposed" to go to the Ekka since they went to the effort to create a day off, they call it "People's Day", but most folks without small children or who have been at least once in their life use the day to sleep-in and get stuff done around the house or town. But then that's it for us until December, and that's a suuuuuper long stretch when you work 40+ hours a week, week after week after week after week............ But, I'm not complaining. I get to live in a country where 4 weeks' vacation time a year is standard, so if I feel like going postal, I can actually take some time and not use all of my god-given vacation time. Sweeeet. And in saying that, I haven't used much of it yet, testament to the nice group of folks I work with I suppose! Otherwise, work is good. I dig the gig and hope they keep me past the end of March next year!

And then there were a few weekends in there........! Last weekend an Adventure was had to Coober Pedy and Lake Eyre! We were up before the sparrows Saturday morning to get to the Brisbane Jet Base (same place, and same kinda plane even, that Kim and I took to go to Lake Eyre last year) in time for our flight to Coober Pedy, with a very short stop 2 & 1/2 hours later in the little outback town of Bourke (not much there that we could see in our very brief stop, but they at least had a couple trees). Then it was back on the plane for another 3 or so hours to the waaaay outback opal mining town of Coober Pedy (they even filmed some of Mad Max there!), which is in South Australia, about 500+ kilometers from the 'closest' town of Port Augusta (gasp.) Haven't been, but is on mah list). There just ain't much there at all in Coober Pedy except for hundreds of mounds where they've dug down looking for opal veins, underground, dug-out homes and a very small stretch of "downtown", where the banks and pubs and a few sorry looking little shops are. It's a strange-looking landscape with these white mounds everywhere and from the air it's even stranger. Really photogenic tho if you can catch the right light. But, once we landed we were quickly packed on to our little tour buses and taken directly to a desperately-needed lunch at the Desert Cave Hotel (where our little tour group all stayed). Gratefully and happily fed and watered, the half-decent lunch was followed by a tour around the main bits of "town" and the surrounding area to see some of the opal mining stuff from above-ground (really just mounds of white dirt and slightly rusted opal mining machinery, which really just looked like great big huge shop-vacs propped up by big ladders perched on the back of old dump trucks, hmm), drove past a few dug-out homes, stopped in to check out a really cool underground Serbian church (SBS even did a news story about it a few days after we were there - The Serbian Orthodox Church Coober Pedy), a christian church (not remotely as interesting as the Serbian church), finally stopping at the Umoona Mine & Museum (right next door to our hotel, conveniently enough....) for a little video about how opals are made followed by a quick little opal cutting and polishing demonstration, which was then dutifully followed by a trip through the mine below (no longer working) that had some "typical" underground rooms (living, dining, bedroom, bathroom) dug off of the mine to the sides (where security apparently live) and then back up to the gift shop, of course. I tried to find something nice I could afford but all the stuff I liked cost at least $10,000+. Needless to say we walked away from the opal jewelry cases empty-handed (at those prices it was probably for the best as far as my bank is concerned). Followed by a brief rest in our rooms, our little group met up again in the bar on our way to dinner (pretty good for the middle of nowhere). And that was Saturday! Whew!

Sunday we were up early for an OK breakfast then quickly packed back on to our little buses back to the airport to catch our flight over Lake Eyre and towards home. Just outside Coober Pedy by about half an hour, we flew over the Painted Desert, apparently only reachable by air (no landing, no roads, etc). They're simply beautiful, stunning and amazing. I swear, the landscape out there is so fascinating and changeable depending on the weather and light. I think I went a bit crazy and took waaaay too many pictures. Still, better too many than none! And then it was up to Lake Eyre. This time around it was only 20% full, so quite dry, surrounded by little pods of salt pans where the lake had evaporated. Still, it was really interesting and neat to see, and soooo different than last year when it was at 90% and all we could see was water and creeks feeding into the lake like veins. Both trips were amazing. So in a hundred or so years, if you're still alive, I can highly recommend a flight over the lake when it's at full, or near full, capacity!

Following a good, long, loopy flight over the lake, we dropped in at Birdsville for a good look around (not hard when the place is teeny and there's not much to be seen) and a big lunch at the Birdsville Hotel (again, you might remember from a previous episode last year), which is actually muuuch bigger than it looks from the street and what the photos make it out to be. Birdsville isn't bad, the pub has a good-sized, single-level hotel attached to the back of it and looks to be in pretty good shape, so it probably wouldn't be a bad spot to rest if you were on a road trip (which I'm thinking of doing next year - watch this space!). And then we were whisked back on to the plane for our final leg back to Brisbane, where we finally got home around 8pm or so. WHEW! A big, busy, but way fun Adventurous weekend!

 And then there was this weekend. Started off nicely Friday evening with drinks at the XXXX Alehouse (local hugemongous brewery) with a gal from work and her husband (who works for the brewery in their IT department) followed by a not too bad Mexican dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall place called, creatively, Pepe's. (Oddly enough, I managed to take zero photos..... so please enjoy more photos from Coober Pedy/Lake Eyre...). I've really only been to one other Mexican restaurant since living here, Dos Amigos (many years ago now), and I have to say the food at Pepe's was pretty much the same as that place, just kinda, meh. Not bad, just meh. Pepe's was apparently started by a Mexican family in the 70's but the style has definitely morphed into something Australians would like, not necessarily what it's actually meant to be. It was OK. Place sure smelled good tho - nothing beats the smell of warm corn tortillas and refried beans! We splurged and got a pitcher of margaritas (at $50!) which weren't very good at all. They were like some sort of crappy frat party pre-mix slushy. Bleck. But it was good to try and if I ever go again I know what not to have!

And Saturday was chores. Finally the weather has improved, which makes it lots easier to do laundry because it can hang outside and dry and smell nice. Better than a dryer most times. Tho not for towels, have to have fluffy towels. But I digress....... Then later that evening we met up with my "Xmas foster family" for fish and chips at Fresh n' Wild at Portside Wharf (a newish mall built right next to the cruise ship terminal, on the river), followed by a very decadent dessert at Freestyle Tout in Fortitude Valley (the nice, classy end of the Valley, as opposed to the trashy night clubby end). Both places contain a fair amount of nice shops and restaurants, but tres $$$$, which is why I don't venture to those parts of town very often. Worth it tho to catch up with them outside of Xmas for once! (Again, I managed to take zero photos..... so please enjoy more photos from Coober Pedy/Lake Eyre...).

 
And yesterday, Sunday, I met up with my friend David who's moving to Townsville (you might also remember my visit to Townsville a fair few episodes ago) to start his new job next Monday as a prison warden! Well, his first few months will be training and studying but still working and learning on the job. Pretty exciting...! Gee, that's my second David I know that works in a prison...... Huh. Anyways, we had a lovely sunny stroll along South Bank, stopping for a very nice lunch at Stokehouse, then walked home again. It was such a lovely weekend to be outside compared to the last few miserable weekends (not counting the one we were in Coober Pedy of course), man it was nice!

And that is pretty much that! All is well down here. Like I said, the sun is shining, tho it's cool during the day and cold at night, the sky is a pretty bright blue, everyone is happy that the rain spell has passed - just like winter in Queensland should be! Otherwise, hope you're all well up there and managing to stay out of Mother Nature's way with her fires and damaging storms and hot temperatures. Eeeeek. That's ok, we get the same lively weather down here too during the summer, so I can empathize. So I hope you're all well up there. We're about half-way through winter, so time to get started planning that trip down here before the lively furnace of summer fires up again!

BYE!

J!