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!
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!
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!
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