walking around Gawler 2/1/18

Doug McMurray invited us along to take part in a walk that the Four Seasons walking group were doing around Gawler.  We decided we would go along..

A small group of eight walked for 11.4km following mostly along the edges of the River on fairly flat ground..  We were the youngest by far.

The group were an interesting assortment and have lots of knowledge about history, walking and life, so were good to talk to and happy to share their thoughts as we strolled along.

The walking was leisurely - at a pace of about 4km/hour which made it very easy to keep up.

We started at 8.30 and finished about 12noon. We deviated from the river tracks to venture through some of the old parts of town, travelling past some of the lovely old churches and cottages. 

Tea break - regulation 20 minutes. 

old bridge

ACT Retirement Adventure - Day 11 - The last day.

We left Tooleybuc at 9.30 via the usual route - Piangil and the Mallee Highway. 

This was a great day for sharing our thoughts and we had a wonderful conversation about the things we love while driving along this stretch of road.

Lunch was at Pinnaroo.

Lameroo had Christmas table decorations on display on the picnic tables around town !!  Also bows on the trees and stobie poles.

We stopped off at Tailem Bend for a cuppa, stopping down by the river , so that we could watch the ferry lazily cruising back and forth while we relaxed. 

Apparently there are now lots of painted sheep in town (inspired by Mem Fox's "Where is the green sheep?" that we will need to keep an eye out for next time we come through town.

We made it home at 3.15pm. 
Total distance for the trip: 2958km. 

We have time to shop for food so that we have something to take to the Diment Family Christmas show tomorrow. 

While we were away we both downloaded the "Wunderlist" app which we are able to share. 
On this we have compiled a long list of things that need to be done to prepare for Christmas, Thom and Laura's visit and to get life in general into a better order. 

We will slowly start working our way through them as we head into this new phase of life.

Finishing the blog for the trip allows me to tick off one more item from that long list.

ACT Retirement Adventure day 10 - 7th December

This morning we left Canberra and drove for 708km to reach Tooleybuc. 

When we left at 9.30am the sun was finally shining.  We stopped at Wagga for lunch at the "Pig and Pastry" in the old mill buildings.

A cuppa stop at Darlington Point gave us a chance to check out a possible campspot along the river there (just out of town past the Recreation Reserve) .

We stopped briefly at Jugiong for cheap fuel ($125.9 / litre for diesel) before heading on towards a brown smudge on the horizon.  Grey skies also showed ahead and it wasn't long before we hit a dust storm, then high winds driving heavy rain.  At one stage there were thousands of rolling "grass seeds" about 20cm in diameter which looked like translucent rolling spheres all travelling across the road driven by the wind in the same direction.  It was like seeing an army of fantasy creatures invading. Especially when coupled with the sudden spooky darkness of the day that went with it.   Trevor did a wonderful job of driving on through this in difficult circumstances as both visibility and ability to easily stay on the road were compromised.

One of the strange fantasy grass seed warriors

We grabbed the last room at our favourite Toolybuc Hotel and settled in to eat pasta and drink red wine. Very comfortable beds and lovely bed partner too.

ACT Retirement Adventures - Day 9 6th December

We have given up on waiting for a decent day for the National Arboretum, so took our chances today.  It wasn't ideal for walking a lot, but we did enjoy seeing the views from Dairy Farmers Hill

and tricky nest sculpture, before driving on to the Wide Brown Land Sculpture (in Dorothea McKellar's own handwriting) -did you know that the famous verse is actually verse two of the poem?

We even found a cache down in the Himalayan Cedar Forest.  

We headed to the Telstra Tower to see even more spectacular views, reminisce on Telecom history, watch a very dated film about how the tower was built , and have some lunch.  

Still raining, but we headed on to the National Library to see Peter Dobrovskis' photos of Tasmanian wilderness which were currently on display . These are wonderful and we were glad we stopped in to see them.. The stained glass windows in the library are also quite beautiful with the light coming through them. 

With just a little time up our sleeve, Trevor weakened and we drove the short distance across to the National Art Gallery to see the Hyperreal exhibition.  This offered some Patricia Piccinini sculptures, which I was keen to see, amongst some other lifelike and not so lifelike experiences.  

The very lifelike nude man and pregnant lady who were at least twice normal size (!) were a little challenging, but others were very amusing.  Imagine walking into a room full of old men in wheelchairs driving them around the place randomly!!

We also took part in a virtual reality experience with goggles and earphones , where you drift through space. 

After a quick look at some of the other art in the gallery we headed to Andrew and Vic's place having exhausted our cultural sides well and truly.  They were heading out to graduation dinner and disco with Kate, so we had one last chance to say goodbye before we headed out for Vietnamese at the local My's at Weston Creek.  Great food.  

ACT retirement adventures Day 8

Today we have planned to catch up with our friends the Abbertons who live in Canberra.

With the morning to ourselves before we could catch them, we headed for the National Museum of Australia, where there was a special exhibition on: Songlines tracking the Seven Sisters.  It is on till the 25th of February.

I'm a bit interested in songlines, so I was keen to see this one.  The weaving between the country and the stories that exists here is something that I find fascinating.

The exhibition is very well put together and follows the epic saga of the Seven Sisters' journey across the central and western deserts as told by various groups in various stories, which all have a similarity. 

It was really interesting to see the "maps" of the countryside drawn up with the explanations of what was where, and then see it put into a painting or weaving without the explanation.  It helped to show how the stories are woven into the landscape and the artwork reflects the same.

We were able to download the audio app and listen to the information as we walked around the exhibition - which really added to the experience.

We ate lunch at the National Museum and spent some time looking at the rest of the exhibitions which show significant items and times in Australian History.  A very interesting place to visit and free except for the special exhibition (and the food). 

We headed across town to see the Abbertons in their new-for-them apartment (renting at the moment) before heading across the road to see the F45 gym which Eliza and Luke run and to eat tea at the local Thai (very good) . As always it is too hard to say goodbye to these guys, but it must happen.

ACT retirement Adventures - Day 7 - December 4th.

After a sleep in and a bit of a shopping trip we headed over to see the new Endangered Heritage location. We haven't been to Canberra since they moved shop to Fyshwick and there is certainly a better location but more space and plenty more scope for possible future expansion of council permissions are forthcoming.

the "lead light look" is partly in place. 

heaps more space in the showroom... but out the back is where the action is.
So much work going on restoring precious objects. 

 Endangered Heritage are looking after so many wonderful things - broken ceramics, old clothing, dear, loved, teddy bears, tapestries and many other objects.

Here we picked up Dad and headed off to Humble House Gallery, where we spent some time with

Roger (we met him last night at the party) , seeing his amazing gallery of Chinese furniture and art.  If we had unlimited funds.....  He has an amazing museum upstairs worth a look just for the display of wooden joints and how they fit together.

Then on to the national portrait gallery, where we enjoyed viewing the "Starstruck" exhibition.  This exhibition is of still taken from movies, but also features costumes restored by Endangered Heritage, which was the reason we went to see it. 

Having said this, the portrait gallery is always a great place to go and I could happily spend a day there if left to my own devices.  We also had lunch together at the cafe there, which was reasonably expensive,  but offered tasty food (with wine) .  

Another quite interesting thing of note was the display of finalists in the digital portraiture award.  The winner was "Selfie Factory" which is an art installation creating a temporary visual experience by printing a stream of selfies from instagram on receipt paper.  Somewhere in there is my selfie. 

It kept on raining. 

We had tea with Andrew, Vic, Dad and Kate before heading to the church near Kate's school for Mass and graduation.  

Dessert with Emily and Elle along with the others at San Churros which made for a latish night. Churros with dipping sauce, strawberries and banana was rather yummy. 

ACT retirement Adventure - Day 6 Canberra

I'm still at the AIS for another day of orienteering conference.

Trevor had a lazy day watching cricket after dropping me off.

Once the conference finished we headed over to Andrew and Vic's place, where we took part in their Endangered Heritage Christmas drinks evening - complete with slow cooked pork (made in their pizza oven).

We enjoyed the company of  some lovely people (some new and some that we have met before).

ACT Retirement Adventure - Canberra trip day 5 - 2nd December 2017

The National Orienteering Conference was on in Canberra on the 2nd and 3rd (part of the reason for being here at this time). Consequently , I spent the two days working on national directions with other orienteers, while Trev saw some of Canberra without me.

He spent today visiting the War Memorial (a good, sheltered place to be in pouring rain), tapping into  a group tour , and eating in 2 different cafes. 
I opted not to brave the weather conditions at the AIS for an orienteering run, and instead to be picked up earlier and head for tea with the family.

Dad had flown in to Canberra in the morning, so we went out to tea with him, Andrew, Vic and Kate to a lebanese reataurant, where we enjoyed good food (too much of it) and a belly dancing display along with a very nice magnum of Charlton 2005 red made from the old Penfold Vines (uprooted and transplanted).

ACT Retirement Driving Adventure - Day 4 - The Rock to Canberra 1/12/2017

After a dry night the grey clouds had come over and the wind was picking up as we finished our breakfast and packed up.  By the time we made it into the local town (also called The Rock) the roads there were soaking wet, and it was obvious that the rain had come , but had missed us so far.  We caught up with the rain just past Wagga and debated the merits of different routes into Canberra.

Trevor was keen to take a route through the mountains since we had the day up our sleeve, so we headed for Tumut, where we stopped at the local information centre and spoke to the parks officer.
If we went in the next 1/2 hour or so it would be OK to take that route, but otherwise wiser not to due to the road surface and conditions. In the rain the road gets slippery as well as being steep, rutted and windy. It also has logging trucks.

After a quick stop at the local bakery we headed out of town, seeing a shuffling echidna as we wound our way up into the mountains beside the river.

The forests (pine and native) on both sides of the road was interesting, as were the glimpses of gullies far below us and little dirt roads winding off along the flats. This is where "My Brilliant Career " was written.

We stopped a couple of times. The second time we made ourselves some lunch and sat on huge old logs in a clearing to eat, before the rain hurried us along.  As we pulled out of our little lunch spot we realised that the bitumen was only about 200m away!! - great timing as the rain started pelting in.

lunch spot

We made our way past Uriarra Village (the only community title village in Australia) and wound our way down to the base of the Cotter Dam, where we admired the Dam overflow

and took a short walk, unexpectedly meeting some lizards on the rocks.

After the brief break in rain, in it came again as we headed on to Tidbinbilla.  We ran to the visitor centre in rain and an hour or so ran back out again in a drenching downpour.

This satellite dish (DSS46) was the one to first to receive and relay images of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon.  

This dish (DSS43) is 70 metres wide and the largest steerable radio antenna in the southern hemisphere and part of the Deep Space Communication network along with 2 others in the world. We watched it move as it tracked the satellites. 

our 

It is always fun to dress up...right???  We learnt lots about space life while we waited for the rain to stop (which it didn't)

After all this excitement, we headed on into Canberra, going directly to Duffy, where we found Kate at home waiting for our company.  Lovely to see her after so long.

Also caught up with Andrew and Vic when they got home.
Eventually found our way to Lyneham and our airbnb for the next week or so - it's a bit noisy (traffic lights outside the widows) but it has fans in both bedrooms, good shower and our own kitchen. (Plus a TV for Trev to keep an eye on the cricket)

It is still pouring with rain, but hot.

our travels today