Alice Calling - 25 June

It's hard to believe that it's been two years since we got home from our around Australia trip. Nothing big has happened, just life but for a while there we didn't have a Prado to pull the camper trailer so there haven't been many adventures.
But now we have a new (old) Prado we can get back on the road (Evan's work leave permitting) and we're headed for the Red Centre.
This time round we've also gained another child. No, no big news, Beth is one of my 14 year old Scouts. So I've gained a daughter for 2 weeks! Yay! I'll let you know how that works out.
We're meeting a group of Scouts to hike part of the Larapinta Trail, east of Alice Springs. Most are flying in, but we're driving and will then be able to see a bit more after the hike.

The NT in winter, the perfect place to be, well maybe if you're headed north of Katherine. Alice Springs, however, is probably not going to be that warm. The nights may drop below zero, but hopefully the days should be beautiful.
Leaving Sydney yesterday was probably one of the coldest days of the year. Katoomba had had a snow fall the night before and it was still on the ground at 2pm. Six yr old Lloyd was ecstatic to see snow for the first time, and I was equally ecstatic to have ticked that one off the list without having to drive to Jindabyne in winter. We had a quick stop in Blackheath to throw some snow around and Beth realised that all the nagging about bringing thermals was for a reason.
It turned out that even more snow had fallen between Lithgow and Bathurst. We had to stop for another play beside the highway, amongst the snow laden gums and furs. It was surreal. And yes, we built a snowman.
We'd had a late start and were not going to make it to Nyngan for the night, so we found a free camp on Wikicamps called Ponto Falls, just south of Dubbo. We set up camp beside the river with a couple of other campers after dark. At 7pm it was already 4 degrees. We were in for a cold night.

 

We're in!

I should have written an update a few weeks ago but we've been very busy.
With a bit of help from our friends we painted the entire inside of our 5 bedroom house. An undercoat onto the raw Giprock and two top coats. It took about 4 weeks and even now there are door frames and window frames that still need another coat. All the doors are yet to be done but their original colour matches nicely with the colour scheme.
The tilers took about a week. They ripped off the skirting boards and broke some, which was a bit stressful for me but the floors do look amazing. The long plank ceramic tiles really do look like wooden floor boards.
The carpet was laid in a few hours the day before we moved in.
So now were just back to normal life. S walks to and from school every day, L enjoys playing trains in the train room and R is being toilet trained. This last year seems like it was forever ago.

Farewell Artarmon

So we've spent about 3 months with Dad, in his 2 bedroom apartment in Artarmon. It's cozy.
On Friday we move back to the Hills! I can't wait to be back in the area. School, friends, church, it's all there. Our very generous neighbours are having us for a few weeks until we can move in.
The house is so close to being finished I can smell it, well not quite as we're the ones doing the painting and that hasn't begun yet. We decided we could save some money that way and afford the floor tiles.
In other news it was a sad day when had to sell the Prado to pay for carpet. He's still mourning it's loss.
So here are some pics of our amazing house.
BTW, that drain pipe at the front post, it's moving! What were they thinking!!

The roof is on!!

The last of the Basalt Colorbond went on this week, and it looks fantastic! Also here's a pic from the front door. Hopefully it will be a bit brighter once the plasterboard goes in.

On the road again

Melbourne in June. It's cold, it can be wet, and generally not the best time of year for a wedding. Dispute all this Janet and Peter has a wonderful day.
Exhausted from driving around the country we were given two weeks to recover before heading south for Evan's sisters wedding. As I've said before, what's another 2000 km when you've just done 22 000 km?
We left Sydney after work on Thursday and drove to Yass for the night. The traffic leaving Sydney was horrendous, and this was before 5, what's it going to be like in 10 years?
We stopped at a motel with tiny rooms and crammed all the kids in on the floor.
The best part of the journey was discovering that the submarine in Holbrook has been yarn bombed yellow! It looked amazing. There are some crazy people out there, a submarine jumper. The boys were a bit disappointed they couldn't climb it.

It was 8°C and raining when we picked up Uncle Bruce and drove to Ringwood from Geelong.
The venue, Rosebank, was beautiful, an historic house with a chapel in the front garden.
Fran had altered her wedding dress from 1968 as Janet had asked to wear her mothers dress. The fabric was still perfect white with embroidered silver flowers. Her hair and make up looked beautiful and she was beaming. Peter seemed pretty relaxed, although I don't think I've ever seen him stressed about anything.
The 90 guests crammed into the little chapel. The boys behaved very well but were glad to run around on the grass outside after the ceremony and blow bubbles.
The food was fantastic and so much, canapés, then entre, main and wedding cake for dessert. I felt ill from eating too much.
A fantastic day. Congratulations Janet and Peter!!

Growing, growing, gone

So after 14 weeks of growing, Evan said goodbye to his bush man look today. Here are the stages, a few times that I was tempted to stop clipping... and now he looks years younger and quite a bit lighter (with the thanks too the lack of hot chip lunches when we were away).
Welcome back handsome Evan!

Cockatoo Island

I love Cockatoo Island. Just off Woolwich, west of the Harbour Bridge, in Sydney Harbour, this island had been resurrected from it's convict, war and industrial days.
It's a higgle-di-piggle-di, mishmash of buildings. There are huge warehouse buildings constructed of iron beams and corrugated iron, including the Turbine Hall, in the Industrial Precinct. There's a Docks Precinct with cranes and a dry dock where ships were built during the wars. On the north western side of the island is a lovely grassed area which is set up with a hundred tents, if you feel like a night on the harbour. All this is on the reclaimed part of the island.
The sandstone bedrock in the center of the island is elevated and has an area where ships were designed and a Convict Precinct constructed of cut sandstone blocks. Two tunnels also go through the centre of the island. So much to see in one day. Lucky we've been here a few times before.
So as well as all these historic buildings to see there is also some really weird art on at the moment thanks to the Biennale of Sydney.
We had perfect winter weather and lots to see. L was fascinated by the huge projection of the waterfall in the Turbine Hall, complete with the roar of the water, but it wasn't quite the same the Fortescue Falls at Karijini NP.
There were a few strange movies, some quite scary.
I was not prepared to ride the ghost train through the dog-leg tunnel, I can't even take balloons popping.
Grandpa enjoyed the room full of exercise equipment attached to pulleys which did all kinds of strange things like blowing bellows, pumping water and making a skeleton dance.
One artist had a room with bessa blocks and she would spin metal hoops until they would clang to the floor. Very weird, but at the Biennale weirder is better, right?