Before I move on in updates, I wanted to post a picture of Danny because Desi got all the limelight in the last post. Plus, Maggie was making fun of me for thinking Danny was a ploddy old horse when he's actually quite nimble. But tell me, dear friends...

...Does this look like a speed demon horse to YOU ( Read more... )

On December 29th, Maggie and I finally got around to going for a horseback ride! She has two horses, a Brumby/Quarter Horse cross named Danny and an Arabian named Desi. Unfortunately, Danny foundered the day I arrived in Australia, so we couldn't ride together in the first couple weeks I stayed with Maggie. But with careful care and attention, ( Read more... )

OK, back on track. On December 28th, Maggie and I went out to the nearby beach suburb of Frankston to see a very interesting display of sand scultpures. Twenty-one sculptors from Australia, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Singapore, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the USA worked for three weeks to create the sculptures, which were of massive yet ( Read more... )

On December 22nd, I flew without complications (gasp!) from Canberra to Melbourne. Oh wait -- there was a little incident in Canberra. They took my knife. My butter knife. And my fork. But they gave me back the spoon out of the camping set. I had to strongly resist the urge to make stabby motions with the spoon whilst glaring, because ( Read more... )

Friday, November 7th, was both Maggie's birthday and my own (what are the chances?!), and we celebrated by going into the city to see the aquarium and a few other sights around Melbourne. It was spitting rain for parts of the day, but we had plenty of places to take shelter.


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On Thursday, November 6, Al, Maggie, and I went to Mornington Peninsula for a day trip. Near the end of the day, I got to do something simple that I've always wanted to do, but have never gotten around to. That thing was not having my debit card eaten by the bank machine, which also happened. Thank goodness it was a weekday and I was able to get ( Read more... )

On Wednesday we still felt like lazing around, but we did take the dogs to the beach in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day and this was the first stretch of CALM ocean I had seen... the water was also clear with white sand, and it really made me want to go for a swim! But alas, I did not have my "swimming costume" with me, so I just waded and ( Read more... )

Hi guys! I am currently in Wollongong, 80km south of Sydney. I will update later about my birthday in Melbourne and my two days in Sydney, but for now I want to catch up on a couple of the things Al, Maggie, and I did in the days before that ( Read more... )

On Monday morning, we got up and decided that we had seen most of what there was to see in Eden, and that we would start the journey home, taking in a detour to the Victorian Alps (the "High Country". We only stopped a few times, so most of these were taken out of the moving vehicle -- it was easy enough to enjoy the scenery as we went, and we ( Read more... )

On Sunday morning, we were up bright and early (6:30am) to get down to the harbour for whale-watching aboard our catamaran boat, "Cat Balou". It was a beautiful calm morning, but outside of the habour, the wind was picking up. We chose to stand at the bow of the boat, and within minutes of moving out onto the open water, we hit a huge swell and ( Read more... )