while i was gone....
well ive been back for a while now, but i havent updated. there aint much to say.....im back, but it seems things have changed, and either it was the environment or me...most likely the latter
Saturday 8th July - 2.42
Music - antagonist
I thought seems we have the laptop with us in the car, that I can write things down and
keep myself a little entertained…then when I get home and can put it on lj, and if anyone is willing to read my boredom in the car, which may or may not have details of my adventure, then they are free to do so.
Totally remembered that I didn’t check my emails before I left, so I should do that soon, maybe in mildura, considering that is our first stop... see if they got my assignment. We decided to take it slow, kinda over sitting in the car for long hours, considering we have done a lot of driving in our time- last time I think it was streaky bay (now that seemed like it never ended). Anyways so far we’ve only stopped in loxton for lunch. It is amazing, you should remember on Saturday afternoons the actual towns are deserted because….guess where they are….the football and netball. Nah, it just seemed like the actual town centre was filled with tourists (or not locals) and the rest of the town was off at the footy…today loxton played renmark. Atm we are about twenty minute drive to mildura which isn’t too bad, considering its not that long of a drive. When we get there we might do some things around the place cuz its only about three. Haha we just drove past the airport in mildura, so this is me leaving.
….by the way the country bakehouse in loxton make the best cappuccinos ever..it was amazing.
Sunday 9th July
9.37am
Music - Fall out boy
We didn’t hang around mildura much in the end, cuz dad and I didn’t realize it was another six hour drive to wagga wagga, so we kinda needed an early start and yeah I thinking dad wants to stop somewhere to watch some of the crows…sadly apparently last season he did not miss a game. There wasn’t too much to do in mildura except shops…they have their own arcade like rundle mall, it was weird in a way cuz you have nothing for hours on end and then suddenly there is this city. We didn’t do too much yesterday, just looked around for a while. Saw the river, went for a short drive around the town, the usual.
Last night didn’t do too much, im kinda still sick so I wasn’t feeling my best. Dad, lee and I went for a possum hunt and found zero possums. The river is really nice though, it was really calm, and the sunset was amazing, unfortunately I was unable to catch the immense beauty of the sunset on film, but I tried all the same. The caravan park was right up close to the river, so it had a nice rural feel to the place, better then the places in town. Any way after our failed possum hunt, lee and I played spiderman uno for a while, until I got tried and went to bed. Before that I watched the new dr who series, it was actually really amusing…and the new dr who was kinda funny…he was the bbc’s Casanova and he over did that role, so I guess you couldn’t expect any less. Now we are on the road again. I swear sometimes I forget how big Australia is, and how much the scenery can change. I don’t know how im gonna go when we actually get near the snow cuz I was already freezing this morning. I didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag and then having a shower was an effort. I slept for a long time last night and I think the previous late nights and being sick eventually caught up on me. Im feeling better, but not perfect. Its funny when your sick, you start to wonder of you ever felt any different. You start to forget, but that’s like everything. Forgetting seems to be my nature.
9.30pm
today was tiring, but not bad. We arrived in wagga wagga about mid afternoon. We had lunch in hay, which was really good. We found a little café open, and I had the best foccacia (sundried tomato, eggplant and basil), and they also had good cappuccinos. I wouldn’t be surprised if I gain a lot of weight on this holiday, I feel as if all im doing is eating and drinking.
When we got to wagga wagga we came to the cabin, it is simple but good and I get a double bed to myself. We went for a walk along the murrimbingee river, which was good. Its weird cuz it is sandy, and I think the locals use it as a type of beach in summer, and you can see why. Here in the town are the biggest churches. The catholic one here is huge, it reminds me of the one down in strath, but the whole street is filled with many other old big churches. The town is huge, and old, but nice. Right next to the caravan park is an abandoned Christian boys school (there being turned into apartments), but there are buildings like this everywhere. One looked like a convent, but im not too sure if it is or not. Lee and I went for a walk when the sun was setting, and I tried talking gothic looking photos of the church, but ppl were turning up for mass, so it felt kind of weird in taking photos and the photos weren’t turning out too well, so I just gave up. The road towards wagga wagga was not too exciting, but I didn’t sleep at all, I guess I just kept myself amused. Leah killed me at eye spy, it seems playing with Lauren not that long ago helped brush up her skills, and I, who had not played eye spy in a very long time was utter crap. We bought the best organic chocolate peanuts, they were really expensive, but they tasted so good. The university here also makes a whole lot of cheeses, vegetarian cheese, so we bought some, but again it was fairly expensive. Did not see much of the crows game, just the last fifteen minutes or so, but dad didn’t seem too bothered considering we won by so much. Tomorrow we are ended for cooma, but we are going to look around lake albert and the town first.
Hahahah and I also heard the weirdest name today, something along the lines of one man jackets name - some kid rode past me and his father called out his name….it must be a country thing.
Monday 10th July
Music - home and away (leah is watching it)
7pm
today was not as much driving. We looked around wagga for a while. Did some shopping and looked at their lake. It was okay, but its such a big city, its hard to explore all corners in just one day. We are at cooma now. It is old, but its not snowing here. We called into mt sewlyn on the way and saw some snow, but there hasn’t been much lately. There’ve predicted a snow storm to come soon, but who knows. We are goin to perisher probably Wednesday, cuz I need to hire stuff, and we didn’t do that today. Cooma is bigger then I expected, it was really busy, and some Italian soccer fans kept driving past and yelling out things. Mum blamed me. Cooma is an adorable town, and the drive here was amazing. I forgot how big some of the mountains can get, and how cool they look. Im really tired, and I cant think of everything we’ve done today, but it don’t matter.
Tuesday 11th July
5.15pm
I thought this was a good idea when I started, but now I cant be bothered writing much. Last night we watched sahara on the laptop and pretty much went to bed. Today we started at a lookout of the mountains around here, then we went to a craft shop (because mum wanted to). We ended up in nimmitable where we had lunch. It was a tiny town, yet it still had vegetarian pasties, now that’s unexpected. We came back, and we could see the weather coming over the mountains. On the mountain today it was really windy and snow storms, so it would’ve been like the last day at falls creek. Tomorrow is meant to be better. We stopped at a bridge on the way back to cooma because the bridge was designed by a JA McDonald. The same initials of both mum and dad. It went over the snowy river, which was really clean, but not as clean as it can get. When we got back into cooma we went around the shops and things. I went into a cd store and was surprised to see bands such as Carpathian, the bleeders, bleeding through and against in their store, just shows hardcore can show up anywhere. We then went to a second hand book store, which is not a good idea, cuz you know how much I love those. We ended up getting Winnie pooh and alice in wonderland, poetry of browning and pride and prejudice - all published around the fifties. They were expensive, but I just passed it to dad….haha. after that we browsed the rivers clearance store they have here. We all ended up buying something, I got a cardie thing which was originally sixty marked down to twenty two. I probably didn’t need it, but meh. We went and hired some ski things after that. They girl was weird, mum just said its probably her country behaviour. I don’t know, she just was a bit weird. Now we are back. It doesn’t sound like we did much, but we did, and plus dad slept in because he was tired from the previous days drives.
Wednesday 12th July
7.36pm
last night lee and I played foosball, I won the first time 4-1, she won the second time 3-2. dad was cooking his meat on the barbeque outside, so I stood and waited in the cold with him, mainly because the full moon was rising over the hills, and the leafless trees. It looked awesome, but I don’t have a camera good enough to capture it.
Today was fun. We ended at Smiggins Hole - Perisher Blue because it was closer and it was better for lee cuz she hadn’t done it before.
At the start of the day it was snowing, and the day looked gloomy, but about an hour later we had blue skies. Mainly it was better at smiggins because it wasn’t as busy crowded as blue cow and the other side of the mountain. I skied all day, and my legs are feeling it now. I thought I wont be able to do it again, but it was fine, I was amazed that I remembered. I stacked it a few times, but that’s mainly because a whole lot of us were cutting across through the trees, and there were unexpected obstacles that got in the way. The only time a stacked it on an actual slope was on my last run, down a slope I had already done five times, but I guess I wasn’t paying much attention. I got stuck with various people on the chair lifts, but that was okay. Some were nice, some teenagers were idiots, but it was all good. I could go through every single detail of what happened on each run, but as if I can be bothered, and as if ya want to read it. Anyways back at the flat now, and tomorrow we are heading for the coast, cheese country apparently, awesome.
Wednesday 19th July
4.35pm
I have been really slack in doin this. After a week we are now heading home. I’ll try and fill in the blanks.
Thursday 13th - We left Cooma. Stopped at the cutest historical town called tilba. Here we had lunch and looked through all the little shops and such. That night we stayed in Bateman’s Bay. Dad and I went for a walk around the town at night, it was just a typical beach city. There were also a few cheese factories along the way, not all vegetarian.
Friday 14th - We headed towards Sydney. On the way we stopped at Kangaroo Valley to look at a bridge that looked like a castle. Jess tried ringing when we were around here, bt we were in this huge mountain thing and I couldn’t hear a word. Here we had lunch, and looked around the shops, it was also a really old town. We entered Sydney through the new scenic coast highway, it was fairly speccy. That late afternoon we arrived at Auntie Marie, and this is one of the reasons I didn’t do this…just too busy keeping the cousins entertained.
Saturday 15th - Got up early so we could go and watch Brodie and Jamie play footy. It was raining, but it was ok. They were cute to watch. Afterwards Dad, mum and I decided to head into town and have a look around. We caught the train from Sutherland to circular quay and got into town about oneish. We didn’t get home until 11pm, I think I tired them out, they didn’t really want to be there that long. We walked and ate at the rocks, headed towards darling harbour, looked at the observatory, looked arounf darling harbour, caught the monorail around town a few times, had thai for tea, came back to darling harbour and went to the aquarium because it didn’t close until ten. Then we went home. Didn’t have to camera all day, so in the end there were not photos of town…meh
Sunday 16th - everyone slept in, because the kids had two late nights, and the holiday constantly doin things finally got to us I think. After we got goin we went out with the whole family (we needed marie really to navigate) and went to the national park where cook was said to land. Here we also went on the coast where ppl were whale watching, but I only saw a glimpse of a whale, and I was the only one because no one else was watching. From here we went to coogee and had icecream, walked on the beach with the kids, and then we went home. Had takeaway and just relaxed, it was a typical Sunday.
Monday 17th - we had to pack to leave. First I took the kids on a walk to get donuts and also see brodie’s school. Sydney was fun, but it was mostly a family affair, it was nice to see their new house and where they lived, and just to play or hangout with them. It didn’t bother me too much that we didn’t do too much else in Sydney because that was what we were there for. Kellie was still scared of dad, and Jamie and brodie are growing up so fast, sometimes you just feel like you have to capture any moment you can with them, because they’re rare and valuable. We ended into Canberra, and found a place to stay - the teplora inn. For the rest of the day we spent it at the war memorial. It was impressive, and so much to look at. I would have only looked at a portion of any of it. We listened to the call at five and then left.
Tuesday 18th - this day was so busy, I don’t believe we covered so much ground. First we started at the national science building. This was a lot of fun, leah did some free fall thing and we just played for a portion of the morning. Apparently I can only throw a tennis ball 68km/ph. Bah. After wards we went to the national film and sound archive. Here we looked at the old Australian shows long forgotten and watched an interesting film on canberra’s history. After this we went to blundell’s cottage - oldest cottage in the city - c.1860s. it was adorable. From here we went to the national museum. This was weird and interesting, but I expected more…I don’t know, maybe I was tired by then. Before the day was out we managed then to visit old parliament house. The building was nice and old, but sometimes politics bore me…haha. Nah it was good. We then went home to have tea, but later went to the Canberra observatory…at this one we actually looked at the stars. The guy was so enthusiastic. we looked at four things, two stars, a cluster of starts and Jupiter. All were interesting, and it wasn’t bad for eight bucks.
Today - at the moment we are on the road ending towards bendigo, however I don’t think we will make it before the sun goes down. This morning we went to the national library, they had an interesting exhibition on children. The other one was weird, it was about a percy grangier, and he was one weird guy…weird relationships with his mother and whips…lets not go into it. After we went to the art gallery, mainly cuz dad wanted to see the controversial painting purchased by the gov. in the 70s or 80s (I forget) for about 2 million, and it doesn’t look like much. Just think what else that money could have gone towards. The gallery was good, but there was a lot of modern art…sometimes I just don’t get them. We stopped at gundagui for lunch…and now its pretty much updated.
Back home. We spent the morning in bendigo and it is an awesome town. It was disappointing we couldn’t stick around longer…but the trip home was long. We stopped once on the way home for lunch but apart from that we went straight home….and that’s all I can think to say.