God I am terrible, apologies to friends and family that
were following my blog. Only just realised that the last blog was written in
January 2013, I think I have become busy with life again. Thank god for that,
is all I can say. I have no time for home sickness that way and I don’t think
Mark could cope with my severe case of home sickness again. Anyway it’s time to get on with this blog. I
have a LP playing and a cold beer in hand, so I think I am ready. This blog
goes out to Gladys, who we are thinking of at this time.
Let me begin with the hot air balloon ride update. For my 30th
birthday Mark brought me a hot air balloon ride. I have begun to think that Mark has paid a
friend, to call him the night before the ride. We have now planned the ride
four times and they have all been cancelled due to bad weather. My fingers are
now crossed for our next attempt.
February flew by, at the beginning of the month we had a BBQ
with friends. Later in the month I spent the day canoeing down the Port
Adelaide River with some Girl Guide leaders. We had a great day and all worked
towards our canoeing qualifications. We were even joined by some dolphins for
part of our paddle. The end of February
was also the beginning of the Comedy Fringe festival. February brought some good news from home, as my brother and
his girlfriend got engaged. Congratulations again to you both.
In March we had a number of great times out with friends.
One I think Mark would rather forget. [I did forget most of the night - Ed]
We had great fun out with Georgia and Jason;
at the beginning of the month we went to see Laura Hill in the Garden of
earthly delights. It was a night out Mark and I will not forget, as it was our
first night out with them in 3 years without the children. During March we
spent the day at the Future Music Festival where we saw Ellie Goulding, Stone
Roses, Prodgy and Temper Track. What a day. Temperatures were in the top 30s
and there was limited shade, but it was fun.
To round March off my godson Ben
had his first birthday and begun crawl.
We have spent Easter camping in the Eyre Peninsula, what a
beautiful place. The car is loaded and ready to take us on our travels.
Pictures from the travel up to Steaky Bay from Adelaide.
We began in Streaky Bay on Good Friday, where it seems the
Australian view that tourists do not want to view the area during the weekend
or public holidays. We were there for two days and during that time the local
pub was closed for Good Friday. The local tourist board office opens Monday to
Thursday 9am to 5pm and the local museum about schools in Australia are open on
Tuesday and Friday 12noon till 3pm and closed on public holidays. And
Australians wonder why business is slow. However we did find a fantastic seafood
restaurant on the sea front called Mocean. Where Mark introduced me to ousters
but unfortunately I am still not a fan and we found a great campsite in the
sand dunes south of Streaky Bay at Tractor Beach.
Saturday was a complete wash out, but we
can’t complain as this was the only day of rain and it begun our scrabble tournanent that lasted all week. I can say that I finally won a game on our last night. Unfortunately I don't think the practice I had with my Granny was enough to deal with Mark's spelling ability, come to think of it why did I pick this game I have Dyslexia?
During our travels around area the Steaky Bay area we found a long drop toilet with a view in Seal Bay (one for mum, the theme continues from Facebook).
We also had some fantastic sunsets and sun rises during our stay at Tractor Beach
On Easter Day we travelled to Coffin Bay and set up camp at
Black Springs Campsite, on a 4x4 track in the Coffin Bay National Park. On our journey down to Coffin Bay we stopped at Murphy's Haystacks and had a pinic lunch. We also visited some amazing caves.
During our stay we explored the park by car and foot, with plenty of time to
swim in the sea and read books and due to the high tide rule we were able to
have fires on the beach in the evening and watch the stars. I think this had to
be one of my favourite parts of the holiday, as it brought back memories of
some great summers in my home visit of Rhoscolyn. During our stay at Coffin Bay a group of
campers we might allow me to build sand castles with them (3 hours of fun) and
they taught us a new game called Kubb. One for dad to make I think mum, would
be great to play on the lawn in the summer.
Guess where we will be camping during our next trip to Coffin Bay?
Coffin Bay was followed by a trip to Port Lincoln National
Park where we stayed at Memory Cove. It was out of this world. I have finally
found my dream beach which was on a poster on the back of my university bedroom
door. Memory Cove is in the wildness
area of Port Lincoln National Park and has 5 camping areas. To get there you
have to collect the gate key from the Tourist board office in Port Lincoln. Once
there apart from a 1km walk there was nothing else to do, but enjoy a swim in
the crystal clear sea or a good old book, or as Mark prefers scientific papers and in the evening watching the stars.
On the way home on Saturday we explore some of the 4x4 tracks around the National Park.
One of these tracks took us to some sand
dunes, where the car ended up to its belly in sand. After nearly
three hours of digging the car out and not getting anywhere, but closer to the
sea and getting nowhere with the radio. I leave Mark with the shovel and the
maxtracks. After walking the sun dunes for 20 minutes with my mobile phone
looking for signal and finally getting through to the tourist board office, which
provided me with the map I was quoting from and appeared to have no idea where
I was. I hear this roar, the sand flag and then Mark and the car coming racing
up the hill to safe ground. I cannot explain
the relief I was experiencing at this point. We won't be trying that again on our own in a hurry!
Following this event, I can report the drive back to Adelaide was less eventful and we arrived home in one piece.
Now for work updates. My job is going well. We are working
on things to develop the new department and hopefully things are coming
together. Though the department had a blow just before Easter when one of our
colleagues was taken ill with Leukaemia. I can only speak for myself but I know as this colleague has been there every day since I begun, I am feeling a little lost and wish my colleague a quick and safe recovery and hope to see them back with us soon.
Mark’s job continues to keep him busy with paper and grant proposals
writing. In the last few months he has managed a field trip or two to play with
his two favourite things in the world, mud and cows. The cows are one of his
field sites decided it may be fun to play with the equipment and one day Mark
and his colleagues came into the field to find the plastic tubes they had put
into the grown at the top of the hill (as the photo below shows), at the bottom of
the hill.
My work with the Girl Guide unit is going well. This year we
have around 26 girls and I am currently working on my campers qualifications,
so that I can take girls camping. For this reason I am working hard on our upcoming
unit camp in May. Mark and I also have
one of my girl guide friends that we visited at Christmas coming to stay for
the long weekend at the end of the month. I can’t wait, to see her again. I’m
counting down the days Dayna.
Well that rounds off our adventures, so far in 2013. If you would like to see more of the photos please go to Mark's Flickr page.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_farrell/
I hope this helps pass some time Gladys.
Cheers everyone
