School's Out For Summer...

Well, the school year is over. Prep is done and dusted, and we're into the first week of Hell... er..., sorry... the Christmas Holidays!

Six weeks of "I'm hungry, Mummy! Mum, can I have an iceblock? Can I have some fairy bread? Can I have a Nutella? An apple, a sandwich..?" It's only Tuesday, and already she's devoured almost an entire box of Tiny Teddy biscuits (which were bought as a treat), is about a third of the way through a 12 pack of individual Nutella snacks and has consumed more Zooper Dooper ice blocks than should be deemed necessary, considering the overcast (and therefore cooler) weather. Clearly I will need to buy another truckload of apples, and reintroduce her to stone fruits, now that they're in season.

This, from a child who has spent the better part of her life eating like a bird. I also know for a fact that she survived quite well every day at school on the two standard breaks, morning tea and lunch. So where has this sudden need to continuously graze come from? Maybe it's a growth spurt, but I hope it doesn't last. She's eating us out of house and home... and she isn't even a teenager!

Maybe I'll just have to sidetrack her with holiday activities. There's plenty of things she wants to do. The problem is getting her to understand that she has 6 weeks to do them in. We do not have to do every activity TODAY. We can swim in our pool any time we like. The park and duckpond is only 5 minutes away - she can even ride her bike there on the nice wide bike path. (Maybe we'll even get those training wheels off if she practices hard enough!) We can visit friends, have sleepovers at Grandma's and Nanny and Poppy's, do crafts, go to the movies... we just don't need to do it all right now, this instant.

Perhaps she's right though. All too soon it will be the end of the holidays and we'll be covering books, ready for Grade 1. Maybe we should be trying to cram in as much as we can.

Cheyenne's "Prep Graduation" photo.

(They didn't actually have a Graduation ceremony, this was just a posed shot included on the Powerpoint slideshow that each child received on a CD at the end of Prep. Kind of like a report card with photos. Excuse the grainy quality of the image - we didn't get access to the originals. I just copied it "as is" from the slideshow.)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I can't believe that it's December already! This year has really flown past. Cheyenne only has one more week left of Prep and then she's on Christmas holidays for six weeks! Six weeks! OMG!

You can tell it's that time of year. All around, friends and family are off to watch their kids in Christmas concerts and sports carnivals. Two weeks ago it was our turn. Norris Road SS had their Music Gala concert, and as Cheyenne has been a part of the Junior Choir, we went along to watch them perform two songs.

Let me put this into perspective for you. For most of the year I had no idea Cheyenne was even going to choir practise. Sure, it was mentioned in the school newsletter early in the first term, and Cheyenne told me that she had gone at lunchtime one day with some of the girls in her class, but that's about all I heard of it until the end of term 3. Her teacher let me know that the Junior Choir were going to be singing on Parade that week. This was news to me, since Cheyenne hadn't said a word about it. Occasionally we'd heard her singing the same line or two over and over, but when we'd questioned her about it she'd just said it was a song they sang at school.

We found out she was a part of the Music Gala in much the same way. About a week and a half before the Gala I found a book of Music Gala raffle tickets with her name on in her "information pocket", and, according to the newsletter, only students performing in the Gala would be given them to sell. So I asked her, "Cheyenne, are you singing in the music concert?" She just rolled her eyes at me and replied "Ye-es!" Did it occur to her that maybe she should let us know in time to buy our tickets? Clearly not. Never thought I'd be thankful to get raffle tickets to sell !

I asked her what songs they were singing, so that I could look up the lyrics and maybe help her practise before the concert. Turns out they were singing Colour My World (the old Petula Clark classic) and Louise - a children's song about an elephant. Cheyenne didn't seem to be very sure of the words to this and it isn't one I'd ever heard of before, but even I knew that "Down in deep blue Africa, by the shade of the boo-bah trees" couldn't be right. Africa isn't blue and I don't think there's any such thing as boo-bah trees... except maybe on Telly Tubbies or In The Night Garden, lol.

Now, the internet is a wonderful place... just about anything you're searching for is only a click or two away... except if you are trying to find the complete lyrics to songs out of the ABC Sing books! Clearly the copyright is closely guarded. I did manage to find an index, which told me that Louise features in the 2005 edition... and, miracle of miracles, it also listed the first line!
Turns out the lyrics are as follows: "Down in deepest Africa, by the shade of the bongo trees, lived an elephant, her name it was Louise. Louise was very fond of an elephant named Joe, and every night by the pale moonlight, he'd serenade her so - Louise, Louise, come out from under those trees! Don't give me none of that bunky bunky, I wanna hold your trunky trunky. I love you so much, I wanna hold you so much, my Lou, Lou, Louise!"

OK, it's a lot cuter when sung by a choir full of Prep - Grade 2 kids, all doing the actions. I really wish I could upload the video clip here, but as it is of the whole choir, not just Cheyenne, that just wouldn't be right.

Steve and I were such proud parents though. :-D

Christmas is definitely sneaking up on us. We haven't put our Christmas tree up yet, but Cheyenne has been madly running around wrapping tinsel around the railings. There probably won't be any left to actually go on the tree, lol.

Cruisin' Again

After hearing from Chris (the seller) that he’d finally had the road worthy done, we arranged to drive up to Toowoomba on Thursday afternoon to hand over the bank cheque and sign the transfer papers. Steve had an easy day and was home from work by 2.30pm, so we picked Cheyenne up from school half an hour early and headed off to try to avoid peak hour traffic.

Chris had loaded the boot of the Cruiser up with the rear row of seats, which he’d kept in storage, and all the spare parts he had for it. He’d found his missing second remote for the central locking (saving us $44, which is how much Toyota charges for a replacement) and mounted the roof rack. We really would have preferred not to take the roof rack, but I guess he just wanted to get rid of it to clear out some space in his shed.

Driving back at night, we discovered that both the glove box and ashtray have internal lights, which is very handy, but that the Toyota stereo is too well lit, making the dashboard distractingly bright. Fortunately, we still have our mp3 CD stereo and UHF, which we kept out of our previous vehicles, which we will be installing instead.

The colour is Dark Green Mica, but it is an unusual chameleon-like colour - depending on the angle of the light, it looks green, blue or even black!

The first job was to remove the roof rack so that the Cruiser would fit under our roll-a-door and be parked in our garage. With a little help from a mate (who is also kindly allowing us to store it at his workshop), the rack was removed Friday night. Unfortunately, this means my poor little Mazda has been banished to the driveway once again, lol.

Over the weekend, Steve attempted to mount his spotlights to the bullbar, but we have discovered that, although the plastic SmartBar may indeed be nice and bendy and “pedestrian safe”, the fact is that it is bloody useless for mounting spotties. It’s far too flexy, so that the spotties vibrate annoyingly and can’t be adjusted to the right angle. We also need to change the bracket for the aerial mount for the UHF, so rather than spending a lot of time messing about trying to get it right, Steve is looking around for a second-hand alloy or steel bullbar. He just phoned to tell me he may have tracked one down already (can't let the grass grow under your feet, lol). Next on the list is stripping and re-tinting the windows.




I now officially have too much on my keyring! (Not that I am removing any of it) Who knew that one Toyota key and a central locking remote could add so much extra weight? Maybe the plastic is heavier on the 100 Series key than on previous models?

It's good to have a Cruiser again!

Out with the New, In with the Old...

No surprise really...

I already knew from the moment that Steve bought the Navara, that it wouldn't last long. You just can't have 5 Landcruisers in a row then be happy with a 3 litre 4 cylinder. It's only half a car!

Steve had decided that as soon as we returned home from our trip up north, that he'd advertise the Navara for sale. After a bit of discussion amongst the family and seeking advice from several car yards, we decided to remove the alloy tray and canopy and refit the original style-side tub. We were assured that we'd still get the money we were hoping to get with the style-side back on and we knew we'd have no problem selling the tray and canopy.

The tray and canopy sold within a few days of the ad being listed, as we thought it would. The particular canopy we had is hard to find second-hand, and much sought after.

Then we sent the Navara off to a spray painter mate to have a dent fixed and a few scratches touched up. We had originally told the guy we bought the Navara from that we'd get the dent fixed ourselves so he didn't need to, and he'd knocked a bit off the price to compensate us. So what if we only actually got it fixed so that we could sell it, lol.

Then it was off to the DOT to take our personalised plates off and replace them with a standard set, off to get the road worthy and safety certificate done (no prizes for guessing who ran these errands) then we took some photos and I uploaded the ad to the Trading Post.

After a slight drama with the Trading Post having two categories for Navaras - "Nissan Navara" and "Nissan Navara Ute" (despite the fact that they only ever came out as utes) - and our ad being in the Navara Ute category which didn't show up with a keyword search for "Nissan Navara", two phone calls and a whole lot of waiting on hold later, we had this changed and the phone calls from potential buyers started.

A man came round during the week and took it for a test drive. He loved it, and came back on Saturday with a bank cheque. He paid us $20500 for it. Not bad at all, considering we only paid $18500 when we bought it!

Naturally, Steve had already been scouring various car sales websites looking for potential replacements, and he'd picked out a nice dark green standard diesel GXL 100 Series Cruiser at Toowoomba. He'd phoned the seller a few times before we'd sold our Navara, and chatted about the vehicle. It was exactly what he wanted. The plan is to buy a standard diesel and save up the $5000 to get a turbo fitted to it. Two reasons for this - 1. factory turbo diesels in the 1998-2003 models are still selling for upwards of $35 thousand, which is well out of our price range, and 2. factory turbos come standard with independent front end suspension, and Steve would prefer a diff front end.

Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed (rolled being the appropriate word, after a night of eating huge steaks at Outback Jack's Restaurant... for those of you interested -no, Steve did NOT complete the challenge [see below pic], although he made a very good attempt, and my eye fillet was more than enough for me) and Steve phoned the guy selling the Cruiser in Toowoomba. He still had it, so we arranged to drive up and inspect it.

1 KG of rump, plus wedges and steamed veg! (If you eat it in half an hour, you get it for half price and get a t-shirt and your photo on their wall.)

After a bit of looking over the vehicle, taking it for a test drive and a whole lot more chin-wagging, we decided to buy it for the $22000 asking price. It's a little more than we wanted to spend, and for the first time ever Steve wasn't able to haggle for a cheaper price, but it is well worth the money.

They still need to get the road worthy, and we're still waiting on the bank cheque to clear from the people who bought our Navara, so it probably won't officially be "ours" until the end of the week, when we sign the transfer papers.

We're more than happy to be trading our 2005 model Navara for a 1998 Cruiser.

I promise to post pics once we get it.

Another year older...

It's nearly the end of October.

Both Steve and I have had our birthdays without much fanfare.

I turned 36 a week and a half ago, and Steve turned 38 five days later. We bought ourselves a GPS unit for the car for our trip to Cardwell, and decided that it would be our birthday present to each other.

Steve then got me a couple of scratchies (one from Cheyenne and one from him) to go in the cards, and I did the same for him. I won $15 on one of mine. Steve hasn't scratched either of his yet. Maybe he thinks if he keeps them long enough they might change into big winners, lol.

I also received a decorative handbag dangle thingy from Kaylene, $50 from my brother to go towards buying some new summer clothes, and my mum gave me some money to start me off with fixing up my teeth at the dentist. I'm not altogether sure just how far the money will get me, as I'm positive I'm going to need a mouthful of fillings at the very least, but I have an appointment at the end of the week, so I'll find out soon enough :(

White Water Rafting

Friday was an early start for Steve, but thankfully Cheyenne and I got to sleep in for a change! Steve, Helena, Jason, Robert and Brooks headed off to Tully to go white water rafting in Tully Gorge. It was another hazy day, but the sun was shining and there was a slight breeze.

Steve phoned later to let me know that the tour guide said they’d be having lunch at a particular vantage point, then after that, there’d be another good photo opportunity further down river.

Due to several back packers in hired camper vans, doing 80 km/h flat out on the single lane highway (God Bless the QLD Govt. – they’ve increased all our regos, why can’t they spend the money widening our main highway north?), Cheyenne and I arrived at the lunch area a little too late to see all but the last two groups of rafters. We did find the second vantage point further down river however, and waited for them all to flash past.

It was a really picturesque place to wait, and would have made a nice shady picnic spot, had we not been rushing out of the car to scramble down the track in case we missed the rafts again!

I did manage to get a couple of photos of them as they went past, and several scenic shots of the Tully Gorge as well. Just as well, since it would have really made my day (NOT) if I’d driven an hour each way along a narrow winding road and completely missed them…

Here they come!

There they go!

Steve bought himself a souvenir photo as well, so despite the difficulty of being at the right place at the right time, we did still end up with a few shots of the day's fun.

Hazy Days, Waterfalls and 20 Litres of Vodka

When the sun came up on Thursday, it revealed a smoky haze. Not the red dust storm that had hit Sydney and Brisbane, but it turned the sky grey nonetheless.

We had no particular plans, so decided to drive up towards Mission Beach, stopping along the way at Murray Falls. This is a very pretty waterfall, with a picnic area and swimming hole.

We decided to have a sausage sizzle for lunch, then headed to the water to cool off. There were a couple of nice deep pools, surrounded by smooth, water-rounded rocks, which some kids were sliding down.

These kids kindly let us take turns using their rock sliding boards – cut from plastic 20 litre Vodka drums. Such a brilliant idea! They’d climb to the top of the rock, pour a bucket of water down the side to make the sliding path slippery, then sit on the board and slide down the rock, into the icy cold running water at the bottom. It was heaps of fun, although I did manage to have a stack whilst trying to race Steve. Got a bit of air, banged my elbow and came down hard on the raised edge of the plastic (and boy, did I get a whopper of a bruise on my right butt cheek!)

(Hopefully, if Blogger does what it's supposed to do, this will be a short video of me sliding down the rocks on a "Vodka board")

After we finished swimming, we drove to Mission Beach, however the lousy visibility prevented us from having a decent view of the islands. Even Dunk Island was lost in the haze, so it isn't worth uploading any photos of that.

Still, for a completely unplanned, lazy day, we had the best fun.

Wedding Anniversary and day trip to Cairns

Wednesday 23rd September - our 9th Wedding Anniversary.

As we didn’t budget for a lot of extras on our holiday, we decided that we wouldn’t do all activities together. I’d go to Cairns with Bec, Daniel and Daniel’s parents Rob and Cathy, to go on the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail today, and Steve would do the white water rafting in Tully Gorge (that he really wanted to do) on Friday.

Another early start of course, as we had to be at Freshwater Station in Cairns by 9.30am, and it’s about a 3 hour drive from Cardwell. A lovely day dawned though, and it had really started to warm up by the time we arrived in Cairns. First stop was a detour to the gift shop to buy Scenic Railway fridge magnets. (I have to get one from each place I visit, mostly to annoy Steve, lol)

Here's some of the pertinent info from the tourist guide - "Completed in 1891, the 37 km of track from Cairns to Kuranda ascends 328 metres and includes 15 tunnels, 37 bridges and 98 curves"

The Kuranda Scenic Railway really lived up to its name, but, as everyone is environmentally conscious these days, it was rather hard to get decent photos through the trees.

Although it is dry season, Stony Creek Falls are running, so I did almost manage to get the “postcard” photo, albeit with a narrower stream of water tumbling over the falls than you would usually see in postcards.

Barron Falls were also running nicely, and I got some lovely shots from the viewing platform at Barron Falls Station. (see photo below)



We had a few hours in Kuranda before our scheduled trip back on the Skyrail, so we wandered around the shops and markets then had an overpriced lunch in one of the pubs. After lunch, there was more browsing around the shops, where I taste-tested and bought a bottle of Mango Port, before heading to the Skyrail gift shop for (you guessed it) another fridge magnet!

The Skyrail gondolas seat 6, so we were able to travel together. It is almost like flying, being that high above the rainforest canopy. There was another fantastic view of Barron Falls and further downstream to the Hydro-Electric Plant. There are two stations along the route back down from Kuranda. We got off at Red Peak to walk along the rainforest boardwalk, then boarded another gondola for the rest of the trip down from the mountains.

Kuranda Skyrail Station - looking out over Daniel and Bec's shoulders to the next gondola

View out over the rainforest canopy from the Skyrail gondola

Self in the gondola on the downhill stretch

A quick stop off in Cairns to go to JB Hi-Fi, so that Bec could buy a charger for her dead camera battery, then we headed back home to Cardwell.

When I arrived home I had to hurry and get dressed because Steve had arranged for us to have dinner at the restaurant at Cardwell Marina for our 9th wedding anniversary. Helena, Jason and their family kindly offered to look after Cheyenne so that we could eat dinner in peace for a change.

All in all, it was a very nice day, and I’m glad I decided to go to Kuranda.

And We're Off...

(Well, actually we're home, but the internet access while we were away was expensive and a bit slow, so now that we're back I can finally upload my holiday blog)

We were on the road at 3am, as planned, with only a small amount of resistance from Cheyenne. “It’s still night time!” She was a little happier when she realized that even though the sun wasn’t up yet, it was her birthday already. The song playing on the radio as we drove off down our street was “Road To Nowhere”, which we thought was quite appropriate.

Happy 6th birthday, Cheyenne!

Our first stop was the BP Travel Centre Caboolture, to meet up with our travelling companions. Going on the holiday with us were friends Helena and Jason, their two kids Chante and Robert, Robert's mate Brookes, Jason's brother Daniel and his girlfriend Bec. Steve had offered our spare seat to Chante, so that she didn’t have to squeeze into the back seat of the Mazda BT50 with the two boys. It also meant that Cheyenne had someone to talk to on the way up. The girls kept each other amused for 14 hours, luckily for us!

The trip was reasonably uneventful, other than Steve losing a bearing cap off the boat trailer and having to stop at Supercheap in Rockhampton to buy a pair of bearing buddies, and re-grease the wheel bearing. A late afternoon stop at KFC in Mackay, and we were on the road again, arriving in Cannonvale around 6.30pm. This gave us just enough time to check into the cabins at the Seabreeze caravan park, have a shower, walk up the road to Hungry Jacks to have dinner, and get back in time to watch the Broncos game.

Sunday morning, after feeding some lorikeets that landed on the railing of our cabin, we drove out to the lookout at Shute Harbour, took a few photos in Airlie Beach, and hit the road again, arriving in Cardwell by mid-afternoon.

Hand feeding lorikeets at the caravan park at Cannonvale.

Home sweet home for the week

The cabins are very basic, but are located together, close to the amenities block. The three cabins have their own covered bbq area with outdoor setting, which is just as well, seeing as the only cooking facilities the cabins have is a microwave (with only a small microwave jug to cook in!) and an electric frypan. Steve did bring up his single burner gas cooker, but there is, of course, no saucepan, so cooking the cheerios and hotdogs could present a challenge!

View from Cardwell Beach near the jetty, showing part of Hinchinbrook Island in the background

An evening visitor on the railing of the cabin.

On Monday morning the boys took their boats out and went fishing, while the girls drove back into Ingham to do a bit of grocery shopping and have lunch.

We have a few ideas of things we’d like to see and do while we are in the area, including a day trip to Cairns, but I guess we’ll have to see how things pan out.

1000 Miles Away (Road Trip)

"Estimated time of arrival 9.30 a.m.
Been up before the sun and now I'm tired before I even begin."

Ah, classic Hoodoo Gurus. Love that song! Apart from the ETA being slightly different (more like 4 or 5pm !), I think it'll be the theme song for our trip! Instead of resting up before we leave, we've had several rather late nights this last week, getting everything ready, so we will definitely be up before the sun and tired before we even begin!

Yes, we're leaving home Saturday morning at 0300 hours (and in the words of another well-known quote from Good Morning Vietnam... OMG THAT'S EARLY! ), meeting our travelling partners at the Burpengary BP Travel Centre, filling up the tanks, grabbing a coffee and heading north.

The ultimate destination is Cardwell, on the Hinchinbrook Channel, however we are only going as far as Cannonvale the first day. Cannonvale is on the road out from Proserpine to Airlie Beach. We were only going as far as Mackay, except that it seems rather difficult to book one night's accommodation there during school holidays.

We figure it will be about a 14 hour drive (hence the ungodly departure time), although everyone you talk to seems to have varying estimates. "Oh yeah, we've done Mackay in 10 hours", for example. Sure, OK, but were you sticking to the speed limit?? According to the RACQ Trip Planner it is 1078 kms from our place to Cannonvale, then another 434 from Cannonvale to Cardwell. (Not quite 1000 miles, but around 940 anyway)

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for the early start, I'm sure I will be OK. I do feel rather sorry for Cheyenne though, as she will be spending the majority of her 6th birthday in the back seat of the Navara. Yes, her birthday is the first day of the school holidays, and she'll be stuck in the car for 14 hours! We do have a portable DVD player in the car for her, and she has a brand new Nintendo DS and 3 games, which we got her for her birthday, but it isn't as fun as having friends over for a party. At least she'll be able to say "Mummy and Daddy took me on holidays for my birthday!"

Anyway, I really need to go and finish the last minute packing, then see about getting the fan belt replaced on the Navara... in between the million and one other things I still need to do. Don't even get me started! Steve did have a spare fan belt "just in case", but notices last night there's a worn patch/hole in the current one.

Hopefully I will be able to get to an internet cafe while we are away, to blog some more about our holiday. Stay tuned.

Goodbye Mrs J

Cheyenne's Prep teacher, Kelly Johnson, left last Friday to go on maternity leave, so as of this week, PKJ has had a new teacher, Miss Crabtree.

Mrs J has been a fantastic teacher and will be missed very much by Cheyenne and her classmates. The children are sad to see her go, but also excited about (hopefully) getting to see her new baby when it is born. Mrs J is hoping to be back at work sometime next year to see her Prep class "all grown up" as Grade 1 students.

Cheyenne may not know it yet, but your first teacher makes a permanent impression on you, which will shape your attitude towards your education. She is very lucky to have had a great teacher like Mrs J for Prep, and it seems like Miss Crabtree may be just as lovely.

Cheyenne with Mrs Johnson at her Going Away Party.

Dramatic hair? Yeah! Yeah!

Well, I decided that it has been too long since I had anything done with my hair. Just before my birthday, in October last year, in fact. Doesn't time fly?

As I mentioned in my post back then, I was sick of spending lots of money and only getting subtle (read "totally unnoticeable") results. This time I went to a different hairdressing salon, with younger, "trendier" hairdressers. You know the sort... overdyed black hair with blue or purple streaks. I figured anyone with bright blue in their hair would not err too much on the side of caution, lol.

Turned out to be a good decision, I think. Nothing cautious or subtle about my hair this time. It's dramatic, and I love it.

The funniest part of this is that it still took Steve a full 5 minutes of me standing next to him, to notice! Then his eyes went wide, he started laughing, and asked why my hair is pink. "That's the colour my hair is now, that's why." The blonde foils at the front have picked up some of the red, but they tell me that should settle down after a wash or two. Not that I mind being a strawberry blonde though. Steve says it will grow on him, and all that matters is that I'm happy with it. No worries there, as I couldn't be more happy with it. Not so sure it will match the outfit I plan on wearing to a friend's wedding, but I'll worry about that later, lol.

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day...

Teach a man to fish...

...and he will spend every spare dollar on boats, fishing gear and bait! (not quite how that saying goes, but definitely a lot more accurate than the original)

Well, since it has been nearly a month since our trip away at the Rainbow Beach Family Fishing Classic, I thought I should stop being slack and finally post about it.

This was the last year that Cheyenne and I would be going for the entire competition, since we will not be taking her out of school once she starts Grade 1, and the comp is not held during the school holidays. As they have done since they retired, Steve’s parents came along with us for the ten days.
The weather was fabulous and the fishing was good. The accommodation? Well, let’s just say we will never stay in that unit again. A certain real estate needs a slap upside the head and an education in maintaining accurate listing photos on their website. We had been booked into Kagari No.2, but thankfully, due to a last minute cancellation had changed our booking to Kagari No.1 (the front unit with more yard space)… and it is just as well !
If we had ended up in the converted garage (the back unit) I daresay Consumer Affairs would have been hearing about how the photos which are supposedly of Unit 2, are actually of Unit 1. In fact, Unit 2 is clearly not worth the amount of money required to rent it (for 10 days it was only $36 more for the front unit), and that is before you take into account the dodgy electrical wiring in both units (the electrician who came to fix one of our power points said he had never seen anything like it in all his years of electrical work) and the pint sized hot water system which is shared by both units!

Steve managed to get a couple of daily prizes for his fish, Cheyenne scored some random draw kids prizes and Steve’s dad jagged a nice Waeco esky in a random weight fish draw. Steve caught a stonker whiting (.605 grams gilled and gutted) on about the third night of the comp and it stayed on the board as the heaviest, right up until the second last night, when it was knocked off by a somewhat dubiously caught whiting that went .700 grams, gilled and gutted. The woman in question claimed it was caught in the surf, but it was dark skinned, like fish trapped in lakes and estuaries, and her husband is known to work alongside pro net fishermen. Nothing could be proven however, so she took out first prize ($400) for Overall Heaviest Whiting and Steve’s took out second prize ($200).

All in all it was a good week and a half. Shame I’m missing out next year.

Steve with the 2nd Heaviest Overall Whiting

Compare the sizes. The Whiting that Cheyenne is holding is around 26cm long, Steve's was about 47cm.

How NOT to drive on the beach! This poor guy thought he was following the shoreline of the beach at low tide, until he ended up on a sandbank and sunk up to the sidesteps on his Rodeo. They borrowed Steve's snatch strap but were unable to shift it. This was taken after the tide had come in and was on the way out again. The tow truck dragged it out at low tide for the sum of $200.

Trash or Treasure?

It's that time of year again... Council kerbside pickup time!

If one man's trash is another man's treasure, then this time of year is sheer paradise for scavengers, myself included.

Every year Steve says "We are NOT going to bring home any more junk this year!" Every year we still do. We can't help ourselves (I believe I'm genetically predisposed to it). It's part curiosity, part klepto, with a little bit of family "hoarder" genes thrown in.

As I type this I can hear other scavengers driving slowly, cruising past the piles of junk in utes or cars with trailers, ready to bring home the spoils. Sure, a lot of people do this to find items to sell at markets or on eBay, but I only bring home things I can use... or at least had good intentions to use at the time. The beauty of this is that, if for some reason, when you get your collected item home, it isn't quite right or what you wanted, you can always throw it back out on your own junk pile, so that you aren't stuck with it.

Over the past few years I've found several planter stands, glazed terracotta garden pots, some chairs, a couple of tiny decorator side tables, Cheyenne's trampoline (best score yet - it only needed a new mat, which we bought for $60 from a trampoline supply place), and various other treasures.


This year we don't really have time for a proper trawl around the neighbourhood, as we're busy packing for our 10 day trip to Rainbow Beach, but I've still managed to collect a few decent finds. A couple of hanging plant rings (the sort you attach to a wall and slip a round pot plant into), and this lovely round wicker table, which will do nicely on my front verandah. A bit dusty (nothing a good wipe over couldn't fix) and it has a couple of tiny nicks in it, but otherwise, it's perfect.

We also found a backboard for a basketball hoop (one of Steve's brothers had been looking for one for his kids), and a ladder for an above-ground swimming pool. Steve thought it would be just right for placing over our side fence when Cheyenne goes next door to play with Jayden. Turns out he was right! It's the perfect height, and means I will no longer have to lift Cheyenne over the fence to Jayden's or vice versa.

Not bad for a morning's work!

"X" Marks the Spot

The council is holding a "tree planting event" in our neighbourhood. According to the leaflet, we are "invited" to make our neighbourhood "a cooler, shadier, greener, more beautiful and carbon-friendly place by planting street trees."

Oh, really?

When I saw that ours was one of about a dozen streets in the area to be receiving trees, I was not excited by the prospect. To say that I was unamused would be an understatement.

Let me put it into perspective. The council has clearly gone this route before around here. Several streets around here, including ours, have large Leopard trees. They drop their seed pods all over the footpaths and make a mess, but at least they are useful as shade trees. Most of these are fairly well established, so they were obviously planted years ago. The most recent round of plantings occurred not long before we bought our house (9 years ago), and they appear to be some sort of Lilly Pilly, although I've never seen any of them in flower or growing berries, so they're not providing any "beauty". Most of them are no more than about 5 feet high, so they don't provide much shade either. There was a half dead specimen planted outside our place when we moved in, but we soon sorted it out. I've no idea what species they intend to plant this time, but we already have enough trees in our street.

Two days ago they marked out the spots where the holes will be dug in preparation for the planting this coming Saturday. Every house that doesn't already have a tree or shrub out the front, was marked with a blue cross. This means they plan to have a tree in front of every house. Every single house! (So much for being "invited") We already have less than average visibility in our street due to the curve in the road and the fact that people who live on the bend, park their cars outside on the street. We don't need the visibility restricted even more by all these new trees.

Apparently this planting is "part of a neighbourhood enhancement project, identified by the community". Well, as rate payers, we are part of the community and nobody asked us if we wanted a tree planted outside! If they're so hell-bent on greening up the city and creating an "urban forest", maybe they should start in the new estates that don't have any trees! Council is committed to plant 2 million trees in Brisbane over 4 years to grow this urban forest, as they put it. Great for the environment, sure, but living in an "urban forest" didn't work out so well for the residents of The Gap during those huge storms, did it?

Turns out though, that you can phone the local member and have your name and address put on a list to not receive a tree. Apparently they would rather people who objected didn't get a tree in the first place, than have people digging them up later on.

If that's the case, they should have printed that fact on their leaflets! Not everyone will realise this, and since a lot of people won't want the trees, my guess is there will be a lot of trees getting dug up in the coming weeks.

I'm off to scrape blue paint off my footpath.

Got Craft?

(With appologies for dodgy formatting - actual blog looks nothing like the preview!)

Thought I'd share some of my recent craftwork.

The first photo is of the card I made for my Mum (identical one for my Mother-in-Law), for Mothers Day. I just love how easy Rollagraph stamps are, and I love this colour combination.

I really am very slack with my scrapbooking - I've yet to scrap any of Cheyenne's birthdays and years of photos are piling up ! I've got plenty of pages planned out and I've bought co-ordinating papers and embellishments for several... I just need to sit down and do them!

To combat my procrastination, I meet with a few other ladies once a month to scrapbook. The aim is to complete a single or double page layout and maybe even finish off some other pages afterwards.

Left to my own devices, I prefer clean, simple pages, where the photo is the dominant feature, however I really liked these particular layouts, which were Kaszazz workshops.

The red and blue layouts combined scrapbooking with a couple of my other loves - stamping and embossing.

They are probably more "fussy" than I would normally do, but I think they work well with the black and white photos.

I'm not normally a big fan of circles in scrapbooking... well, circles in general are ok, just not circular photos. It's a bit like having 70s style, rounded corners on photos - it dates them, and everyone will know you were following a fad.

This is one half of a double page layout, done at a workshop. I'm not so fond of the circles, but the colours matched my chosen photos perfectly.

Isn't it funny where inspiration comes from? KaiserCraft have a nice range of rhinestone words and "believe" is just one of them. I'd had this stashed away in a drawer.

This workshop was showcasing the watermark stamping technique, using VersaMark ink. (background is randomly stamped with watermark butterflies)

I had several photos of Cheyenne, in her fairy dress, and "believe" seemed like the perfect title.

This one is not a workshop - it's all me. My usual, clean, simple style, showcasing one of the best photos I have of Cheyenne, taken by my friend Lauren. I find it hard to get any decent shots of Cheyenne, mainly due to her inability to stay still for more than a few seconds, and her unwillingness to do anything I ask... combined with a less-than-stellar camera.

Once again, "serenity" was one of a number of random chipboard words that I've bought (compulsively) from various craft shows, and it just seemed a perfect fit for this page.

In God's Care

My Auntie Roslyn passed away yesterday afternoon, after a very long and difficult battle with breast cancer.

In its third and most recent strike at her, the cancer had formed tumours along her spine and failed to respond well to treatments, as it had the two previous times. She was brave and determined, and she fought long and hard, but finally succumbed to other complications, heightened by her chemo-weakened immune system.

Although saddened by her passing, I am glad that she is no longer in pain, and that her soul is finally at peace in God's care.

The whole family will miss you, Auntie Ros.

Imaginary Car Strikes Again

Armed with the knowledge that my car is actually a Protegé, we mistakenly believed that this would solve all my problems with regard to ordering parts for my ’95 BG.

I knew it was too good to be true!

Steve dropped in to his favourite auto parts supplier and ordered a full set of Ultima shockies. Yes, they make them to fit a ’95 323 Protegé, they’re made in Australia, the distributor is local and they’d be available the next day, and they are considerably less expensive than other brands. I went in, paid for and picked them up on Friday. $500 for the full set – thanks Mr Rudd!



Next stop, the library. After applying for a whole new library card – apparently my previous one was too old to be reactivated, even though my details hadn’t changed (WTF?), I borrowed a repair manual that covers Ford Lasers from 1990-1994 and Mazda 323 Sedan and Astina (hatches) from 1989-1994. Now, I know I’ve got a ’95 323, but I figured that, as the repair manuals from ’95 onwards seemed to only cover BA and later models, I’d take my chances that my ’95 BG was pretty much the same as the ’94 BGs. So far, so good.

So, after reading the manual and explaining it all step-by-step to Steve, he removed my front shock absorber and spring. It really was as easy as the parts guy said it would be… until we took the new shock absorber out of the box and discovered that the diameter of the spring seat was not as large as my original, so my spring wouldn’t fit! It was clear to me that, although they were for a ’95 model, they were probably for the BA and not the BG. Here we go again...

Damn Mazda and their 18 month model crossover period! I’m seriously over this! If I ever find the person/s responsible for compiling after market parts databases and leaving out my year model, I will belt them over the head with my old struts!

Well, the first lot were going back to the shop! To be on the safe side, we also removed the rear shock on the same side, so that I could take my originals in to compare them. Just as well, since the brackets on the rear shock they’d given us weren’t the same as my originals, either! I was more than prepared, if all else failed, to go directly to the actual distributors at Albion, show them my originals and refuse to leave until I had the correct replacements!

These are supposed to be the same diameter!

That's more like it!

First thing Monday morning, Steve got onto Robert, the parts guy, who said he’d order some to fit a ’94 model and we’d see if they fit my ’95. A few hours later they’d arrived so I took the first lot back (along with my originals) to swap them for a second lot. I walk in, carrying the boxes and he looks at me and says “Ah, shock absorbers for a car that doesn’t exist” Yep, you said it mate!

Second time lucky, I hope. At least this second lot look exactly the same as my originals and my spring fits nicely into the spring seat! Promising start… now let’s see if they go back into my car properly!

Monday night, Steve’s Dad came over to give him a hand to fit the shocks to my car. It all seemed to go together smoothly, and after a test drive, Steve labelled it a job well done.

Finally, success!
Now I just need to get new tyres and a wheel alignment…

Easter Camping Trip

What a difference the weather can make to holiday plans. We were all set to head to Elanda Point on Lake Cootharaba... until we watched the news and saw that the upper Noosa River had flooded. A quick phone call confirmed our worst fears - the campsite was closed due to flood damage and we had less than a week to find another destination.

Naturally, on the Monday before Easter there are not a lot of vacancies left anywhere, but I phoned campsites on the northern side of Brisbane, and our friends who were going with us phoned campsites to the south. On a recommendation from some other friends, I finally got onto Island Reach campgrounds at Imbil. Their advice - "It'll be chockers, but since you're coming up on the Thursday morning you should still be able to have your pick of the spots." When I phoned back later to confirm, I spoke to the lady owner, who said she'd been telling everyone it was fully booked ! When I explained that in my earlier phone call one of the men had said we'd be ok, she said "Oh, it's alright love, we won't turn you away!" Geez, I hope not, since we can't get in anywhere else!

It was overcast when we left home Thursday morning and it drizzled on the way up the highway, but at least the rain held off until later that evening - thankfully, after we'd set up our campsite!
Just as well we didn't arrive any later than we did, since there weren't many large areas left when we got there. Plenty of spots for single tents, but not a lot for larger groups. We found a large, shady, flat area on the second terrace down - nicely placed about halfway between the creek and the amenities block. Plenty of room for our two family tents and our tarp. The area was probably only vacant due to the large concentrations of green ant nests (!), but the rain seemed to keep them subdued and there were only a handful of bites suffered during the course of the whole weekend.

We'd borrowed a pair of ocean kayaks from our friend Mick, and although it rained on and off throughout the weekend, we still had fun paddling them up and down Yabba Creek. Up around the bend to the left of the campsite, as far as the road and railway bridges, and to the right of the campsite, down as far as the weir.

While paddling down near the weir, we had seen people swimming and fishing on the other side, so one afternoon we decided to go for a walk to check it out. We climbed down some muddy steps, waded through a knee deep narrow creek (the guys carried the kids), followed a cow path up and over a hill, through a pasture and eventually came to the weir. There were a surprising number of people there - swimming and fishing. It was very picturesque... just a shame that it was still overcast and the surrounding rocks were still too wet to sit on. It'd make a fantastic picnic spot on a sunny day, with the sunlight sparkling off the rapids. Wayne had brought fishing rods for his kids and they were keen to try their luck, but the fish clearly weren't fussed on the bread we were using for bait. The kids still had a ball.

Sunday night we had a campfire and toasted marshmallows under a sky full of stars. This naturally fooled us into thinking that we'd actually get some sunshine to dry out our gear before we had to pack up to leave. How wrong we were! Late Sunday night it started to rain heavily and it just didn't stop. In fact it seemed to get progressively heavier the closer it came to the time we were going to leave. There were even a few flashes of lightning and ominous rumbles of thunder! The gullies became puddles for the kids to play in, the ground became squelchy with oozy mud and there was no chance of packing the tents up dry. Dripping wet and soaked to the skin, we gave up trying, and just jammed it all in the trailer, tied it down and left for the long drive home in holiday traffic.

Two days later and the tent is still spread out in our garage, the fly slung over the clothesline. At least all the washing is done and the wet towels smell fresh again!

We had a great time despite the weather, although I'm not sure the Perry family will be so keen to come camping with us again. Twice they've been camping with us - the first time, at Straddie, we got caught in a hail storm, and this time it rained all weekend. Oh well, if they can survive that, they can survive any camping situation, I reckon!

Hope everyone else had a great Easter - regardless of the weather!