1/21/2016

This week was a fairly standard week.

Monday evening Justin and Sylvie dropped by and we played a bit of 500. 

Tuesday we went climbing.

Wednesday morning I dropped my car off to be fixed. My boss was sick so I had a very busy day. I saw 11 patients instead of my normal 7 and I was exhausted.  But still had a bit of time to work on the puzzle.

Thursday was interesting I needed to go to Melton and then back into the city to treat some community clients. I didn't have a car so I needed to take the train, but the train wasn't running so I needed to take a bus. This meant that I had to leave at 5:50am to get to work by 8. I took my laptop and got work done in transit. Luckily the trip back was a bit faster so made it back in time for the appointment with my community client. Since I was sending work emails at 6am, my boss nicely let me leave a few hours early. I went into the city to pick up the rental car for the weekend. I accidentally went to the wrong station which made the whole process take about 20 minutes longer than necessary. When I finally had the car I went home, picked up Damien and we headed off for Cann River. 

1/17/2016

I unfortunately had a death in the family so I went home for my birthday. It was a very mixed birthday as I was happy to spend it with my family but sad about the circumstances. 

Damien and I got back to Melbourne on Monday the 11th just in time for me to shower and go to work. Once I got home I went almost immediately to bed. 

Tuesday I had a bit more energy. I had a very slow day at work so I caught up on paperwork and met some of my email contacts in person. It was a very good meeting and I have received a large amount of positive feedback for making the effort. After work I went rock climbing and enjoyed my zucchini fries with dinner. 

By Wednesday I was rather tired but luckily my Wednesday job is rather peaceful so I enjoyed my time in the office and had a long chat before heading home. 

Thursday was a fairly busy day. While I was driving between patients someone tried to over take me on a left hand turn at a pedestrian crossing and scraped the front corner of my car with his small blue  truck. 

So I spent all of my time between patients calling insurance companies and making incident reports. After work Damien and I took Kat out to dinner before she leaves for Germany on January 26th. I can't believe that my best friend in Australia is moving to Germany. I don't think it has sunk in yet. After dinner Damien and I went home and worked on the puzzle he got me for my birthday. It is pretty epic. Stay tuned. 

On Friday Damien took me out for dinner since we had been unable to go out on my actual birthday. First we did an escape room where we failed to complete the puzzles in the time limit. Then we went to a place that I had never heard of before called Punch lane. It was pretty spectacular. 

On Saturday I had a birthday party at a trampoline gym. We had 10 people jumping and flipping at the coolest of places. Afterward we had a much deserved Thai dinner. Followed by an after party of 500 at my place. It was great fun and I felt so appreciated. 

Sunday Damien and I took it easy. We went to the market, did some housework, did some puzzle and practiced 500. 

1/26/2016

We woke up just in time to check out of the hotel. Then we went for breakfast at premier cafe. It was TERRIBLE and so expensive. I was so upset. We wanted to do some water sport in Jindabyne but our legs hurt and I didn't want to spend the money if we weren't going to enjoy it. So we took a walk around the lake and sat on some park benches. 

After that we decided to get on our way. We wanted to stop at Wildbrumby distillery for lunch but they were booked out so we just got a bottle of dandelion schnapps and 2 mini ice cream cones and continued on our way. Next stop was thredbo resort where we did a summer single person bobsled. 

It was kinda like a single person roller coaster where your car has brakes. It was fun. From there we continued along the Murray Valley Highway toward home. We stopped at the Murray crossing and got out to swim for a bit. The Murray river is the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales so we walked acrossed the river to Victoria at a 4 wheel drive ford but then had to go back to New South Wales to get our car and drive around to a bridge.  

We stopped again to splash in the water quickly at Geehi. But there really wasn't much there. Back on the road again we stopped at a lookout and looked back at everything we had hiked(except for the really tall one that was hidden behind the ridge) 

Shortly after we came across Murray 1 power station. The second largest hydroelectric plant in Australia which takes 95% of the water from the snowy river and reroutes it to the Murray for irrigation of Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia. 

From there we went to our campsite on the Kiewa river. Again Damien set up as I made dinner. We had fantastic pasta with vegetables followed by a chocolate bar for dessert. After dinner we walked the 5 minutes into the town of kergunyah it was small and quiet except for town hall which was a buzz with card players. Looking through the window we were intimidated so we went back to the tent for some 2 player hearts and chips. 

Australia Day morning we woke up early and had the last of our breakfast supplies. Realistically our meals have just gotten more and more elaborate as the trip has gone on. 

We packed up and hit the road. We started out on a shortcut that Damien found on google maps. But then it turned into a gravel road, and then a dirt road, and then we hit a gate so we turned around and went the long way. 

The first stop on our trip home was Yackandandah, we went for a walk around the park and played on a jungle gym. A few kilometres down the road I passed a sign for pick your own strawberries so I quickly did a U-turn and we picked 2pounds of strawberries and 1 pound of raspberries.

With our bellies full of berries we took another detour to woolshed falls. 

We joined the others and went for a dip in the pools. It was very relaxing and refreshing. Back into the car we continued on our way to Beechworth and took a turn off to see Beechworth gorge. It was a 5km scenic drive. We would have been impressed but with so many other spectacular views we continued into town. We had lunch at Beechworth bakery, Damien enjoyed his Ned Kelly pie while I was thrilled to finally get a cheese and tomato toasty. And it was a really good! 

We walked around and say the local shops and found the court house museum. With entry we got another 3 buildings so we saw a telegraph station, Ned Kelly's vault, the courthouse, Ellen Kelly's cell, and the Bourke museum. (Ned Kelly is a famous Australian bush ranger and Ellen is his mum).

 3 hours later as many of the places were closing we quickly went to Beechworth honey where we got honey, ice cream, and sparkling necture. 

Then with one last glance at the town we started the long drive home. We tried another stop at a cheese factory but it was closed for the evening. The drive went quickly. We listened to the Australia Day countdown on the radio, Damo drove, and I got caught up on my blog. :) 

1/4/2016

Continued from last blog...

Day 5 was New Year's Eve and it was very hot, 110F. Damo and I escaped the heat by diving. We went diving at San Remo and despite the warm temperatures on land, the bass straight was quite cold so I wore 2 wetsuits and a hood and was still cold. 

We had 2 dives in fairly strong current. I enjoyed the sea stars while Damien was amazed by the 12 gummy sharks we found sleeping on the bottom. 

We got home mid afternoon and started preparing for dinner. I made baked Brie and "Damien" made 3 flavours of buffalo wings. At 7pm our guests started showing up. We had 15 people in total. We talked and ate until 11:45 when we all went for a walk to the look out point to see fireworks. There were no fireworks just some illegal back yard ones and 2 boats that sent off flairs. After that we walked back and all headed to bed. 

On New Year's Day several of our friends left. Damo and I went for a lazy run and we played some games. Then our Sri Lankan friend made delicious Sri Lankan food for dinner. 

Day seven we started with some carcassone and then played some golf. Damo was the winner but I chipped a ball in the hole from 50m away. We had lunch at the club house. It was not the best and took forever.

 

After golf we headed back to the house. For the last night it was just Damien, Justin, Sylvie, and me. We made bottom of the fridge curry and played 500(Australian cards). 

The last morning was very coordinated Sylvie made pancakes, Justin organised garbage, Damo packed, and I cleaned. We were out and fed by 10am. On our way home Damien and I took a few stops. The first one was for a walk on the beach before we left Venus bay. 

The next was for a brewery/distillery in lock. Damien liked it but I was under impressed. 

Our last stop was at The Australian Botanical garden in Cranbourne. It is beautifully done and really exhibits Australian flora, unfortunately Damien has the pictures. Back home it was laundry,  unpacking, and a bit of rest before work on Monday.  

1/3/2015

Between Christmas and New Year I had 10 days off work. We stayed home for Christmas and hosted Damien's mum. She wanted a 'not Christmas Christmas' so I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast

and we grilled some delicious food on the BBQ and ate peach upside down cake with home made ice cream. 

Boxing Day was pretty quiet but on the 27th we headed down to Venus bay. Venus bay is on the southern coast of Victoria close to where we had gone last year. We had two houses worth of friends . My house had 6 people while the other house 5km away had 4. We alternated cooking nights so that we ate out every other night. When we got to the house there were a few problems. The fridge didn't close, we were missing a bed and there was a sewage alarm that went off every 3 hours all night long. The next day we went to the realestate agent to fix our house problems, went for a run and workout on the beach and played in the ocean. Our second night only had 1 alarm so it was a huge improvement. 

Day 3 of the beach holiday we went down to wildon's prom and took our friends on the same hike that we had done as a race in September. 

We hiked for 2 hours and then ate lunch on the beach. It was great. On the way home we stopped for a much needed ice cream. 

Day 4 at the beach was our day to cook so we took it pretty easy in the daytime. We started with some carcassone(board game) and then had a bit of don't starve(computer game) before settling into cooking. I made 8 pizzas and ice cream while Damo made salad and peach Melba-a dessert consisting of a peach with raspberry sauce and ice cream. 

To be continued...

12/13/2015

I am settling into my new jobs. On Tuesday I had a break between patients so Damien came down for breakfast while I did paperwork.

 This weekend was Cann Valley week and my friends joined me. 7 of us went up and I took them on a tour of East Gippsland  The first night we stopped in Traralgon for dinner at little prince. My friends loved it.

I worked on the Friday and my friends went around the town. We camped in Thurra river so after work I took them up the sand dunes.

It started raining as soon as we got back so we hid in the cars for a bit before cooking dinner. I made a great fire but it didn't last long as we called it an early night. 

On Saturday we started with a walk to point hicks. 

Then we went back to Cann river for breakfast.

On our way to Genoa peak.

After that we went up to Mallacoota for some kayaking. 

We set up camp at Cape conran we wanted to have dinner in marlo but the pub stopped serving food at 8pm so we went back to the campsite and cooked again. There were fearless possums at our campsite that wanted to eat our food so that while we cooked the boys threw a soccer ball to keep the animals away. The next morning we woke up and walked to the East Cape 

And then drove to lakes Entrance for breakfast at the coffee lab. 

We tried for a few more food stops on our way home but they were all closed. So everyone went their seperate ways and 3 of us stopped in Melbourne for an Afghan dinner. 

Such a good trip and everyone is ready to go again. 

11/24/2015

I started another new role this week. With my aged care job I have just started doing home visits. So instead of working in the facility on Tuesday's and Thursday's I go visit people in their homes. Tuesday was my first day. I thought it was quite cool. I will have to get more familiar with it but at the moment I like it. Tuesday evening we went orinnteeing(running with also collecting check points on a map) I came first for the women. Collecting all 23 points 3 minutes before the 60minute time limit. For dinner we went out to A Yemen restaurant. It was good but not the best I've had. 

Wednesday, I was back at the lymphoedema job. Man am I loving it! After work we went back to the photo studio to see our pictures. Some of them were quite good but all of them except for the freebee were far too expensive. 

We had dinner at meatball. It was not as good as I had remembered. I think that the one downtown might be a bit of a higher standard. 

Thursday was climbing, I started a bit early and got in quite a few good climbs.

Friday I had an early start at the Victorian Physiotherpy association breakfast. We had breakfast with a lecture from Jill Cooke one of the world leading tendonopathy experts. Friday evening, I wrote a paper and made some food for my friend's party on Saturday. 

Saturday, I was going to go for a bike ride but Steph and I both got lazy so we just went out for breakfast instead. In the afternoon we went to Dan's South America party. He asked us to bring food, drinks, dessert, and a blender.