No Cyclone Problems For Us

Tropical Cyclone "Anthony" crossed the Queensland Coast late Sunday night around Bowen which is well over 1000 kilomtres north of where we are on the Sunshine Coast. To put it all into some sort of comparison, it is like living in Melbourne and there being a cyclone around Newcastle in NSW.

There is a second and much larger weather system which may cross the Queensland Coast around Thursday. At this stage this cyclone is still a long way off the Australian coast.

Cyclone To Hit Up North

Tropical Cyclone 'Andrew' is due to hit the northern Queensland Coast around Townsville overnight. This is about 1400k's north of us here.

If you lived in Melbourne this is about the same as the cyclone crossing the coast at Coffs Harbour NSW. So the action is a long way from us on the Sunshine Coast. However we are experiencing monster seas right now making the surfers really happy.

I did a little more checking out on the DVI-HDMI adapter I bought which didn't work. I have ordered a replacement which at $3.80 delivered. I can buy a similar adapter here in Australia for $5. Postage and handling costs ranged from $12 to $30. Why would you buy here?

The Vacuum Cleaner was making a bit of a smell. A mate checked it out for us and it appears we are up for a new one.

Computer Club yesterday saw me busy again.

At last we received 'live' coverage of the night session of the Australian Open for the Women's Final. We enjoyed the match very much. All other coverage of night tennis we have received here has been delayed by 1 hour. Rather strange that Lou-Ann in Texas or Kim currently travelling in India can probably watch the match live while here in Queensland we get it 1 hour delayed!

After the tennis we watched the Coen Brother's new movie "True Grit". It wasn't the best quality copy but it was watchable. We both enjoyed it very much. I enjoy most of the Coen Brothers' movies going back as far as "Fargo". "True Grit" certainly has the traditional "Coen Brothers" stamp on it!

Quite windy here right now with an occasional shower. It is enough to make bike riding a hassle this morning so I will have a day off.

Warm Weather Continues

The pool turned a nasty color of green after I had added a couple of bags of salt to it yesterday. I am guessing it was something in the salt I had tipped in to the pool. It has happened before! However after a day of filtering it is all back to normal again and the chlorinator is working full bore!

The salt I get from Bunnings isn't anywhere near as good as what I get from the pool shop. The pool shop salt dissolves almost instantly while the other stuff seems to take ages before it is all gone. And there always seems to be other impurities in their salt as well. But, salt is salt and my pool is now back in full operation again.

I cleaned the filter cartridge out this morning and discovered where all the green from yesterday had gone! The filter was a mess! Anyway, all is well with the pool right now and the filter is clean again.

I did over 16k's on the bike this morning and as the photo here shows I went down to Pumiestone Passage again. Gee it is pretty down there.

Yesterday I decided (rather foolishly) to mix up another brew late in the afternoon. I had already done a fair bit during the day and it was quite warm. I was a little 'indisposed' and needed a sit down after mixing everything up and carting 23 litres of liquid off to the garage where it ferments. But the brew is on now and bubbling away! As per usual, this now means I have 32 bottles to wash and get dry sometime during the next few days.

Another warm day today with the temp into the low 30's in the backyard. But it is Friday and we always have drinks on a Friday. Today drinks will be at our place. Paul and Linda are busy getting their home ready to sell so they don't need the hassle of having people around. At least being a warm day our pool will be a popular spot!

I take the 'Waeco" fridge outside and this keeps everyone's drinks icy cold.

Trish is off the Quilters today while I put on my Community Association hat and visited the local shops trying to cement closer ties between the association and the local shopkeepers.

I buy computer and other electrical stuff from a place in China. Today a DVI to HDMI adapter I had ordered arrived. Here they cost about $20 but from China they cost $3.50! After a two week wait the adapter arrived but the problem was it didn't work! I tried it unsuccessfully in a couple of places. I had previously bought two of them and they had worked fine. I have now ordered a different type but this time I am paying a whole lot more, $3.80!

Beautiful Weather Returns

The weather has been great for the last few days, low 30's each day and usually clear blue skies. Interestingly, the nights have been cool, sometimes dipping to the high teens.

I have been bike riding most mornings somewhere between 12 and 15k's each day. Then it is straight in the pool upon my return. Pool temp yesterday afternoon was getting towards 30 degrees.

Not a lot has been happening. I am just keeping my eyes open for a 'new' computer. I only need a tower as I have a great screen and keyboard/mouse setup. Found something at Harvey Norman and I was promised it was usually always available as it is their own model. However my trusty 3 year+ old PC is working quite well right now so I can't justify an update.

They say three years is about what you can expect get out of a PC nowadays and mine is now well over the three years.

I reformatted a PC for a mate the other day. They had XP on it and wanted Windows 7. I think I did it OK and even managed to get it activated. I had trouble with the graphic card driver though as it appears the graphics card it had doesn't have a Windows 7 driver. It may not worry the owner as it is a second PC mainly for kids' games.

We had friends Linda and Paul over for some Australia Day celebrations yesterday. I gave the home brew a bit of a hiding. Paul is a fellow home brewer so we had a great day. The BBQ was pressed into action and we had prawns, lamb and chicken sausages. We enjoyed heaps of nibblies and a wonderful salad. The pool was warm, the weather ideal and the company wonderful. It must have been tiring as I was fast asleep in bed soon after 9 pm!

Following the recent floods all across Queensland, there has been a rationalisation of items being shipped into the state. This has resulted in a huge shortage of "Pool Salt". The pool needs salt to create the chlorine to keep the water clean. Following all the rain and the resultant overflowing of many pools here, many of the chemicals (including salt) have been washed down the storm water drain.

I haven't been able to get any pool salt since we returned here early in the New Year from our trip to Melbourne so I have been forced to put chlorine tablets in the pool. This is an expensive way to keep the pool chlorinated.

I fluked being at the local DIY Bunnings Store this morning just as a load of pool salt was delivered. The store received 9 pallets of pool salt and it was all sold within minutes. I managed to get three bags and then immediately put two of the bags of salt into the pool. It isn't the best quality and it takes some time to dissolve in the pool. But it is pool salt and it will mean my chlorinator can work and the pool will be well sanitized!

We have heard from Kim in India several times now via her Facebook page. She is having one wonderful time and enjoying seeing many things she had never seen or dreamt of before.

More Overnight Showers

Another 27 mls in the rain gauge this morning and again I have the pool 'draining' excess water. We received 9 of those "mls" in a short sharp shower yesterday afternoon. This is the way it is meant to rain here on the sunshine Coast during this, the wettest time of the year.

Trish back into the full swing of things, Stitchers, Quilters and Trivia. I am again regularly updating the BeCA website and getting reading for the first Community Association newsletter for 2011.

Cricket and Tennis on the TV this afternoon and drinks around the road later in the afternoon too. Hopefully I will get a swim in the pool later today as well. The way the beer is brewing I may be bottling very shortly! Lucky I got all the bottle washing out of the way yesterday. It is a little cooler today with around 30 our top temperature.

We find the nearby new Supermarket very handy. Nice to be able to take a 10 minute walk to pick up any overlooked groceries and sudden needs.

Another Warm One Today!

The 'decent' shower of rain I was after in the post below fell last night. It was about 10:30pm when the wind rose from the south, there was lightning across the sky and the deep roar of thunder some distance away. It started as a sprinkle and then developed into a full downpour. Just over an hour later there was about 30mls in the rain gauge.

The water diverter did its job diverting rain water from a storm water downpipe on the house into the pool and raised the pool's water level by almost 3". So the pool water level was once again above the skimmer box entry to the pool. I let it drain a little but then put the 'plug' back in to stop all the excess water flowing away. With warm temps it doesn't take too long for evaporation to lower the pool water level! Despite all the rain the pool temp was still just under 28 degrees!

I put a brew on early yesterday afternoon and it was bubbling away later that day. This one is a "Black" ale and I have added a 'mix' of dextrose, corn syrup, malt and brown sugar to it. This should give the brew an extra rich malty taste. Previous goes I have had using this mix have been extremely successful. Today I washed the bottles. You can see them here filled with water and bleach which I use to sanitize the bottles. After emptying the water/bleach mix I give them a good rinse in very warm water to get rid of any last taste of the bleach. For this brew I am using 1.25l Coca Cola bottles!

Last night we watched the movie "Blue Valentine". Both the male and female leading actors in this movie had been nominated in the recent Golden Globe awards. I found it a little slow but Trish really enjoyed it.

Quite sunny outside and a bit sticky too. It will be around the low 30's here in our small backyard so the pool will get used!

Trish has Trivia tonight so I will be watching some T/20 cricket on Pay TV.

A Week Has Gone By!

I didn't realise it had been so long since my last post. I try to get two or three posts per week but obviously this time I have been caught out.

As most of you will know areas of Brisbane near the river were flooded with residents having their homes go completely underwater. Today the water has almost gone and up to 50,000 volunteers have helped people rip out the whole interior of their homes for removal to city dumps. Slowly but surely the rebuilding will begin again soon. In the meantime many many families will need to find alternative accommodation.

Lately much of our time here at home has been spent cleaning. The 'beer garden' has been pressure sprayed to remove a build up of mould and dirt. The windows hadn't been cleaned for some time so everything now looks heaps better. I have also added footing to the fence so now all is enclosed. We extended the height of the fence to add to our privacy. The small place next door is a rental property and the last couple of renters have not proved to be that welcome. It all looks much better and cleaner.

I also got stuck into cleaning one of the drop down blinds across the pergola. It had become mouldy and needed a good clean. I did some of the windows there too as well as the outdoor table and chairs. All is looking much better!
This photo shows the clean blind at the end of the pergola. The rolled up blind to the right on this photo was the really dirty one which required a lot of work to get clean again.

Over the last few days the summer weather has returned. It was up to 35 degrees in our small sheltered backyard yesterday morning so the cleaning work was curtailed somewhat. The pool was around 28 degrees this morning after my 12.5k bike ride. I actually got in a 16k ride the other day.

A nephew Beau is now living temporarily here on the coast with his girl friend and her family. Beau popped in for some computer stuff and to say hi. We enjoyed several home brews and a swim. It was good to see him.

I was back to Computer Club last Saturday again while Trish has begun her Stitchers group today and will go to Quilters on Friday.

We downloaded, watched and enjoyed The King's Speech" the other night. Trish had decided to pass on watching the movie "The Fighter" but after it won Golden Globe Awards she thought she must check it out. Though it has some boxing in it, it isn't too brutal and she enjoyed it.

Our daughter Kim is gallivanting around India on a motor bike right now. She says she is called "The Indian Barbie". We manage to keep in touch via Facebook messaging. Needless to say she is having a ball and loving it all.

As a strange quirk of fate, after all the recent rain and the pool overflowing, I now need a decent shower of rain to top the pool up again. The water diverter is turned to "On" and the hose is now waiting to "add" water to the pool!

Some Sunshine At Last

As forecast, the heavy rain has left us for the moment and we have had a couple of light showers already this morning. But we are getting some sunshine too as the photo shows. This is a chance to get the bottles I washed yesterday fully dried and I will be able to bottle sometime over the next day or so.

The salt water chlorinator is working again, (there is still enough salt in the pool for it to create some chlorine) and it should be possible for us to get our towels dry in the fresh air for a change.

Rainfall totals so far for January are staggering. I tipped another 58mls from the gauge this morning. So far we have had 544mls for January, a little below 22" in the old scale.

However residents living in low lying riverside areas in the capital city Brisbane are readying themselves for flooding. It is eerie because the sun is out but the river levels are rising as the water from previous day's storms kilometres inland eventually find there way via the Brisbane River to the sea. The flood peak is expected tomorrow.

It's Still Raining!

We were watching TV during a thunderstorm last night counting the time lapse between the lightning and the thunderclap. Then there was a huge flash of lightning and an instantaneous clap of thunder! We were still shaking a few minutes later. We thought we had been hit by lightning but we had escaped unscathed. As we were heading to bed, Trish saw the fridge light was off and the microwave clock was off. After turning the power back on from the main electricity board all was going again.

We had a lazy inch or so of rain over night, probably heading towards 2" and I thought I should get the siphon running. It was just after 5 am when it was all operating again. A few minutes later the heavens opened and by 8:30 am we had a grand overnight total of 137mls with the best part 100mls falling between 5 am and 8 am. The street was again flooded and the pool was overflowing.

Currently it is a little after 2:30pm and again the rain gauge has the best part of two inches of rain in it.

Below is a film clip looking out the front of our home this morning with the street flooded. An hour afterwards, the water had disappeared and things were kind of back to normal.

Later in the morning I discovered the pool salt chlorinator wasn't working and that the old media player wouldn't start up! The power pack had died on the Media Player and the main board of the chlorinator had died. I had an old power pack for a hard disk drive that no longer worked so that fixed the Media Player but the chlorinator needed the main board replacing at over $300!

As self chlorinated swimming pools overflow, much of the salt and chemicals goes down the storm water drain. The salt and chemicals need to be replaced. With so much rain lately and with so many salt chlorinated pools in Queensland overflowing, there isn't any swimming pool salt available right now in Queensland.

People will need to resort to throwing chlorine tablets into their skimmer boxes to keep their pool chlorine levels up until the salt supplies return.

Hopefully today is the last of the major rain for us. Only a few showers are predicted for tomorrow right now but as I look outside and only see grey clouds it doesn't seem too promising.

There have been some horrific tales of incredible happenings during the rain. Lives have been lost and small country towns wiped off the map. We are so lucky where we live, the occasional flooded street is about as much as we get.

Today I washed some bottles ready for a bottling but the trick will be to get them dry!

Australian Cricket Team Jokes.

Read the posts below this one for news on the recent heavy rain to hit the Sunshine Coast.

What do you get if you cross the Australian cricket team with an OXO cube?
A laughing stock.

The Australian bobsleigh team have asked the Aussie cricket team for a meeting.
They want to ask their advice about going downhill so fast!

What’s the difference between Ricky Ponting and a funeral director?
A funeral director doesn’t keep losing the ashes.

Did you hear what the stump microphones picked up when The Ashes skippers tossed the coin on Boxing Day?
Andrew Strauss called correctly and, quick as a flash, said to Ricky Ponting: “You lads can bat.'
Just as quick, Ponting replied: “No, we can’t. We really can’t.”

What do you call an Australian with a champagne bottle in his hand?
A waiter.

Of everyone in the Aussie team, who spends the most time at the crease?
The woman who irons their cricket whites.

What’s the height of optimism?
An Aussie batsman putting on sunscreen.

What is the main function of the Australian coach?
To transport the team from the hotel to the ground.

On his way out into the middle to bat, Ricky Ponting gets a call from his wife. Michael Hussey takes the call and tells her he’s heading out to the middle.
His wife replies: “I’ll hold, he won’t be long!”

What’s the difference between an Aussie batsman and a Formula 1 car?
Nothing! If you blink you’ll miss them both.

Who has the easiest job in the Australian squad?
The guy who removes the red ball marks from the bats.

What do Aussie batsmen and drug addicts have in common?
Both spend most of their time wondering where their next score will come from.

What did the spectator miss when he went to the toilet?
The entire Australian innings.

What’s the Australian version of LBW?
Lost, Beaten, Walloped.

Why is Ricky Ponting cleverer than Houdini?
Because he can get out without even trying.

What does Ricky Ponting put in his hands to make sure the next ball is almost certainly going to be a wicket?
A bat.

What do you call a cricket field full of Australians ?
A vacant lot.

What does an Australian batsman who is playing in The Ashes have in common with Michael Jackson?
They both wore gloves for no apparent reason.

What’s the difference between Ricky Ponting and a phoenix?
At the end of the ashes, the phoenix still has a future.

Read the posts below for news on the recent heavy rain to hit the Sunshine Coast.

Wet, Wet, Wet.

Have you checked the post below this one? I took some photos about 30 minutes apart late yesterday afternoon and posted them on the blog. About an hour after I took the photos last night the water in our court had all cleared! I took this photo this morning and shows everything is OK as far as getting into and out of our road again.

Remember to click on any photo for a larger view. Then click on "Back" to return to this page.

I have tipped 209mls (almost 8.5") out of the rain gauge this morning. More heavy rain is expected today and into tomorrow. We have had almost 11" of rain in the last couple of days.

The pool didn't overflow but I have both the overflow and the siphon working. The pool seems to be draining a little quicker, possibly a blockage has been cleared with all the storm water which went though the pipes yesterday! It may also be that the deeper the pool gets, the more effective the siphoning becomes.

It isn't cold either! Right now it is approaching 25 degrees. Needless to say everything is clammy.

It seems the heaviest maybe over as the rain system slowly makes it way south to the Gold Coast and northern NSW. Sunshine is expected to return to us by Thursday!

So far in 2011 we have had 14" of rain.

You can see my rainfall figures HERE.

And The Heavens Opened Up

It is till raining as I type. We have had about 3" of rain. Click on each photo for a larger view. The second photo in each group was taken at 5:50 pm

Looking towards the end of our court.

This was taken 4:50pm:


Looking back up the court. The road is flooded all the way!


This was taken 4:50pm:


The pool is just about full, only a couple of centimeters to go!



And this photo was taken a pool level!


This photo was taken at 4:50pm.



Even the sideway is flooded.

We've Had It Worse Than This.

Australian newspapers are full of the news regarding Queensland's floods. Huge areas of the inland and north of us have been effected with many homes being inundated with floodwaters. However I am pleased to say none of this has really had any flood type impact on us.

During previous heavy rainfall days we have seen the pool overflow out onto the pavers and the surrounding areas of our backyard. Nothing like this has happened to us with the recent wet weather. The pool has got pretty full sometimes but there is always a lull which allows it to drain back to its 'correct level'. This morning there are 56mls in the rain gauge, we received about 25mls or so yesterday and much of the remainder fell between 4 and 5 this morning.

During one heavy downpour a year or so ago our small street was flooded. There has been nothing like that recently.

However more rain is expected to hit the Sunshine Coast this afternoon with heavy rain expected overnight.

Right now the pool is 'draining' through the overflow pipe and I have again dropped a hose into it to siphon more water out. It is quite windy today so some leaves etc are being blown into the pool. As the water level completely covers the skimmer box none of the floating debris is being skimmed away. Once the water level has been lowered and skimmer box is back working again I will remove the hose.

Read the post below for another feather in our caps regarding repairs to household items. All is working perfectly!

Add Computer Repairman To The List!

It was my worst fear come true! Before breakfast this morning I wandered into the "Office", turned all the power on, pressed the "Power" button on the front of the computer, the red light came on and whirled away for 5 seconds and then ..... NOTHING! I tried several more times, all with the same result! I had refrained from buying a new PC after the 3 year warranty period finished on this old one because it was running so well! My ghosts were now coming back to haunt me.

I jumped on the laptop and checked out the prices of 'new' towers at a couple of the larger retailers around here and got the best deal I could see.

Saturday is Computer Club day so I went along but this time I was going to be asking a few questions. One of the repair guys there said to take the cover off the side of the computer, take out the two 1GB ram cards and give the contacts a good clean by using a 'white lead pencil rubber'. Put them back in and see how you go.

The Ram cards are the 2 vertical long green colored things you can see in the photo. They have a white clip on either end to lock them tightly into place. In the photo one of the top white clips isn't fully in place. It took a couple of attempts and I eventually did it and got both cards going again. I was relieved (but a little disappointed) the PC fired up and was working fine again.

The first thing I did was a full back up onto my external drives! Because I had been a bit busy (and lazy), I hadn't backed up since before we went to Melbourne mid December last year.

Now Trish repairs cars and I can repair both dishwashers and computers! I was very proud of myself. Ordinarily it would be a trip to the PC Repair shop, a $100 bill and I would be computer-less for several days.

However I think the writing is on the wall for this PC. My PC works quite hard and is used almost everyday and for much of the day. I will begin to see what is available and look to update it.

Most likely the computer problems were exacerbated by the current humid weather. Some moisture may have got into the connections to cause the contacts to fail. Right now it is raining again and we have been told that some areas north of Brisbane may expect falls up to 200mls.

Wet Again!

The Thursday weather forecast was for heavy showers during the afternoon. It was very muggy up till then with the occasional shower coming through. We received about 30mls between 2 pm and 3 pm Thursday afternoon. I tipped a total of 56mls out this morning and again showers are scudding across the sky this morning with more heavy rain predicted for this afternoon.

Caloundra usually experiences an average of 1574mls of rainfall per year. The average rainfall for December is usually 144mls. My figures show for 2010 we experienced 2552mls with 673mls falling in December. So for 2010 we were about 1000mls above the annual average while December was almost 5 times the usual amount of rain.

Rain is predicted here for the next 5 days and nights!

The pool has a small overflow pipe which drains water off to the storm water after heavy rain. However the overflow pipe is small and it seems to take an eternity to get rid of excessive water from the pool. I have set a siphon up as well as you can see in the photo. If you click on the photo for a larger view you can see the small overflow pipe in the skimmer box as well as the siphon into the pool.

If the pool were to overflow you can see another drain beside the skimmer box which directs unwanted water into the house storm water system.

Needless to say that since the rain has arrived my bike hasn't been used for the last two days.

Thank heavens the cricket is over! Great to hear commentators now calling for the Selector's heads. I have been advocating this for months. The selectors persevered with Marcus North who should have been dropped 12 months ago. They could have selected a young batsmen in North's place to give valuable experience. It is possible Australia's next Cricket Test team could have several debutants.

On The Road Again

I am pleased to be back on my bike again since our return home from Melbourne. I have had two good rides of over 13k's each day now but I am on my way by 6:30 and back home by 7:15 am. The weather has been quite warm and humid after all the rain. The pool is lovely and warm so a swim is always pleasurable. I have my camera with me whenever I ride so I have been able to add a couple of 'posts' to the Community Association website too. After all the rain and with public holidays the grass around our estate is going wild.

The photo above left shows the view this morning looking over Caloundra from Pumicestone Passage. A little heavy cloud cleared to a mainly sunny day. However we return to wet and stormy conditions overnight and into tomorrow.

In round figures Caloundra usually gets 65" of rain per annum. 2010 saw us have over 100" of rain with almost 27" falling in December. December's average usually is about 6". So it has been very wet indeed. The floods are about 500k's from where we live so they are of no danger to us. However everything smells of mildew. We have spent a little time wiping all our leather goods clean. I gave a couple of items outside a quick pressure spray earlier today to remove some mildew.

Our bags from Melbourne have now been unpacked and most of the washing has been done, is now dry and has been packed away. My computer has been upgraded with all the stuff from our time away. Emails have been answered and virus definitions updated and a couple of programs have been updated.

On top of all this Trish decided to change the furniture around in the lounge room. This required moving the entertainment unit along about 18". It took a bit of time but we manged to move it. I had been promising a couple of other tidying up things so I did these too. The photo shows the new setup.

I bought a 'wireless dongle' for the new media player when in Melbourne. I connected it yesterday and now I am able to stream video directly from my computer to the media player and onto the TV. It is quite impressive!

There is plenty of cricket and tennis on TV at this time of year so we haven't been watching movies as yet. However we may have a look at one tonight.

Be It Ever So Humble ...

We have arrived home. There sure isn't any place like home. Though we had a great time and stayed in several places it was great to at last sleep in our own bed again. After a 900+km drive from Newcastle to home our own bed was a welcome sight.

We visited the elderly aunt in Canberra for a couple of hours Sunday morning before again setting off for another 400+k drive to friends at Newcastle. The hospitality upon our arrival there was wonderful and we chatted, ate and drank late into the evening.

Sunday morning saw us head to a large new shopping complex in Newcastle for an explore. Trish and I enjoyed some Malaysian food from a food court there for our lunch. The afternoon was spent quietly transferring movie files from one hard drive to another and telling each other tales from our respective trips to Europe.

We had dinner with friends of Janet and Michael's at the local "Sporties" club. From there it was to an apartment for some more computer talk and further file transfers. We fell into bed about midnight.

The next morning we were on our way back to Caloundra at about 8 am. Being a Public Holiday we expected and got some heavy traffic, especially at the towns of Kempsey and Macksville. This added about 30 minutes to our 9.5 hour drive.

We rolled into Caloundra at about 6:30 NSW Time, 5:30 local time! We did some unpacking but not much! I did give the pool a clean as it was quite warm and I thought a quick swim before bed would be a good idea. It was a sensational idea, the pool temp was about 29 degrees and a wonderful way to finish a long day.

From Yass, NSW

There is free internet access at the motel in Yass that we are staying in so I get a chance to do some more internet stuff.

We left Kate and family in Melbourne about 9 am yesterday (Fri). The forecast was for a stinker of a day, strong winds and up to 40+ degrees. We felt the earlier we got on the road to find our way home to Caloundra the better. Our first stop is Canberra where I will catch up with an elderly aunt. Yass is 50k's from Canberra so a good spot to stop for the night. It was about 650k's to here so a comfortable drive. Best of all there were very few locusts about to splatter and block up my car radiator.

The outside car thermometer showed the hottest we travelled through was 38 degrees (100+). It was 34 or so here when we arrived in Yass.

We had a reasonable meal at the local "Soldier's Club" and Trish had a win on the pokies. Then back to the motel where we watched some stuff of my hard drive via the media player I had brought with me. We were asleep well before midnight so missed seeing in the New Year. We did enjoy some drinks though!

It is now after 7 am New Year's Day and we have an hour or so until we expect to be on the road again for the 40 minute drive into Canberra. Another hot day with Canberra expecting 37 degrees today. After the visit it will be about 4 hours then to friends in Newcastle. We expect to be there later this afternoon and they are expecting 34 or so! It is hard to realise that when I was at the MCG earlier this week the temperature was a mere 12 degrees!

We haven't heard from Kim since her arrival in India. Trish is a little concerned but internet and phone not the best services there.

And it seems the rain has stopped at home too though other parts of Queensland had been hit by floods. We expect to be home late on Monday after spending two nights with Janet and Mick.

Happy New Year everybody!