Settling In

I have been in Melbourne now for three days. The 'family' (Kate, Arj, the two grandchildren James and Charli, our daughter Kim and Trish and me) had a great meal at our all time favorite Malaysian Restaurant in Clayton on Thursday. It is almost 'family' when we catch up with the owner there.

I watched in amazement as Charli downed three full bowls of curry and rice. She sure loves her spicy food. The rest of us ate like kings with a couple of curries, a noodle dish, some salted pepper squid and Malay Fried Chicken. As usual Kate had fried ice cream!

Yesterday was the end of the school term so after dropping Charli off at her weekly playgroup morning I dropped Arj off at school. There are always a few drinks at the end of term so this meant Arj would not drink and drive!

I have had a request for more photos of baby James so here is one of him on Arj's shoulder.
We have all or family over for lunch today.

First Day In Melbourne

After a good night's sleep I was feeling a lot better after my long drive. The weather in Melbourne yesterday was miserable, cold, wet and windy. Parts of Victoria are receiving much needed drought breaking rain. Melbourne is on the edge of this rainfall and recorded 16 mls.

The day was spent quietly catching up with family and getting to know the grandchildren. As I type this Charli is sitting on my knee. It feels pretty good.

Tonight we are off to my favorite Malaysian food restaurant where we will catch up with our youngest daughter Kim.

Last evening long time friend Carol visited and saw James for the first time and got to meet Charli again. It was good to compare notes with her on how our respective families are going.

It was all good fun.

Trish has a heavy cold and it is a pretty good chance it will be passed on to me shortly. Hopefully I won't get it as badly as she has it. She seems to be a bit better each day.

Caravanning friends Russell and Irene have arrived in Echuca on the Murray River. The weather there was cold and windy but there was no rain. They expect to get back to Drouin on Sunday.

After A Long Drive!

I have arrived in Melbourne mid afternoon on Tuesday. The car computer told me I had travelled over 1850 kilometres and that I had sat behind the wheel for 19 hours and 20 minutes. I had averaged 95 kph. I guess it rained for 50% of the trip down.

I spent the night at Parkes after completing about 1100k's on the Monday and with about 12 hours driving. That only left me with 750+ k's the next day.

After a good night's sleep we have awoken to a very grey day heavily overcast and with a lot of rain forecast. The top temp here in Melbourne will be about 13 degrees.

I have had a nurse of James Stephen and I am glad to say it seems my grand daughter Charli remembers me. The photo shows Trish nursing our new grandson.

I am slowly getting used to dial-up internet connection speeds again.

I need a day or so to catch up with things and then we will be out and about.

Note the Appznet site address has changed again. I have updated the link on the right. The King Of Warez download site is 'off the air' at the moment but hopes to be available again soon.

Reasonable Weather

Today can best be described as reasonable. But I guess it is "reasonable" weather time of the year! It was about 12 degrees when I had a bike ride this morning and it is only about 16 or so now. There are some sunny breaks but a coolish wind is blowing.

I took the camera with me and managed a few photos. The photos look better now than when I first took them. Despite being a 'grey' morning, some of the color in these photos is beautiful. This photo has an autumn feel to it with the browns and greys mixed in with the greens.

Remember to click on the photos for a larger view.

I took this photo of the Glasshouse Mountains from the local Caloundra Airport. I had to crop the photo down to get this bit. A cloud seems to be attached to one of the mountains. The Glasshouse Mountains are a great a scenic day trip from here. You can do as much or as little walking as you like and the scenery can be stunning.

The final photo is of the "The Duckponds". The Council has thinned out a lot of the burnt trees from the fires 8 months ago and this is the result. There are numerous ducks which live here and they seem to want all the pathway to themselves as you ride or walk through the area. The pond can be seen as a green patch through the trees.

My next post will most probably be from Melbourne. I set off for there first thing tomorrow by car. We expect to be back on the Sunshine Coast by July 20th if things go to plan.

After a sunny but cool day in Moree, Russell and Irene are today heading for Coonabarrabran. They are thinking a spending a couple of nights there. It all depends on the weather. I may well see them as I drive down tomorrow.

No Sun On The Sunshine Coast

We had a glorious day yesterday with a sunny 20 degrees or so. I managed to get a couple of loads of washing dried. This morning the cloud cover is back as are the winter woollies! It is almost 11:30 a.m. and the temperature is a miserable 14 degrees. It is cloudy and some rain is forecast. I took this photo of the view from our front door a few minutes ago.

This photo shows the electronic weather station which lives in the lounge. The 14.4 is the outside temp while the 17.7 is the indoors temp.

Caravanning friends Russell and Irene have arrived in Moree in New South Wales and they are enjoying an 8 degree mid morning. They expect to get back to their home in Victoria a few days earlier than they had expected.

I am just about ready to head south to catch up with the new grandson. I expect to get underway before dawn on Monday. Wet weather is forecast for early next week.

I am trying to brighten up the blog page a bit. I have done a lot of investigating without much luck. I did find the Sudoku widget you can now play. Have a try!

Let me know if the page is taking too long to load if you have dial-up.