Wedsnesday's Update

We are slowly getting back to normal following our Whitsundays Trip. It seems one of the other couples on our trip was welcomed home by a flooded kitchen when a dishwasher hose burst. Access to the damaged hose was limited so they needed to cut their way in! Not much fun.

This Whitsundays Trip photo shows the view when we moored off Croc Resort Long Island. Below is a visitor we had as it enjoyed the bread scraps we had thrown. Remember you can click on either of these photos for a larger view. Just click on "Back" to return to this page.


My windscreen chip has been repaired and yesterday I had to get a new mobile phone. The shop assistant said it was no problem to copy my 'phonebook' across on the PC. The phone software package however is not Vista compatible and the instructions on how to use the import feature from the PC would not work. I spent much of last night entering phone numbers into the new phone.

I will look at replacing the watch later this week.

I used Skype yesterday to catch up with "Texas Lou". We were able to speak and see each other across 8000 miles. Quite a staggering little program is Skype and it is all free too. Just as she and her husband are starting to enjoy cooler weather there, the weather here on the Sunshine Coast is warming up.

Back on the bikes this morning. This 'fountain' has been installed in a pond to restrict the growth of lilies, looks good don't you think?

Not to be outdone with my new PC, Trish bought herself an overlocker sewing machine. Right now she is working out how to use it. Now is not a good time for a quick photo to add to this page!

Our daughter Kim flies up on Saturday and returns to Melbourne on Tuesday. For those overseas, Tuesday is Melbourne Cup day, the day when Australia stands still to listen to or watch the horse race "The Melbourne Cup". The state of Victoria even has a public holiday for the event! Much of the rest of the nation comes to a standstill about 3 pm to tune in!

Bad Things Happen In Threes

Just before we travelled to Airlie Beach the old knock about watch I wear around the house and in the pool needed a new battery. It is a water resistant watch so I can safely wear it in the pool. Whenever the battery needs swapping over it costs almost as much as the watch is worth to ensure it remains water resistant. Most times I do not bother and just go ahead and 'hope' the reseal is OK. This works most times.

While away I noticed my watch was fogging up! A sure sign it had not become water safe after the battery changeover and water had got into it. So in the next few weeks I could most likely expect the watch to 'die'.

While driving back from Airlie Beach I got a stone chip in the windscreen, exactly where I look out! It was extremely annoying. Fearing bad luck came in threes I awaited to see what the next thing to happen would be! Click on this photo for a larger view, you can even see the stone chip in the windscreen! Click "Back" to return to this page.

It happened, I went to make a call on my mobile phone and the buttons just refused to work! I could not type in my sim card pass code so the phone remained locked and unusable! I had bought this phone 'outright' and was pretty unhappy about spending $300 on a phone that only lasted for 16 months!

I called in a windscreen repair guy who did a good job on repairing the windscreen. It now looks almost 100%. I decided to leave the phone in the sun, perhaps some moisture had got in while we were on our trip and some heat would dry it out. After half an hour in the sun I could get the sim card pass code to type in and 'open' the phone. I retrieved a message OK! However when I went to the Phonebook Application all sorts of strange noises and things happened! Back into the sun again for some more drying out! An hour later the phone book seemed to be working OK. Let us keep our fingers crossed and see!

Yesterday we drove to Bauple and caught up with my two cousins Garry and Phillip. We struck some stormy weather on the way home.

I continue to learn new things about Windows Vista. The new computer is sensational, so fast at loading and completing tasks. Movie files I have downloaded (usually .avi files) used to take a good hour to convert to the DVD format, now take well under 40 minutes!

Vista does most things better than XP did for me, but not all.

Gorgeous warm day again, into the high 20's.

Home From The Whitsundays

The Whitsundays are known as one of Australia's premier tourist destinations. They are a group of over 70 islands just off the northern Queensland Coast which were first discovered by James Cook on his voyage of discovery. The waters surrounding the Whitsundays are pristine and a delight to see. The islands are also home to numerous resorts, Daydream Island, Hamilton Island, Hayman Island, Croc Resort and others.

We were doing a cruise of seven days in a motorized catamaran. Trish and I arrived at Airlie Beach on the mainland (where the craft was sailing from) a day before departure to complete arrangements (ice for beer, deliver drinks etc). Usually this pat of the world is calm but we struck gale force winds for the first three or so days of our one week on the water.

This photo shows Airlie Beach which is a backpackers paradise. Remember to click on the photo for a larger view, then click on "Back" to return to this page!

Our other friends were flying up to Hamilton Island (2 hours away by sea from Airlie Beach )from Melbourne. The weather was so rough it took us almost double that time to get across to pick them up.

After we had all boarded we set off on our own. We were limited by the rough weather conditions as to where we could go for the first night. We selected a spot called Cid Harbour and spent our first night on board together. It seemed to be almost one party to another with plenty to drink and eat. It was great to catch up with old friends. Though some mornings were a little difficult for several group members.

One of the things this part of the world is renowned for is "Stingers". These are small dangerous sea creatures which can kill in extreme circumstances. To offset the possibility of stingers, you wore a stinger suit! The water was glorious to swim in and became our 'shower' each morning.

We visited places such as Stonehaven, Butterfly Bay, Daydream Island Resort, Croc Resort and dropped back in to Airlie Beach for more ice for the beer! Every day was a party.



However the highlight of the whole trip was easily Whitehaven Beach, described as one of the three top beaches in the world. We spent 24 hours there. It has white silica sand which seemed to glow. Even in the moonlight overnight the sand glowed in the dark. Being close to the beach made keeping the drinks up a little easier!



The water was sensational there and the early morning swim off the back of the boat to the beach was something else! During the day tourist boats flocked to this spot and unloaded boatload after boatload of tourists to enjoy this sensational spot. Truly one of the most beautiful places in the world!

Life on board was a little difficult with basic toilet and shower facilities. However with places to see like Whitehaven Beach, and even snorkeling at Chalkies Beach where small reef fish swim up to greet you made for a wonderful week.

We completed our 1000 km drive home mid afternoon on Saturday tired and ready for a good night's sleep in our own bed.

I am considering doing a web page to better describe our great week away.

30 degrees here right now at just after 8:30 am. Summer has arrived while we were up north. The pool is warming up nicely!

Tuesday's News

The new PC is pretty well organized now. Everything is backed up, the scanner, printer, and other add-ons have all been installed and all are working. I miss a couple of little programs that came with XP (eg image resizer) but I have hunted down some other programs which will do what I had wanted. Then there are some things in Vista which are easier to manage than with XP. The new PC is certainly a lot quicker than the Dell it is replacing.

When I am sure everything is OK I will delete a lot of stuff from the Dell ready for its next 'home'.

The most difficult job has been getting the Laptop and the Vista PC to 'see' and communicate with each other. This is a problem between Vista and XP, you wouldn't think the systems had been developed by the same company. A program called "Network Magic" sorted all that out though.

I haven't heard from my friend in West Texas so I guess her computer continues to play up for her.

This is the sign outside the house next door. As you can see it has been sold now. I hear there is to be a 'garage sale' over the next weekend or so! There were building inspectors and anti-pest people in there this morning, ensuring the house has no hidden surprises for the new owners!

We head off tomorrow on the Whitsundays trip so there won't be any more News From The Sunshine Coast for about 10 days. There are lots of people at home round about us to keep an eye on the place while we are away!

The New PC

The monitor for my new PC was delivered to the shop mid morning Saturday and I went down early Saturday afternoon to collect it. You can imagine my disappointment when I connected the monitor and the little sign "No Signal" came up on the screen. All that greeted me was a blank screen! I had received quite a few different leads with it and I was using the standard VGA monitor lead to connect it to the PC. There are many various connections at the rear of this thing and I tried them all and with all the leads I could. No luck!

I even connected the 'old' PC to the new monitor and it worked fine. Came Sunday morning a trick I had learned along the way is to totally disconnect the PC from the power and let it sit. I used the 'best lead' (DVI) and connected it straight to the Graphics Card connectors and restarted the computer! Bingo, all systems go!

Needless to say the rest of Sunday and much of Monday was spent setting it up to do the sorts of things I wanted it to do. So far only two minor programs I had used with XP would not load or run properly on this Vista Premium PC.

I have a 'wireless' keyboard and mouse. The keyboard connects to the PC via a USB plug or it has a purple adapter so it can connect to the purple keyboard PS/2 connector on the PC. The mouse connects to the PS/2 green connector at the rear of the PC. The new PC has a Purple PS/2 connector on it but no green one! The guy at the shop said just connect the keyboard to the PC via the one USB connection and you may find the one connection will do for both the keyboard and the mouse! And he was correct!

I downloaded a new Internet Security package from Trend Micro and installed that. The darn thing went through a heap of my cracks for programs and quarantined them all! That program only lasted 24 hours before being uninstalled and replaced with old faithfull AVG again!

I still have to connect the printer, scanner and DVB-T tuner card (TV via your computer) but most likely that will happen sometime in the future. Now back to 'playing'!