monday 28th march

5 is not a happy number when it is followed by 2 zeros on the clock and this is the time the alarm is set for. yes i did say alarm, how rude. today was the first day of work for the old boy, so the alarm duly went off at 5 and i then proceeded to doze until about 6.30 before i got out of bed. i had a quiet, pottering sort of day, did some chores and cooked some muffins for work lunches, checked the mail next door, watched a movie. a nothing much sort of day really. i still have not recieved my police check so still waiting, waiting, waiting. robbie's day consisted of much walking so i am told. his feet are swearing at him i believe. we'll see how he pulls up in the morning when the alarm will go off again for the second day of work.

saturday 26th march

today we cruised oyster harbour and the kalgan river on the kalgan queen. i would highly recommend this activity, we had a lovely time, the tour guide was entertaining and informative. we started out by watching as he fed some giant stingrays and the pelicans:

we then boarded and set off into oyster harbour to find the sea eagles. our guide assured us that the eagles generally came to be fed but today they were not playing. it soon became apparant they had their youngster out and that was why they would not come close:

percy pelican (who is actually a girl) came back for another fish

our guide warned us to look out for a giant kingfisher as we rounded a bend in the river:

i guess a shelter built to resemble a kingfisher counts. we had the choice of wine tasting at a vineyard on the river bank or a small walk through the bush, we chose to have a walk, this was the view from the spot we walked to:

and the boat waiting for us to return:

we were then provided with morning tea of hot savoury damper with tea or coffee and i must say the damper was very nice indeed. this is what happened when a small portion was tossed over board:

the fish acting uncommonly like piranhas are actually small black bream. time now to return to the boat pens a little faster than we went out. a lazy afternoon followed and now it must be bed time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

friday 25th march

today robbie had his induction for work next week which took about an hour and a half during which time i went shopping or browsing mostly actually. he came out with lots of paper work, a hard hat, a high vis vest, gloves, earplugs and i don't know what else then it was shopping for lunch box items and after that shopping for work boots and a thermos. we drove past the worksite he is going to be working at for a look then back to the caravan for the afternoon. we decided to cook dinner in the camp kitchen today (the tuna he scored yesterday) and wash up down there too, what a great idea except for the annoyance of carrying it all down there it was a great way to do it. going to watch a funny movie in a minutes before bed, up and at em in the morning for our river boat cruise.

thursday 24th march

moving day. the packing went well, probably because we weren't worried about putting anything away properly as we were only moving down the road a bit so that saved a lot of time. we were parked in our new spot by 10 / 10.30 am and set up by lunch time:

here we are all set up, we are getting better at putting the annex up each time we do it, it went very smoothly today.
seeing as it was lunch time when we finished we decided to head down to the squid shack for lunch, good service, good food, nice atmosphere, we will probably go back there. after we finished eating we had a look around and saw these guys hanging about:

they obviously knew something we didn't because the next thing we knew they had scored a handout from some people who had been out fishing and caught some tuna and a salmon. they were cleaning/filleting their catch and throwing the leftovers to the birds who were loving it:

 this guy was lined up patiently near the table:

robbie of course stopped to chat to the fishermen and scored as well, he was very happy with the tuna fillets he was given.
we went for a walk to the old caravan park to check the mail and to visit with ray and margaret, very nice people, had a drink and chat with them before coming back here and booking a tour on the kalgan queen riverboat for saturday morning, i am looking forward to that.
robbie had a call from an employment agency this morning and he has a couple of days work next week, labouring, he has to go in for an induction tomorrow, i am going to go shopping while he is doing that. his white card arrived today, they are obviously much more efficient than whoever processes the national police check applications because 2 weeks on i am still waiting.
well i'm sitting here yawning away, must be bedtime i think.

wednesday 23rd march

imagine if you will checking the date of the fire training for your new job only to discover it was yesterday, boy was i annoyed with myself, one phone call later and it's all ok but soooo annoying. so that was my bad start to the day. we had to go into town for a few things so we decided to see if we could get a police check for robbie in the works. the first place we went was the police station but of course they don't have the forms so off to the post office we go only to find they still don't have any forms of course. the lady we spoke to today was very helpful however and actually rang a computer place for us so we could go there to fill in the form online, thanks anne. what do you know, this time it actually worked yay, the printout was dark enough for any body, back to the post office and out with the id and there you go it's on way, now we will just have to wait for another one. yep i'm still waiting for mine. after lunch we wandered up for a game of mini golf, now the first game i won 27-34 the second game robbie wone 24-28 and the third game we drew 30 all, by my reckoning that puts me  3 shots up and the overall winner however the old boy is hotly disputing my overall winner status, what do you guys think? nothing else going on today, tomorrow we have to pack up to move then set up again a bit aggravating but we can stay put at the new place til after easter.

tuesday 22nd march

today we washed the car, yay such excitement, but there you go i guess it had to be done. we then thought we would get lunch from the squid shack which we have been going to try out for quite some time so we went around there only to find it's closed on tuesdays. while we were checking out the opening times we were accosted by a complete stranger who turned out to be someone from the grey nomads forum who thought he had recognised the car, and turned out to be correct, not bad for never having actually seen it.
after a quick chat with him we left him to his fishing and went to find some lunch. we ended up with pies/suasage rolls (i had steak and kidney, yummo), followed by one of the best chocolate eclairs i have ever had. the scales probably won't like me much tomorrow. after lunch we went for a drive to the salmon holes so robbie could have a bit of a fish. it was a bit more than we bargained for, just check out the steps we had to go down then of course back up again:

not sure how many there were but let me assure you there were many and they were steep. any way the steps aside it was a nice place, i had my chair and my book with me to keep me occupied while the fishing was happening, which kept me back away from the water so i stayed dry unlike others i could name:

after fishing for a while, (nothing was caught) we headed back to the car and took a drive around the area then back to the caravan for dinner and an early night i think, a bit weary here.

saturday 19th march

big touristy day. we set out about 10 this morning with the intention of visiting dinosaur world which also incorperates a reptile and bird park. all we knew was it was somewhere between denmark and walpole. after a brief stop in denmark for fuel, we were on our way again keeping a sharp lookout for tourist signs, saw some interesting sounding ones (particularly the chocolate lounge which bek and i have decided we will have to visit) but kept going until we found dinosaur world. we enjoyed the dinosaurs and the reptiles but the birds were the feature of the visit. there were a number roaming free, talking to the visitors, sitting on shoulders and generally being cute as well as quite a few caged birds of various species. robbie was in his element and once again a couple of birds thought i was a bit of all right too:

this guy kept saying "hello darling" very cute

this one was a bit partial to robbie

this guy was very friendly

until he decide he wanted a piece of me, bit me on the neck and on the finger, little sod.

it was pretty much lunch time by the time we had finished and once again we were in a place with no food, we seem to be good at that. we thought we would keep heading toward walpole in the search for food, we saw a sign for peaceful bay which said food so we decided to go down there, well all i can say is it was indeed peaceful, there was however no food to speak of, so a packet of chips each to keep the worms from biting and we continued on our way. we reached walpole before we found a meal, we were pretty hungry by this time so we pulled into the first cafe we saw (wooz and suz) which turned out to be quite good, certainly the lime swirl cheesecake was rather nice.

the tourist/information centre was just across the road so we went in there to see what might be about and after talking to the chap in there we headed back towards denmark armed with information on what to stop and see. we drove into coalmine beach and got out for a look to find a group of pelicans on the beach:

we were able to get quite close to them before they moved off down the beach, they were'nt very worried about us though as they only moved a few steps away before settling down again.
very close by was the hilltop lookout which had some beautiful views:

from there we moved on to see the tingle trees which was quite spectacular, particularly the large hollow ones which you could walk through:

we spent quite some time in and around these trees. from there we moved on to the circular pool, so named apparently because the water moves in a circular motion somewhat like a whirlpool, not that i could see that, maybe there needed to be more water running for this to be noticable:

this pair were having a frolic in the bottom pool

we really should have some sneakers in the car for rock scrambling as we always seem to be wearing thongs when it comes up.

time to head for home however robbie couldn't resist a photo opportunity when we spotted a paddock full of kangaroos:



after that it was definately time for home for a scratch dinner, weary but satisfied having had a lovely day.

thursday 17th march

st. patrick's day, i wore green, did you? it rained all night, the problem with that is there is a drip just outside the window, right near my head, damned hard to sleep through. still raining this morning and robbie wanted to go for a drive so off we set to a point of the coast that was wild and woolly but there was nothing else there, shame it was lunch time by now. had a quick look at the wild and woolly coast then back up the road to try to find some food, bit hungry by now. thank heavens for wellsomething (i seriously cannot remember the name) a tiny town consisting of a school, public toilets, a shop and not much else. the shop, while not looking very inviting from the outside was clean and reasonable looking inside if one overlooked the little dog standing inside the doorway (he obviously lived there, has to be breaking health regulations), and it had the added attraction of hot food. the little dog duly overlooked and almost tripped over actually, and hot food purchased and consumed (a square pie took me back to my school days, mmmm) we set off to discover what was down cheynes beach road, surprise surprise cheynes beach was there, a tad wilder and a tad woollier than the previous piece of coastline:

robbie then discovered some obscure roads which he had to explore. heading back into albany we decided to find the caravan park which is closer to my work place with the intention of maybe moving there. caravan park found and rates approved of, one problem being they are booked out for easter so can't move there yet but intend to do so at the end of april. back to our park, we thought we had better check out the availability here for easter and guess what, they are booked out too. now we need to find another spot so we walked over to the park next door and bingo they have a spot for us and the rates are much better than what we are paying now so we have decided to move next thursday (we are paid up here until then) and stay there until the end of april. happy now we are sorted out. easy dinner of bacon, chicken burger and eggs tonight.

wednesday 16th march

pretty much all we did today was to get the exhaust fixed on the bus, so now we are no longer in danger of it falling off and it certainly sounds better. still waiting on the police check to come back, trying to be patient. dinner was pork chops and veg, very nice indeed. well thats it, didn't do anything else except watch a movie (independence day, gotta love that movie) cos it was raining.

tuesday 15th march

got the washing done this morning but of course i had to walk to the furthest laundry, seems like everyone was doing their washing this morning. just managed to find enough room on a clothes line to hang it out. checked out the take away at the neighbouring caravan park shop for lunch, not great take away actually but hey if you don't try you never know. then me and my pimple (it feels so big i think i will have to give it a name) set off for manual handling. met a few people, and saw a new type of slide sheet that i had never seen before which was interesting. have to go to fire training in a couple of weeks, hopefully my police check will be back by then and i will have started work. we had to pop into town to pick up a script then back home to get the clothes off the line and to cook dinner. and a good dinner it was too, steak and veg with strawberries and the last of the very expensive but extremely yummy cream for desert, mmmm mmmm. nothing planned for tomorrow at this point.

monday 14th march

today was a kind of nothing day, we visited recruitment agencies again to drop off the resumes which didn't make it through cyber space via email, ah well hard copies work too. a spot of shopping and a look through a caravan shop then back to the caravan park. lazy afternoon then drinks and conversation with john, irana, briant and eileen before they leave tomorrow. late dinner, because of drinks and conversation, and here we are nearly bed time. i am developing a great big pimple right in the middle of my chin just in time  to meet my new workmates tomorrow when i head over there for manual handling, isn't that great, so annoying, i can only hope it disappears soon though i'm fairly sure it won't be gone by tomorrow.

sunday 13th march

not too much happening for the weekend we visited the farmer's market yesterday and the boatshed market today. we bought some nice fruit and veg yesterday along with some very expensive cream which boasted on the pack that it tasted how cream used to taste and hey it did too very yummy indeed, especially when teamed with the strawberries we also purchased. today's market was mostly produce again with fish added so we came home with some fish for dinner. i had just settled in for a lazy afternoon watching sister act and sister act2 when robbie suggested a walk to middleton beach a total of appoximately 6.5 km there and back. goodness me i was a bit worn out when we got back so then i settled in for my movie afternoon. bed time soon, that walk made me weary.

friday 11th march

today we went for a drive to a national park and came across the unusual sight of a tree growing out of a rock:

it was a nice drive through the national park. cooked a nice casserole in the turbo oven for dinner, not as good as the roast of last night but quite adequate. i think it's time for bed now i've been weary all day.