Peninsula Hot Springs

The PHS features a hot natural mineral water but with a lot of help.  I have bathed in hot pools in NZ where the water is just running out of the ground and not a cent to pay. Here we have to bore down and bring it to the surface. Nevertheless it is unique in Australia. There are your various spa towns like Hepburn but that one and also Clifton Springs (mentioned elsewhere in ROBOT) started out by getting you to drink the stuff. Later they started heating it for bathing. The closest I have found to this phenomenon is in the NT in Litchfield where warm water cascades into pools after being heated by the rocks it passes over.
I would recommend trying this. Get there on a midweek day not in school holidays, at 9:30am. This allows half an hour for the "No kids on the hilltop" rule to take effect at 10:00am. Don't be put off by the endless cars parked seemingly forever. There seems to be plenty of room to spread out in side.

They do mean Hot

Orakei Korako

Da Vinci Room

Escape rooms are games where you have to follow clues and solve cyphers to get yourself out of the room. A 3D puzzle as such. I have heard that there are more elaborate schemes like this involving a whole house in Flemington.  Our team had enough trouble with one Da Vinci room.  The post mortem discussion suggested that we reveal the hints (QR codes) in a more timely way perhaps then allowing more progress through the maze rather than trying to get the lowest score. Our 50 minutes was up and we had to be let out.

Dan Brown we're not

Wardrobe Reveal

Strike at HighPoint

 I had forgotten how physical bowling can be.  We had around 20 of us for the continuing 60th birthday bizzo. The older venues never had a bar as far as I can remember. The old haunt we went to in Fletcher St closed up years ago so Strike must be reinventing things. 
 I remember at about age 20 and in my first week of work at the MMBW, there was a gathering around someone's desk whom I did not know. He had turned 65 and was compulsorily being retired.  I had a few brief words as he was about to leave. He could not afford to retire, was still paying off the house and needed to work. He said voluntarily you could leave as early as 55 and forcibly you had to go at 65. So after the first week in work I thought ok I will split the difference and aim to retire at 60 and also have the house paid off.  It turned out fairly close to that.

Ball weight

4 strikes in a row

Atlas of Remote Islands

Judith Schalansky has declared this book is about "50 islands she has never visited and never will". If you are born on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall then I guess you might only write about places but never visit them. As I was reading through, I wondered if there will be an island featured that I have been to. Sure enough the Cook Islands gets a mention with its Pacific name of PukaPuka, however this island is 1300km from Rarotonga, so with all of James Cook's travels there must be numerous Cook Islands. Islands that are remote from Berlin may not be remote from Australia, so Norfolk Island hardly seems that far away to me. My  parents made it that far.
Judy Judy Judy writes a short story for each island. We are going back to Lord Howe Island next year. This could have qualified for her book, with plenty of story material as previously mentioned in ROBOT about Lord Howe like "The Return of the Phasmids" for instance.

Aitutaki

The Puzzling Photo

It has been said that the fifth sign of retirement is doing jigsaw puzzles. I beg to differ.  The below photo of the Red Circle was completed some 30 yar ago and was a tad difficult. Also in the recent video of the AT I posted the other day, you may have noticed an open to the public community jigsaw puzzle just sitting in the common room waiting for a passerby to add a piece here or a piece there. It just so happens I did complete a puzzle the other day which was unique in that I took the photo that is it's subject.
There is a measure of control over your own puzzle experience when you are responsible for deciding the content, especially when the cut out frame does not produce sufficiently unique shapes for each piece. The Red Circle was essential in having uniquely shaped puzzle pieces.  The Bay of Silence puzzle had a sand section that I am still not sure is put together correctly, as some pieces seemed to interchange.
This puzzle is another way of reliving our recent Europe trip. There is a black art in selecting the puzzling photo. The detail here was good in three quarters with boats and apartments divided by the bikini girl but more towels or people were needed on the sand.

The Red Circle

Bay of Silence

A Walk in the Woods - Revisited

This would be the only time I have finished reading a book and then went to see the film it was made into, on the same day.  The Art Deco Sun Theatre is a good place to see a film especially the small theatres with the comfy armchairs. You have got the café scene, the picture show and a book shop all in the one place.  The film departs from the book mainly to do with using cars (and bears). In the book Bryson used a car often but they only flirt with its use in the film. As a rule I preferred to have no contact with  outside influences during a walk, particularly when you climbed to a vantage point only to find a car park already there.

60th Birthday Sun Theatre

Kindred Spirits

A Walk in the Woods

I have just read this book by Bill Bryson who is probably not the most athletic of bushwalkers.  In attempting to walk the entire Appalachian Trail he managed to do around one third.  Having done a lot of walking myself, his efforts seemed clumsy at best but he started his AT walk at the age of 44. Nevertheless there were many anecdotes he described which I could relate to.  I had a fleeting glimpse of the AT in 2007 by parking nearby, taking a walk and then driving away. This was the modus operandi of Bill as well none of this end to end business.

Bushwalkers food of champions!

Beach Fog

Even when we are down the beach an effort is made for the daily jog.  Sunshine always helps but fog can also be interesting.  We don't get fog on the beach much as it is often windy.  Sunday morning was quite foggy but why was there no fog horn blaring from Point Lonsdale lighthouse?  Is some sort of ship curfew on a Sunday morning!

FogHorn

Gloomy First Rock

The Annual Window clean

Had an annual clean of all the windows today inside and out. Of course before this could happen we spent half of yesterday hosing down the house so that any dirt splashed onto the windows could be cleaned off  today.  So I got a ticket to ride while this was going on. I followed the Upfield bike path as far as O'Hea St which has its own off road path as far as Turner St. Not sure if any of the Ryan's are still in that corner house. Looked like the OHea St Bakery is a likely place for a stop next time.  Also went past the 375 Gaffney St location which is now a block of three condos.

Karcher Queen

375

A Key Outcome

I geared up for a major expedition. Gathered a tote bag for knife, torch, gaffer tape and should have had a breathing mask. Yes I was going under the house. Go back two days though, to our bathroom where I took a towel off the door knob which flicked the door key out of the lock and pirouetted it neatly through the bars in the floor grill. The key entered at speed and came to rest two metres down the tube.  Underneath, after winding through a maze of tubes, wires and cables I reached the target.  Slicing through at the lowest point, there was a flood of dirt, lathen plaster rubble and debris. This had been lying in there and wafting dust upward with the warm air for years but I did get the key out.

Now this key has two locks

European wasp

Had an incident here where two large black and yellow bodied wasps got into the house. The first warmish north wind day of the season has brought these nasties on the wing and they were larger than I have seen previously. One of these bugs was around 30mm in length which is large even for a queen.  Don't get stung by one of these, especially between the eyes like Reanna, a hospital visit may be required. 

Swollen by a bee

These can sting repeatedly

Burl's Catullus

I have previously mentioned visiting Sirmione and marvelling at the sheer size of the villa there.  I have followed up an urge to find out more about Gaius Valerius Catullus.  I have finished reading Aubrey Burl's book about Catullus the poet.  They certainly were ribald times in Rome around 2000 yar ago and the words of Catullus fitted that scene perfectly.  There was a lot of sword fighting in those days but it seems that putting some clever rhyming obscenities down on parchment is another way to gain notoriety.

"Lying here in bed I've had enough to eat

But hunger for you is causing something

To make a tall pyramid of my sheet"



                                                                                                                     Catullus

 



September Sun

Haven't been down the beach for a while but the sun has come out for a bit so we are doing some vannin. Did not see any plovers when we went for a jog but I did see some budgies being smuggled. Not much has changed except for the removal of some vans and replacement with mini houses. This has renewed debate about whether to do the same or move onto some new area.

Budgie Smuggler

Green Shelf

Nongkhai conundrum

Went to a 31st  dinner for James at NongKhai.  Along the way it seems that what is old is new again like conundrums.  I was thinking that you could set up a whole online conundrum service. You could send out the scenario by SMS.  Attend to questions and answers via an email group and even drop a hint  like "How important his job is!" in my blog just now. This would also gain readership stats. So

 

"He died because he didn't see the sawdust."

 

 

Thumbs Up



Farter's Day

I have missed a few Father's Days in recent years due to European commitments however I have managed to get my just desserts this time around. We revisited the Growling Frog which seems to do a better breakfast than lunch according to some. The golf was breezy but don't ask me about golf.

Just Desserts

Fathers

 

PreDestination

Saw this film last week. I don't necessarily recommend it for the plot line as it is one of those impossible time shift themes featuring a time travelling violin and the ultimate case of incest. However it was filmed in Melbourne and those of us in the know may recognise the Hoppers Crossing Pumping Station featuring heavily with a few lighting tricks, as a likely time travel destination. I know I've got photos somewhere but these will have to do.

Down the well

Sewage Shooter

Waterfront

There are a few eateries near the pier at Port Melbourne. Last time we were seeing the Spirit of Tassie (mark I) off and tried Mr Hobson. This time we went round the corner to the 'Waterfront'. This restaurant was a tad too baroque for me but the taste of the porterhouse was good and at $18.50 for the lunch special it wont send you baroque.  Spirit of Tassie (mark II) was parked nearby.

Sandridge

Green Dalek

Yes that was the comment that the waiter at Little Creatures made when he saw the Insulator photo. There has obviously been an alignment of glass furnace energy. How else to explain how a PMG Insulator should wind up in Noel's lap only a week after our meeting in Geelong. It seems that bottle collectors study old maps to determine where refuse heaps were located 100 yar ago. But clandestine digging up of treasure is another thing.

A Lake Tyers creation

Overdue Massage

It must be at least 10 yar since I last had a massage. I rode past Li's Massage Clinic the other day and came back today for a one hour rub down.  There are many choices and styles but I didn't like the sound of the Acupressure so I tried to lessen the pain with the relaxation type. She said the tightness in some of my muscles did not allow for normal massage so had to launch into remedial techniques just to break through the hardness barrier.  I have signed up again in two weeks.  She expects I will be sore for two days! 



Massage 2002

Bike Time

Haven't ridden for some weeks so on the first day of Spring but more likely because it was very sunny I went for a short ride around the block.  There are some new workout stations and bike maintenance areas along the Maribyrnong. I crossed the river on a bridge I have never used before. It joins Pipemakers Park to Riverside Park. The golf course has a café which would be worth a try.  There are hundreds of new houses here so whatever was there (Old Ascot racecourse?) is now a new estate.

Bike maintenance