Ferry and Merry

I am becoming an expert on ferries. Two weekends in a row now I have ferried, this time taking the bike with me to docklands.  The timetable is tricky ie next Friday being summer, you cannot get an 11:30 am ferry.  I rode to Port Arlington then rode around the city for an hour or so then rode to Pascoe Vale. I was looking for the elusive Stamp Gallery exhibition but I believe it has been packed up into boxes and put away.  So much for the Post office permanent exhibition.  I had nursing duties for an hour or so as baby Asher needs to be upright for 30 mins after every feed to help stop the tummy troubles.  After that it was Bianca party pizza time and the drive back to Clifton Springs. That was a long day.

All tied down

baby spy surveillance

What is this candle business?

Fire Upon the Deep

In 1993 the Hugo was awarded to two books in a tie.  This book is big.  It's background is the Milky Way, all of it.  It's time period is vast. The earth is estimated at 11 billion years old and this one book of 400 pages spans the history of the Milky Way.  As an example the Earth is mentioned in name only. Humans have left there and colonized Nyora. In turn this planet descended to Medievalism but recovered to space flight when they also fly off to colonize Sjandra Kei.  The characters  range from thinking puppy dogs to God like planet killers, with humans in between.

I want to ride my bicycle

An appropriate quote from Freddie.  I did get on the bike for a short ride into Drysdale and back. I tried sitting on the bike a week ago and that did not work.  I also went down to the beach for another swim, this time West to East so I got blown along a bit. I ventured further out and found some larger craters which I think must be rays that have settled there. What they do is suck water in from gills on top and squirt it underneath creating a crater. This disturbs crustaceans in the sand which it eats. I also saw one Haeckel's Jellyfish.

Ray Crater

Haeckel's

Swim Scene

I found a 1 hr sunny patch today while I did the groyne swim.  It seems I can handle the water temperature no matter what type of day it is but if the wind is blowing that can be cold. Today was calm and the water clear. For the first time I could see a working  mound on the bay floor, ie sand was being spurted out. There are hundreds of these mounds but I am yet to see the critter who is making them. It seems all these hundreds of mounds are vacated at night. I found the other half of the abandoned raft from the other day. I wish these people would take their crap back.

Sculpture Trail

There's money in wine.  If you are setting up a budget for a new winery like Pt Leo, how much would you put aside for pure decoration? The sculptures here are rumored to be over $50 million and there are a lot of them.  The descriptive wording is often arty crap. Some of the works are recognizable like big bird at Docklands and Laura was very familiar to us, similar to a sculpture we saw in Lyon. The winner for me was the Orwellian Big Brother inspired finger at the world.

Lyon 2014

"Laura"
This has to be the same Artist Jaume Plensa

Take that Big Brother

The Orchard

Not really an orchard but a luxury B&B on the light side. We traveled by ferry but this time we got the replacement car ferry as the main one pooped itself according to the girl at the counter. It still got us there in time for the Clancy's to pick us up on the light side in Sorrento.  Eat Eat Eat. We had lunch directly across from the pier.  The Orchard supplied us with home baked biscuits and coffee then we had a few pre-dinner drinks and chicken wings at the Jetty Road brewery.  We were just being led by those Clancy's.  The main show was at Pt Leo Winery, a new place only opened a year ago. I got a sneaky champagne bottle from Joshua as well as Debbie getting her 60th night out for dinner.  This place is a visual feast as well as feasting on the food. It is fairly pricey but worth it when you consider the surroundings as well.

The Orchard B&B

Tall Boy

Boab

Pt Leo entry

Perth 94

94 must have been a big year.  This wedding was in Perth but unlike Darwin we left the kids behind this time. There would have been a financial aspect to this as well.  I remember the actual wedding day was cool for Perth.  Afterwards we went on a tour to the southern parts like Margaret River.  There were caves and beaches and trees. One tree had a grandiose name like Duke of Edinburgh ,which we climbed using large nails. When we were at the top, a bus load of chinese arrived so we got down quickly as it was a one way tree. The fun police have probably banned that climb by now.

The backyard with a creek in it

The wedding in the Park

round and round

bathing beauty

Darwin 94

When I finished digitising the No 8 album it occurred to me that there was a trip to Darwin for Brian Clancy's wedding that year.  These photos have been hived off together with another wedding the same year to Perth. There was enough to fill a separate album so the kodak film rolls must be at the 36 per roll stage since there were around 80 photos for the 10 days. Still only 8 per day. After the wedding on Melville Island, there were many swimming holes, waterfalls, gorges and crocodiles to check out.

Wedded Bliss

Note petrified beach

Jedda took a dive off here

Adelaide River

Snake Wrangler

Beach Drumming

I have been down the beach at least three times this week doing a few swim laps. Today I started at the other end as the wind was coming from the West so I got a slight push.  We have observed various items on this beach over the last few years such as garden furniture, a trampoline and broken camping gear. I always suspected one group and now I think I have seen them. Three days ago as I was leaving, there was a group coming down the hill carrying what I thought was a raft. It was bulky and heavy and at least 5 big guys were transporting it. There were 44 gallon drums and two pallets lashed together. I had to get off the path so they could pass.  A woman was ahead of them and she goes to me  "Those boys".  So today I spy a row of drums lining the back of the beach at the vegetation boundary.  I didn't see any pallets. What does it mean?  Did their raft break and they just left their crap behind again? 

One thumb One thumb drumming on a Drum

Album 8

Yet another album that corresponds exactly to a one year period being, Dec 93 to Dec 94.  Not sure how exactly one album per year is being maintained.   This one starts out with Christmas at Leanne's first house in Wallan.  There is swimming in the Hill's backyard then wedding action firstly of a couple whom I've forgotten who they are!  Then a horseback wedding at ShannonVale which I do remember. Walks at Mt Baw Baw, a day walk with the Clancy's and a Puffing Billy ride and swim at Emerald Lake.  Tony makes a debut in a photo with Molly and the last major item was Paul Carney and Jennie's wedding somewhere near Daylesford.

Pool on the Hill

Need to remember where this was?

Shannonvale near Fall's Creek

Mt Baw Baw

Emerald Lake

Molly Baptism

Above the knee wedding dress

Hidden Photos

I mentioned previously about the Book from Collendina but the other noticeable thing is that there were two photos tucked into the back of the book.  They are of workers and they show then loading large air conditioning components onto trucks.  They were working for Kingsley Industries and one of them was named Mick Jelancic. The only other clue are the letters CML.  I can't find any thing of Kingsley Industries now.

Mick Jelancic

Out state for the Prostate

There are 5 percentage groupings for prostate results 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. The Doc says I have come out just on the wrong side of category 2.  They have counted up 25% cancerous cells in one area of the prostate. Anything up to 20% is number 1 and a watch and wait scenario.  Numbers 2,3 and 4 are a step up in treatments, so I have penciled in a date to have the Prostate removed.  It's not confirmed, as they have given me a book to read on the whole topic. You can argue statistics, as my prostate as a whole is under 20% however they break it down into areas, like the right side has 25% and the left  5%.  So the recommendation is to get it out earlier particularly if you are otherwise fit.

RACV Torquay

We have often driven past this place and always wanted to take a look. So we had our chance when Grandpa organised a two night stopover so we drove down there to try out the restaurant. We also had a quick look at the nearby beach as well as the standard of rooms. Their's was on the 4th floor with a commanding view to the water across the golf course.

Cheers

Rock Bang

Took the Ferry at 9:00 am for Docklands.  Spent a leisurely two hours making our way to the Downstairs Restaurant. Spent some time wandering in the SouthBank DFO which we had not been into before.  We met James and Heidi at the Downstairs for lunch which I can recommend. They gave us the first round on the house.  This was situated quite close to the MaltHouse Theatre. The Show revolved around a duo from Berlin who were an all singing all musical pair teamed up with  the antics of Circus Oz.  It was a Spiegeltent type of show and good fun.  Got back at 8:00 pm so I need to put my feet up.

Old and New

Downstairs

RockBang

Malthouse

The Map that changed the World

Some books have a habit of finding me.  We came back from St Malo last year and I was given $50 to buy a book, so I just blindly plucked one off a shelf  which turned out to be a story involving the places we had seen around St Malo.   This more recent book had been thrown away in Collendina. Mick, at his observant best, spied it in a bin after a clean out of a nearby van.

It tells the story of William Smith and his lifelong obsession with rocks and fossils. More remarkably he was based in Bath, where we also spent some time. However many of the places he worked or studied, we visited as well, but before I new anything about this book. Out of the way places like Farleigh-Hungerford were instrumental in the beginnings of Geology as well as the nearby Canal both of which we also checked out.

This guy Winchester uses too many words in this book, at one point he has a go at collectors ie in the 21st century he says no one will admit to collecting fossils, stamps or coins any more. How rude!

Bath Geology

Church of the Geologic collaboration

The Canal that Smith engineered

We were sitting at the beach here looking across at these folded rocks in the same place Smith was chiseling.