ADELAIDE TRIP - PART ONE.

 We set off for Adelaide with van in tow and spent the first night in Horsham in the western districts of Victoria, but unfortunately I've no photos of this part of the trip.

After leaving Horsham the following morning, we headed for Bordertown to stop off to see if my friend Judy was home, but alas, no answer.  Next was a stop in Keith for lunch, then as we travelled on, a photo stop was found at Coonalpyn where there were some painted silos.

The silos and the best photo I could get from the edge of the road.

A little about these silos.

An old bank building, long disused I think.

A lovely little church in the middle of town, which is relatively small.

We finally arrived at the caravan park and had a little wander once we were set up.  Not a caravan park we've used before and it was right under the flight path from the airport, which was noisy during the day, and luckily they have a curfew , so no noise through the night.

On our meander, we found this enormous old Moreton Bay Fig, so photos were a must.  I remember as a child playing around the root systems of these trees in Centennial Park in Sydney, especially at my Dad's work Christmas picnics.

Hubby standing near the huge roots.

The sign near to the tree.

Some of the branches now lay on the ground.

The original homestead which is now used for holiday lets.

The next day before we needed to go to Glenelg for the quilt trunk show, which I was to attend at 7pm, we headed for the hills and opted for Gumeracha, where there is an almighty large rocking horse, toy factory and wildlife rescue park.  We had a lovely few hours and without boring you too much, some photos follow.  As you go into the park, you can purchase a small pack of animal pellets to feed the animals, so that was a must.

This beautiful little goat followed me for quite a while, then wandered off towards some children who had food too.  As I was walking further around the park, it suddenly ran across and accompanied me around to the exit gate.  It was so hard to get a good photo as he kept cuddling up and knocking the camera.  

Another lovely moment happened when I saw this little one laying behind the tree.  It looked up, noticed I had food, stood up, ate some then hung on to my little finger.  Oh so cute and these little ones made my day.

The large rocking horse at the entrance.

The above 3 photos are of the newly painted murals on the amenities blocks.

The signpost for places all over the world above and below are places in Australia.

You may need to click on these last 2 photos to read the names properly.

We left Gumeracha, headed for Glenelg, ate fish and chips in the mall area, as parts of the beach area were closed off due to some repair work, then I went to my trunk show by Jemima Flendt, which was great.  Hubby had a wander, then read a book till I came down and we went back to the van park.

Our first few days were good, the weather was fine and the next installment will be posted soon.

Take care all and hugs.

Susan.

COUNCILS..........................Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

 

Will you just look at this................................it was our street tree on the verge and they cut it down.  Oh.... and I cried a little.  I was so cranky, as was DH and this all happened at 8am on Wednesday morning and we had words with the culprits, then later in the afternoon visited the council too.  We now want the stump removed and a replacement tree.  Ours was the best looking tree in the court, but they said it was unstable where the trunk forked with a black line inside it.  We had a look at the other silver birches along our court & all have similar lines where larger branches have grown from the main trunk.  Why ours?                                                                                                                                                    I tried to find a good photo of our tree, but seems like I've taken most from our tree, but I found one when it was pouring down & the other photo is looking up the court past our stump, which I took yesterday afternoon.

This must have been winter as all the trees are bare & I have jonquils out in the circular bed.

Looking to the end & notice all the silver birches, but ours is missing.

Suppose you could say, I'm still mad.   The tree nearly always had birds coming and going & we will miss their antics & singing.😢

So much sadness in the world at the moment, this post is stupidly trivial, but I'll post it anyway.             I feel quite helpless to reach out and help in anyway to those caught up in all the mayhem, but know I still need to blog while I can.  Hopefully I'll post a bit more this month and even try and catch up with a few interesting bits from last year.

Have a great weekend everyone, take care, stay safe & hugs.                                                                               Susan.

FRIDAY PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT - Something we see everyday......

 Linking up with Astrid for the hunt this week and although I know what I see most days, was it going to be of any interest to others? So once again I've probably been a bit wayward.  Well, here goes...........

Looking from our side entrance, across the road to the farm that is basically in the middle of suburbia.  I often refer to this as "Middle Farm" and  realise that one day it will be cut up for housing, but at least I can see the cows grazing and a tractor working for now.

SKIES.

Looking at the sky at different times of day can be absolutely fascinating with different cloud formations and colours, so here is a selection from my archives.

The next one was taken last week about mid morning and this has been very much the weather we've had for most of November so far, though not always with the rainbow.  Each of the sky photos has been taken from home.

Must admit to the garden being messy at the moment due to the incessant inclement weather, though the blueberries are netted now.

DAILY WALKING.

Not as much of this has been done lately either, but a few things we see on our close to home walks are of course trees and a couple of quaint boardwalks across marshy areas.

A beautiful white bark gum in someones front yard.  I do have lots more tree photos, so only one more with a bit of a story to go with it.

This is now a vacant block which once had a beautiful 2 story art deco type house on it and I'd always admired it from when we moved to this town in 2004.  We live closer  now and one day as we turned the corner to come home, they were tearing it down and it has been like this for the last 3-4 years with a small sign that claims to a child care centre being built on it.  As the Pandemic hit, all was put on hold, but is now about to go ahead soon.  In the centre of those trees is a beautiful old lamp,  that I'm going to inquire about, as it would make a lovely garden ornament.  

One last photo which some will know as I used to often talk about out resident magpies and they still come and at this time of year with bubs in tow, can make an awful racket hoping I'll put out a few breadcrumbs for them.  They only get a tiny bit as bread isn't good for them, but I can't help spoiling these amusingly friendly birds.  I do love all our birdlife, but these are special.

Taken late last year with my Butcher bird sitting on the fence too.

OK, that's enough for me today and although it's cloudy, we've a few things to attend to this morning and I'll link up now and read all the other hunter posts tonight.

Take care all, have a great weekend and huge hugs from down under.

FRIDAY PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT. - EARTH

 Linking with Astrid for this week's hunt.

I found this one quite hard and have gone a little off piste and tied it into a wonderful place we've visited several times now, the first just before we went into our first major lockdown in March last year. 

My initial thoughts were:       Earth - soil.          Earth - our planet.

Taking all this into account, I hope this isn't too weird.

Heading into the hills north-east of Melbourne there are parks, where we stopped for lunch on one of our forays in December & I snapped this gorgeous dogwood in flower, which of course is connected to the earth by way of soil here on our planet.  OK, the other photos will not have so much silly info.😉

An old plough to turn over the soil.

And this is where we were headed.

Somewhere we'd passed many times over the years and it was either not open or we didn't have time to stop.  For someone like me who loves old, quirky & just browsing it's a wonderland and we've now been a few times  after we've been "let out" again.  In December we basically had the place to ourselves, except for the owners.

Definitely connections to the earth for the next two photos...................

Good old push mowers and I can remember my parents having one of these when I was really young & my late brother and I trying to push it through the grass..........we didn't have lawn.(lol)

Another connection, embedded by shrubbery to the earth.
Keith really thought this would be a good doer-upper, but we don't have anywhere to do it.

And now for some of the fun things made from old junk.

To be sold as "Garden Art" or maybe props for photographers etc.

My favourite, a donkey, but he didn't come home with me.

Other bits'n'bobs to turn around yourself.

Inside we came across a wall with some amusing signage.  No, I know that we are off the track of earth now, but this lot could come under the title of "What on Earth?"

In no praticular order, just hope you all had a giggle and then this one below, came as a surprise.

Can you imagine him in your front yard..............

Now, one last little bit with a story to it. and I do hope I don't offend anybody, but we laughed a lot.

Checking out this lovely table & chairs, a lady who was looking at it too, started talking to me about all the wonderful quirky pieces that were there.  Suddenly I started to giggle and she looked around to see what had caught my eye and her reaction was "OMG, he's mine..." Off she ran in the direction of her young son, carrying around the torso (in the truck below), with each hand holding onto a protrusion,  grabbing it and depositing in said truck and shutting the window. 

OK, not offended?  It was funny.

Hope you haven't been bored by my wafflings & weird sense of humour.  I'll link this later as I was interrupted and now I'm off to make us some lunch.  Cold again today, overcast with a few showers and very windy.

Have a great weekend all, take care and stay safe.

Hugs from down under, Susan.

PART 2 OF WAFFLING.

 Another 2 days from October with my camera in tow.

1.  A Side Trip to Phillip Island.

Setting out one Tuesday to pick up some timber from Grantville on the  western side of Westernport Bay, somewhere we were allowed to go, we took our picnic stuff along and then made for San Remo for lunch.  Had a short walk down along the jetties looking for rays, but saw none that day.  Watching the cars heading over the bridge to Phillip Island, a decision was made to pop over and do some walking along one of it's many tracks.  What the heck if we were late home for tea.

                                          We chose this walk to Conservation Hill & Rhyll Inlet.

                                              Part of the walk took us along the boardwalk.

                                                  Aha,  we spy the inlet in the distance.

A fork in the path could take us further towards one of the towns on the island or a circular route back to the car in a the car park.  We chose to go back to the car and as we wandered along, I spotted a wallaby, but all I snapped was an empty clearing.  He was just too quick.

Nearer the car park I spotted these two Cape Barren geese & as we got closer, what did we see..........

A tiny gosling as well.  I didn't get too close & have cropped the photo so you can see it.

                                                     Right click to see it better.

A grouping of  trees with die-back, but after I took the photo I also noticed I'd captured some lovely wispy clouds behind them.  I do like getting a little surprise when you download photos.

As we drove back towards the bridge I noticed this tree carving sailing captain.  I should have got out to look at the plaque.  Very remiss of me..

The 2 boats were covered in birds which I thought amusing.

2.  Another drive just to get some photos I couldn't take when we had our little break in the caravan.

On the way  to Yarram we'd seen a couple things and nowhere to pull over with the van in tow, we knew it could be a drive sometime later.

Heading east on the Princes' Freeway you enter the LaTrobe Valley which is an area of coal mines and power stations.

A mining dredge & it's information board.  There is also a Power Museum, but closed at the moment due to Covid.  Although we've lived here in Victoria for 16 years now & pass this monstrosity on our travels, it's somewhere we've not been.

There was also this information board below & one day we may take one of these drives too.

                         We've explored a few of these areas at different times in the past, I think.

Off we went once again to find our next photo shoot, which I've been looking forward to putting on the blog.

An old timber shed painted with bookcases and their contents which I loved.  Sorry about the bins, as it must have been garbage day.😊

Across the road we have a set of manequins which I was surprised and bewildered to see out in farming country.  Evidently there are more than this, but they change them on a regular basis I've been told.  It certainly puts a smile on your face.

Heading back towards the highway, we took an alternative route and ended up trying to find Toms Cap Lookout & although we didn't quite get there, we ate lunch in the middle of nowhere.

WE pulled in here, looked at the road to the site and decided not to take the car up due to the condition of it.  We started to walk up instead but our feet were nearly vertical on the hill & it was killing our legs, so turned around, ate our lunch & took some happy snaps instead.

The hill, which I haven't done justice, as it was way steeper than it looks in the photo.

Our native Banksias in all their different stages of flowering on one tree.

                     Looking through the trees with bracken fern in abundance on the forest floor.

                                                              The ti-tree flower in closeup.

What an amazing sight..............I've know idea why this tree has grown like this & wasn't even sure what it was, though maybe one of our gums by the look of the leaves.

One last photo & it is one of my silly ideas.  I quite often throw a few quilts in the car to get "hero shots in the wild".  Most of the time I forget to take photos or it is too windy, wet or just nowhere to place them.  That day I took at least one..............

Jacob's Medallion over a Banksia branch.

Well, just for once I've kept my word by posting when I said and being able to catch up on our day trips in the middle of all this mayhem.

My camera has certainly been a constant companion through this and hopefully we are coming out the other side now, with certain restrictions lifted here in Victoria and being able to travel freely now throughout the state including Melbourne as they have lifted the "ring of steel", as they called it.

I'm so hoping that we can all keep doing the right thing & be able to live a somewhat normal life in the future.  At least we'll be able to see DD and family soon & hopefully our boys & families next year.

Take care all, stay safe & huggles from down under.

Susan.