WHAT IF?

WHAT IF?
One Saturday, just gone by, we needed milk and to post two birthday cards, so chortled off down town.  After said chores, I decided with camera in car, to get some photos of cute alpacas in a paddock, just out of town.

Very cute aren't they & inquisitive.

Needing to then turn around, we carried on & noticed a road on our right, which we'd never explored & carried on down to a T-intersection where this view greeted us straight ahead.

Gorgeous.

Then we had the "WHAT IF" moment.
Would we turn left or right.  Well, we decided left & went on one of our adventures, going through the Strzelecki Ranges to Mirboo North where we had coffee & went to an over-stuffed plant nursery.
I bought a pretty coral coloured daisy & a mauve scabiosa, which have now been planted.  I'll show some of our garden on another post next month.  Very behind on my blogging.
Through the ranges, there are both pine & native tree species plantations.  Just a quick look at what we saw.

Plantations, old, new & logged.

The steepness of this area.  How they manage to plant & the log it, is beyond me.

Stringy bark gums.

A patch of blue nearer farming country.  What is it you say?

Forget-me-nots gone wild.

On the way home, I quickly snapped this farm dam, sitting high on a flat area of hillside with views beyond.

Dam with views.

OK, I was going to do another one of our days out, but have just run out of time, with lots to do this afternoon.  The next one was "a spur of the moment" or " we keep saying we'll do this", so off we went & did it. 
As it is hump-day, I suppose I'll wish all a good end to the week & see you Friday with the Photo Scavenger Hunt.
That's all folks, take care,
Susan.

ADVENTURES............PART 3.

Travelling Home.
Monday morning saw us setting off for our journey home.  We'd already decided to use back roads to complete our time without caravan in tow.  Our trusty thermos was filled with hot water, sarnies made & off we went.
First stop was beside the Cotter River on the outskirts of Canberra, where we had morning tea.

Cotter River downstream of the dam.

Onto some very dusty road through the Brindabella Ranges.

Another creek crossing.

We drove down through Tumut (shown in Part 1 post), had our lunch, then travelled up through Batlow, Tumbarumba & down towards Jingellic on the Murray River.
Not far outside the town of Tumbarumba, we pulled into a side road for me to take these photos.......

but, another car pulled alongside & asked what we were doing.  Ooh, looked like an officer of the law.  Right, we'd pulled up at the gates to a Correctional Facility & were told we could take better photos a little further along the road.  Isn't this (above) the most amazing landscape & what lovely views for the aforementioned inmates.
Nearing the border between N.S.W. & Victoria we passed over this bridge on the Murray River.

Travelling & taking photos isn't always easy & although I try hard, I sometimes take them from the windscreen & have to edit out the bug splats, which I've not done on the pic below, just to show what it does look like at times.

Soon we were passing the backwaters of Lake Hume, an enormous water storage on the Murray River outside Albury, where we were booked to stay the night.

Back water of dam.

Dam wall.

Behind the large gum is another tree?  No, it is a small tree smothered in a creeper.  Quite amazing.

Next morning, for the last day, it began on freeway to Wangaratta, where we turned off to again come via back roads.  We stopped in Whitfield, a small village, to have our morning cuppa & was actually able to have a latte made on "proper" lactose free milk (not soy), as some will try to give you.

The shelter at the picnic area where we had our cup of coffee.

  Travelling further, we finally reached Mansfield where we bought some sandwiches, as it was the last town we would go through for a while and ate them at a picnic area beside a river, one of many which run into Lake Eildon.  The countryside in the area is beautiful at this time of year.

I walked back along the road a bit & took this with my smallest lens to capture the bridge where we ate lunch & the views we enjoyed.

A change lens, & I could zoom in on this shed.

The lushness of Spring, before it browns off,  if we have a very hot  dry summer.

This windmill was clanking away merrily in the breeze.

Tummies full, we headed off on the last leg towards our area of West Gippsland.

A sign you don't see very often here in Oz.
Most are for kangaroos, wombats, koalas & emus.

Stopped by this river for a few minutes.

Notice the size of our car  compared to the trees.

How far we climbed into the ranges, though this wasn't the highest on the entire trip.

Our next photo stop (the last), was at Woods Point, a small town which once had the second richest gold mine in Victoria & in its heyday boasted 36 pubs, 3 banks, Hospital, a school with 300 pupils, a cordial factory, 2 breweries, 2 libraries, 3 churches, its own Mayor & town crier.  It even had 5 suburbs, but not much left now.  We must take time to come back & explore more here.
This photo (below) is supposed to be the most photographed petrol station in Australia.  Much of this information was in a brochure we actually found in the Morris yesterday, whilst looking for something else.  It prompted me to get this Part 3 done!!!!

OK, we finally made it home after one final stop at Noojee for afternoon tea.
Sorry this has been so photo heavy (there were lots more), and hope I haven't bored you to tears, but I needed to get it done.  We've had a few day trips over the last week and I want to post about those before the Scavenger Hunt & Finishing Stitches which I participate in with 2 friends at the end of the month.
Uhm!!! No, I'm not done yet as I have a couple of artistic shots or as I'm not in the least artistic, should I say "funky" shots.  Sometimes I like pointing the camera in weird ways, whether it be upwards or on hands & knees, trying out strange angles or odd subjects & securing something a little different.  Well, just being me in other words.

Take care all and huggles from Susan.

ADVENTURES -- PART TWO.

CAPITAL DAYS.

Day 1 in Canberra was just a chillout day with the grandchildren who weren't sure what they wanted to do after a few of our suggestions.
Day 2 they suggested we go to the War Memorial in the morning & off we went.  I didn't want to take my big camera & for the life of me couldn't find my pocket one, so now photos taken whilst there.
After lunch we headed up to Mount Ainslie lookout, where with big camera took some photos looking down on our National Capital.

Looking across Lake Burley Griffin, which when I first visited Canberra in the late 50's was only just being excavated.
To the very right of the photo is the carillon placed on a small island.

Now we are looking further to the right again & you can see the water jet about centre of photo & some of the business district.

Again, panning right and more of the CBD with hills and mountains in the background.

On Saturday we helped DS2 in the garden with some mowing, pruning and weeding, which he' d got behind on over winter, which is very cold there.

Sunday saw us head out to Floriade, which is an annual event to herald in Spring.

Although I was told I'd been before, I couldn't remember exactly when , so I enjoyed the spectacular flower displays.

It was very hard taking photos, because of the crowds (I don't like crowds), and just as you were about to snap, somebody would pass by or stand in front of you, which was so annoying .  I deleted many photos, but here are a couple. 

The displays were breathtaking, but notice all those people in the background.

                                          The above two are just some more of the displays.

There were quite a few sculptural items dotted around & although I took quite a few, one in particular will come in handy for my next Photo Hunt, but here are two to for you now.

Two rather bulbous looking trees.  Notice that rather intrusive "bottom".  This man managed to put himself into every photo I took, so I gave up in the end and moved on.
Sorry about that, but I loved these 2 timber pieces.

A huge lotus floating on the water.

I love taking closeup photos of flowers, so I'll just pop one below, as a final picture.  Aren't they                                                                                      colourful

Enough for today and my last installment will be over the weekend, when I tell about the wonderful journey home.

Till then, take care.

Susan.

ADVENTURES -- PART ONE.

On Tuesday morning (26th Sept), we headed from home towards Canberra, to help with child minding during the school holidays.  As we were not taking the caravan, we decided to take some back roads as a change to travelling up the Hume Freeway.
Off through the Yarra Ranges and Valley & into Albury on the Murray River, which is the state border between Victoria and New South Wales.  Here we stayed the night & headed off next morning, hubby having made a plan to turn off the freeway & up the Snowy Mountains Highway over the Alps to Canberra.  We'd not travelled this road for many years.  First we made for Adelong, then onto Tumut, an area we knew well having lived in Batlow for about 6 1/2 years back in the early eighties.

The freeway heading out of Albury.

Fields of Canola dotted the countryside. (rapeseed in UK).

The "new" to us bridge over Adelong Creek with the pub in the background.

Hills in the distance between Adelong & Tumut.

Once we arrived in Tumut, we stopped for a cup of tea & amenities at the old railway station.  The trains no longer run in this area, but they have preserved some of the interesting pieces from days of steam travel.

    The station buildings and platform, now form part of an information centre, which wasn't open on this day.

If you click on this you can read some of the info, which is part of the interesting snippets about the days of steam.

Part of where those foot warmers were placed to be heated.

From Tumut we travelled up into the mountains, where we passed Blowering Dam, somewhere we picnicked when the children were young, though over the other side to where I took these photos.

Blowering Dam with forested hills in the background.

As we climbed higher, we stopped at Perry's Lookout, where I snapped a couple of photos.

Mountains as far as the eye can see.

Leaving the lookout, we passed through this type of scenery till we were even higher still and above the tree line.

Not many trees up here, but we do have a sign for brumbies, which we never see, but.................

today we were in luck.  Not the best photo due to roadworks we were passing through at the time & couldn't stop,.
There were actually 3 of them & beautiful they were too.

An old deserted hut in the distance.

Still a little snow laying around.  It was on the side of the road too, but our windscreen was so bug splatted, those photos aren't fit to post.

Finally we came to Adaminaby where we had the most amazing salad sandwiches, loaded with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, beetroot, cheese & sprouts & for K, ham too.  This small town in the mountains is the stopping off point for cross country skiers & trout fishing on Lake Eucumbene, which was formed as part of the Snowy Mountains scheme to generate hydro-electricity & irragation.

The Big Trout.
We do have many "BIG" things here in Oz.
I've seen quite a few in times past & should find some old photos & do a post of them.

A snow plough on the right, to clear roads in winter & the sign for the Snowy Mountains Scheme Museum, somewhere we should think about visiting some day.

I didn't take anymore photos till after we reached Canberra, so that post will come during the week & one to follow later about our trip home, which was even more adventurous than this. 
Hope you have enjoyed coming along & although this is supposed to be a -quilting- blog, it is a diary of our life too, which has changed substantially since hubby gave up work & we are now officially retirees.
Enjoy the week all and take care.
Susan.