SA.

To blog, or not to blog. That has been a question on my lips over the last few days.

I decided to at least try to keep [begin again] doing it.
At least to keep some kind of loose record of what the flip we're actually doing with ourselves :)



So- we hit the road, jack.
After a MARVELOUS time in Melbourne, we decided that we better get going before we got stuck. H made many wonderful, friendly and intelligent friends, countless coffees and wrote a thousand impossible words a day of pure brilliance and fantasy, while I ate lots of bread, and read lots of books, and watched lots of movies and wrote a few songs.

We even took a few day trips to Wombat State Forest (didn't see any wombats) and Phillip Island (didn't see any penguins).




H being manly and clearing the road for The Haryana Express.

It was lovely to spend time with my sister, who's house we lived out of. And to get to know Johnno, who's books we read and music we listened to. It was sad to leave our little yarra-village… but better than looking back in 4 years and realising that we never finished our Aus Road Trip.

Really, we've barely started.



As you can see here. I was almost embarrassed to put this up… we have travelled, like, less than 1% of the country. But everything has a beginning, and this is ours.

I would love to tell you ALL about our time in Melbourne, but… I'll save that for face to face time with you. Until then, rest assured we had a great time, got to know great people, were a part of great things. All things great.

But now. Wow. Being back on the road is magical. I cannot begin to compare the difference between here and there. Nature verses City. Birds noises verses Trucks braking. Working verses Relaxing. Pollution verses Sea breeze. Really, you can just imagine. Go on, do it.


We left Melbourne on Wednesday morning, after: 2 work party's for H; a night of doing a Disney Princess Puzzle at Nel's and; leaving a Chalk note in the carport.

We left with BIG smiles on our faces.
Headed straight down to the Great Ocean Road and stopped everywhere to walk everywhere and gawk at beautiful coastline. We drove for hours along the coast, snuggling up next to km's of lush, green countryside on our right, beeping the car horn at the millions of sheep along the way.
The sun was shining, cardigans were left in the car and H even drove shirtless for a while!! Summer was in the air. (and we didn't take any digital photos, so I have no proof of this glorious day)

We had dinner overlooking the last of the breathtaking "great ocean road" and drove on towards an unknown Mountain Range in the distance.
When that Mountain Range turned out to be some angry looking clouds we decided to turn off at Warrnambool. We set up camp along side a little river that we almost drove into. It was dark, very cloudy, and someone decided to put the No Through Road sign IN LINE with where the road became covered in river (boat ramp). Clever chap. We weren't sure what this body of water was, but after sleeping for a sweet 12 hours we woke up to discover how beautiful a place it was.

Sneaky side note: I woke to the sound of a nervous looking woman dumping her recycling into the public rubbish bin… Really, everyone does that, right? I wanted to tell her to chill out and stop glancing around all sweaty and worried. But didn't want her to know I'd seen :)

From here we went on to watch whales laze around in the ocean and study birds flitting about in the wind.

The we put on the same clothes we wore the day before, Click Clacked, Front and Back, and drove on into the day.






Stopping at Port Fairy where all manner of fantasy creatures enter our Great South Land from the Mystical Islands Beyond.







Stopping at Mt Gambia, where their buildings look like Ginger Bread Houses, where we took photo's of a tree and looked at their breathtaking volcano lake.





We drove for hours past countless Wind Turbine Thingy's, through endless forests of Christmas Trees, right along the coast to Robe, a little Seaport town in SA.






Here we are staying for a night or two with a very new friend Lauren who is all generosity and knowledge and friendly bubbles. We met her in Melbourne one weekend and were dazzled. She is kindly letting us lounge in her house, sit by her fire, eat her marvellous meals and drink her lovely coffees.

She is a Coffee Roaster for http://www.mahaliacoffee.com.au/ and invited us to do a "cupping session" in their warehouse today. It's where you smell a whole bunch of different coffee grinds and muse on what aroma's you can find in each one. Then you make it up with hot water and smell them all again. Then you slurp a bit of each of them into your mouth (you've seriously got to SLURP) and spit it back out into a cup. All the while continually musing on what they smell and taste like.

It's probably much more detailed than that, with a lot of brains behind it, and very important to the coffee roasting trade. But for me… I found that all coffee currently smells the same… :)

Here we have explored the coastline a little, perused the shelves of their bookstore/cafe, crept into their old fashioned little church, made salad sandwiches and relaxed a little. WIth time enough to bore you with our recent travels…

And there's more...

Trifecta.

Has anyone else ever seen 3 movies in one day, at the cinema?

:)

I've recently been back on the Central Coast for a couple of weeks and had to make the heart wrenching decision to come back to Melbourne (and H, the biggest "pro" in my list of Pro's and Con's).

I really didn't want to leave, because "there's no place like home", legit.

There's no comfort like home,
there's no home like family,
and there's no family like the amazing group of people I know and love on the Coast.

That said, I missed H terribly and just had to come back.
To my job, to my man, to our van.

I arrived LATE Sunday night after the best day at church. Crocheted my little heart out on the train, plane, and waiting at the airport for the Haryana Express. Got some shut-eye and, after not enough sleep but lots of Gods grace, got up to work at 6 am the next day. Worked ALL day, (surprisingly I actually remembered what to do after a 2/3 week break) and had one of those evenings where you're wrecked and all you can do is sit and watch Offspring while your husband makes you dinner. Right?

Enter next day, both very excited to get to hang out together :)
And what do we do??!!!

See THREE movies!!! :P

I've always thought that movies are one of the most anti-social social events you can arrange.
Imagine wanting to spend time with someone - and then inviting them to sit in the dark next to you, enthralled in entertainment, ignoring you except to pass the popcorn, not talking, no communication... just watching :)
Real quality time :P

Well, that's what I thought.
BUT!!!
Somehow we had the greatest day together. Just spending time together, talking our heads off between films, feeling drama together, laughing together, searching for gold together, having tea and dessert together :)

It was magic.


Here is our very odd assortment of movie choices.

All great, in their own ways.
Just like you. And everyone you and I know.

<3

Belonging?

maybe people would be better defined by what they DO like...
rather than what they don't.

i've noticed this over the past few years.
maybe it's the times, or maybe it's my age group, but seriously;
can we stop advertising the things we "hate", and "dislike"?
maybe we could stop unifying over our annoyances and disappointments in the world?
i think this would at least make conversations a little more positive,
rather than full of negatives.

since when does a group of friends walk out of a movie and all unify in their "hatred" of this part and that line, of this character and that scene!?
instead of uniting in the things they DID like, and celebrating the parts they loved!?

i LOVE to LOVE.
for me, it's so much more enjoyable than "hating".
IN FACT, i "love" so much that one day i could possibly even love to hate.
who knows!?
:)

maybe i'd like to belong to a group that loves things, rather than hates things.

i'd prefer to know someone by the things they love.

that's all.




[is this me publishing a "dislikes"?]

Easter Sunday today.

Easter Sunday today.

A very meaningful day if you avoid Hallmark and believe in Jesus.

Otherwise, a very exciting day if you enjoy chocolate and have family generous enough to buy you the good brands.

Today, whilst H was at work and I was waiting for a song to "bounce", I ventured into the garden for a trip down memory lane.

H had told me, after some subtle brain picking, that he used to LOVE the candy coated Easter Eggs, you know, the ones like birds eggs? So I snuck off to find him some at the store that week (their definitely not as popular as the normal solid chocolate ones) and put them in a draw for safe keeping.

Today, just in time for hiding eggs around the living room, I had sudden memory pour into my skull of making birds nests in early primary school! We used to pick up this straw-like leafy business off the ground of the garden next to room B1. They were like long bits of flexible scarecrow hair. And we used to spend whole recess' and lunch-times collecting the best bits and molding them into birds nests.

So, my memory lane trip today involved me scouring the garden (80% cement) for anything dead that I could use to make a nest for H's candy eggs :)
I found some old, dried up roots that were floating on top of the garden bed, and lots of fallen twigs from a bush growing up the fence… and that was about it.


It all had an odd aroma of cat-pee-pee...

And I'm not nearly as skilled in the craft as the girls class "1/2 M" used to be.
Back in old '95

Here it is :)

Mom and Goldie, getting jiggy with it in the car.

Just some of the endless foolery that follows these two.
Enjoy.

A sow and some piglets...

Mom and friend Goldie took a little road trip down south to catch up with the Daughters. They arrived while we were out, and had to make them selves at home alone, and chose a weekend when the other daughter was away in the country. Ha.

Oh, but what a visit.
I joined our two guests on their drive from Melbourne to the 12 Apostles. And I, for one, think that their old name suited them much better. So, really, we drove for hours to see a big rock-Sow and her many little rock-piglets that were dispersed in no particular order around her.

It was breathtaking. God has created some absolute suffocaters.

Breath taking.

Incest.

So, there's that awkward moment when H introduces me to somebody as his wife and Nel (my sister) as his sister and then says that she and I are sisters (which we are)... Which sounds like we are all brothers and sisters, and that I may have just accidentally married my brother. Little bit gross!!

I mean, it's nice that H and my mom and sister have dropped the In-Law. It's all very inclusive and a sign of their love and acceptance of him. But I don't really go for coming across as a family of incest.

What to do, what to do?

:P