Nimbin

Just to fill you in on the Nimbin visit. We spoke to someone who had been to Nimbin in 1976, same year as hubby visited and this guy decided to come back and live there. He now has a organic grocery store.

It is not a very big place but tourists still flock to it and we could see tourists from many different countries.  I guess it is due to the fact that it seems like any other little country town, with a post office and police station and a school, nothing  shocking really but it still has this little "forbidden" air to it. It's a step back in time and very laid back, maybe for obvious reasons.

Here is the big joint that I promised last time I wrote. This is hanging in the Hemp Embassy and you can buy all sorts of other paraphernalia there related to marijuana. For example a hemp coffin, which is much cheaper than ordinary coffins and biodegradable. You can also buy hemp undies and hats etc, all byproducts of the hemp.

As you can see the work ethics are pretty relaxed

We also drove up to the rainforest (in the rain) and it is very beautiful. Unfortunately it rained pretty heavily when  we were up there so no photos I am afraid.

The next day we went to Byron Bay, which was really nice. We also visited the national park with the most eastern point in Australia.

Then we had a swim in this beautiful bay with clean, clear water and gentle waves, heaven!!!

Big things

Well, I have now seen four big things to add to my list. First was the Big Axe. It was in an area where they had had a lot of timber cutting in the old days.

 Then we saw the Big Banana in Coffs Harbor, which was the first "Big thing" ever constructed. Hubby had a little brain freeze there since he wanted to have a chocolate covered banana and didn't realize they were frozen. He thought it was a normal banana with chocolate and nuts on it, hehe!!

 We also saw the big Prawn here in Ballina where we have been staying for a few days. The poor thing looked pretty sick and a lady I talked to said that it looked nothing compared to what she remembered from when she was young. Then it was pinky orange and there were coffe shops and playgrounds around it. Now it was quite sad really. Let's hope they do something in the future!
The final one was on the way home driving through Tamworth where we saw the Big Golden Guitar, since it is the Australian hometown of country music and they have a festival there every year.

We have also been to Nimbin the marijuana capital of this fine nation and that was great fun but I'll have to get the photos from hubby.  There was a hemp embassy and other interesting things.  Here is one to keep you going.
Oh, there was one big thing there as well. The big spliff but you have to stand by to see that, since it is on hubby's camera.

It's time to have a little sleep and wake up and go to Tamworth tomorrow. And then home since sister in law and brother in law are arriving, and we don't want to miss that.

...on the road again...

Ok, almost ready to set off, just waiting for hubby as usual doing his last minute fiddling and organizing. He really works after the old slogan "No press, no production". He seems to be more effective in the 15 minutes before we finally leave than the whole weekend before hand. I am used to it now but there were times when ... let's not  say to much here but ....our national traits were very obvious. With Germanic dislike for tardiness I would fret like mad about being late  while hubby with his usual fluid notion of time would go about his business. Then we would finally leave twenty minutes late, but assured that the doors and windows were locked and nothing electrical was left on etc.
But planes and ferries and trains wait for no one, or do they?

When we were due to get married and I was still in Sweden, hubby was supposed to come over from Edinburgh via Newcastle then by ferry to Sweden for the wedding.  He got to the station not-so-bright, but very early to find that the trains were cancelled due to a tunnel cave-in, and was sent off to the bus station.  There was a bus, but it would not arrive in Newcastle until around noon, for a 12:30 ferry departure.  He took it anyway, fretted half an hour away at the intermediate stop in Peebles unsuccessfully willing the driver to get going again, and arrived at Newcastle exactly at noon.  He jumped into a taxi, and asked the driver to step on it, to be told something like 'More than my job's worth, guv' in Geordie equivalent.  True to form he arrived at the North Sheild's ferry port just on 12:30, and ran into the ferry terminal prepared for the worst.  The ferry staff were very kind when they heard he was getting married though, and the ticket agent ran alongside him checking his ticket and passport while another called ahead to lower the gang-way again.  He made it, and here we are still together, almost on time, 33 years later.

Hi again

Now we are in Coffs Harbour after having driven through a mild drizzly rain almost the whole time. There were a few highlights and I hope the photos came out ok.  They might not since it has been a very grey day.
For example we tried to get to The pub with no beer  but we never found it and had we found it  we would not been able to have a beer, so it was really a double negative. No actually we googled it when we got back to the hotel and it seems to have all that is necessary for a pub and it was made famous by this folksong.

White Christmas.....not....

Hubby had a little end-of-the-year party for work with a dinner cruise on the Port Hacking river Friday night. I really didn't want to go at first. The combination of dining and being on the river on a boat that you couldn't get off,  was very unappealing. I agreed to go eventually, but I had taken my precautions. I had cash, and if it looked like it was going to be windy when we set off, I would just go to the Yacht Club and party with whoever was there and meet up with hubby afterwards. As it happened it was dead calm and great, very beautiful in fact and not at all windy. I was in great company at my table and made new friends.

So tomorrow it is going to be Christmas with no snow, but there will be white wine.... and a barbecue either on the beach or on the terrace, and then we are off on another trip. I'll tell you more about it later on.

I have been a bit slack in writing lately but it has been mainly because of the horrible shootings in the US, and other horrible things happening. There are still so many people out there, mainly in the US, who are very positive to the right of every citizen to carry guns. Some even say that teachers should be allowed to have guns.  When I play Scrabble on line, mainly with US players, I can follow the discussions going on, and many people would never give up their right to own a gun to "protect" their families. So what about the over 30,000 people who die from gunshot wounds in the US  every year! Something has to change!

Have you seen the little cute Oreo cookies that seem to tell us that it is ok, it is not the end of the world,  keep dunking!!!

I'm on a roll here

Yes, I have to write it down before I forget the details. That's the problem with aging isn't it, things and happenings run into one another so I strongly recommend blogging or other forms of keeping track and it's fun too. I remember my father-in-law, when he visited us in France and we went on some trips together, he always noted down places and things they'd seen at the end of the day. I am ashamed to say that there were a few times when we got a little impatient with this, since we wanted to do other things, but now having reached the age that he was then, I fully understand him doing this. You know when you've been on holidays and you look at your photos and can't remember where or when something was taken, well he wrote down where he took photos, which was lucky because he took many photos of churches and after a while they all start looking the same.

Anyhow, when I went up to the Barossa Valley this man in the tourist office told me to go and see the Whispering Wall which was supposed to be well worth it. It was a little bit out of the way but I went anyway. What it is is a dam, and the material of the wall makes sound travel very far. So when you stand at one end, you hear perfectly well another person whispering even at the other end, a hundred meters away. Very weird!

Driving home yesterday hubby became my hero for the day. He spotted a small herd of about 30 sheep that had escaped out on the road, and there was even one who was down with his/her foot caught in the barb-wire fence. When hubby approached, the poor sheep got so panicky that he/she managed to get lose by him/herself. But hubby had been ready to get in there and lift him/her down had it been necessary and that was very brave in my book. You see, they are bigger than you think when you come close up to them.  Those who know me, know that I have a healthy respect, read fear, of animals. We were very low on petrol at this point but decided that we had to drive to a farm and notify someone. So we drove into the first one we saw and told a young girl there. She said that it sounded like it was their sheep but she wasn't too surprised so it probably happens quite often. So all was well and we made it to the next town to fill up on petrol.


When I say town, it can be a small place with a population of 60 and you almost miss it driving through. The petrol station can be a pump in someone's front yard. It's pretty empty out there.

Miles and miles of emptiness or wheat fields. Fortunately we had something to visit now and again, and this time it was the Big Olive.

Almost home

We are driving back from Adelaide and having a last night staying in Hay at the Bidgee Motor Inn. In fact we are just back from the local pub and a gianormous meal. No one told us that a dish for one person here could actually feed four road-train drivers. Hubby can never leave food and has been know to eat up everything uneaten on the kids' plates in the past,  but this time he had to cede to defeat and leave half of his portion. I had given up ages ago,  I guess we are not farmworkers needing our 8.000 calories per meal like the rest of the clients in the pub.

Anyhow we have had a great time on this trip, and I really like Adelaide.  Before we left Sydney some people poo-pooed it for various reasons, but I really like it. It was small enough to find your way around and big enough to have a lot going on.

I have been to museums and to the Barossa Valley and also to a very German town called Hahndorf. I have also been to the art museum and the opal museum and some other ones as well. Here is one of the pieces of art that was chosen as a favorite in the art gallery, when the public was asked to pick the ones they wanted to be exposed. I think it symbolized early motherhood!

In Hahndorf it was all very German and the reason was that many Germans settled there when they came from Europe in the early 1800 due to religious persecution back home. The restaurants and the pubs are filled with German food. I had a bratwurst und kartoffel salat,  yum, sehr gut!!

I have much more to tell but it is bed time so let me leave you with this little saying that I saw in one of the wineries that I visited, and where, by the way, they sold chocolate wine.

Fruit Galore

We are such idiots! We really should know better by now!  I am referring to the fact that every time before we travel I look around the kitchen and decide to pack up all the left-over fruit that we could snack on on the trip. Usually it gets packed away in the back of the car so we can't reach it and it doesn't get eaten. So what happens then is you get to the border to another state, in this case Victoria,  and you see this sign.

So "waste not, want not" and all that, we set about eating the two bananas, four tomatoes, punnet of strawberries, but had to finally throw the cherries away. This incident happened in a small place called Galore hence the title of this blog.

Now you think we should have gotten the message by now, but no, the next day driving through beautiful citrus-fruit orchards near Mildura and also seeing THE BIG ORANGE, we got tempted into buying a large bag of oranges. And yet again another state border to cross, this time into South Australia. So just before entering we had to stop and gorge ourselves on oranges. We even lured some Swiss tourists into having two each as well. It was very lucky we did because at the border our car was searched for fruit so they clearly take this very seriously.

I met these two cute girls sitting on the river bank of the Murray in Mildura. I had just read that a young boy had been eaten by a crocodile somewhere in Australia, and I innocently asked the girls if there were crocodiles in this river. They giggled upproariously and shook their heads, no. I guess it was a stupid question, especially since later I saw groups of families swimming in the river. I still worry about the sharks and the spiders and the snakes and the crocodiles and the jellyfish, I can't help it.

Hunter Valley

Greetings all!

We have been to the Hunter Valley and had a lovely time. We stayed in the Leisure Inn in Pokolbin in a little cottage near the conference center and it was very comfortable and had access to a pool etc.
On the way up there hubby had to stretch and did so by hanging from a tree but they were just not high enough and he almost broke the branch.

We did see kangaroos and a dead wombat, but as usual, no koalas. Sometimes you wonder if they really exist. We took a scenic gravel road for about 40 km and it was very scenic even though it does shake you up a bit.

Here are some mailboxes that we saw on the way. They were out on the road and the houses nowhere to be seen. I guess you don't just toddle off in your dressing gown and slippers to get the paper in the morning when you live out in the Australian bush.

So while hubby went to a conference which was in honor of an eminent Australian scientist, yours truly visited wineries, galleries, cheese factories, and chocolate factories, all very enjoyable.

One of my favorite wineries was Petersons Wines, but there were so many others, I almost feel bad just mentioning one. The conference dinner was held at the Hope winery and they had a very interesting tour of the facilities with tasting and delicious nibbles before dinner.

One of the artists I really liked was Peter Sesselman.  His style is very vibrant and you can see a little Edward Munch influence which is not surprising since both are of Norwegian origin.

On my last day I also saw "the biggest kangaroo filled with candy in the Southern hemisphere"??!! What will they come up with next?

Very big boat!

This boat is anchored at Circular Quay and is very, very big; I think I counted 10 stories.  It is called Voyager of the Sea. If you click on the link you can see more about the facilities on board. Still, I would not like to go on a cruise, in fact I couldn't think of anything worse. Cooped up at sea, with people you are not sure to like and no way of getting off when you want. And the possibility of seasickness....I have rarely been on a ship without being seasick. It could be that the ships I have mostly been on have travelled on the North Sea or the Atlantic and maybe it is different in the Pacific or the Mediterranean, but still.

One of the worst trips ever was when my sister and myself visited Faroe Islands. We went from Norway to Faro Islands with a ship called Smyril which I believe still runs. We had a wonderful shrimp feast on the boardwalk in Bergen before we set off.  Maybe that was part of the problem. When the sea started getting rough both of us became very, very seasick. You know, to the point where you almost want to throw yourself overboard. The trip lasted a very long time and we stumbled onto Faroe Island soil like zombies. It took us days to get over it. We were supposed to continue a few days later to Iceland but couldn't, so we stayed on and when the ship came back on its way to Scotland we ventured on board again with great trepidation but this time it was daytime and also not quite as rough.

I have more ship stories. There is the one about my whole class going deep-sea fishing, when I went to school in Florida and I was the only one who had to stay in a cabin with a bucket nearby.

Or the one when our first born was only six weeks old and we went from Sweden where he was born to Scotland where we lived, on a ferry.  Needless to say it got bad and I had to stay in my cabin for 24 hours and nurse and change a six-week-old baby.  It was not fun..... There are more but I'll stop now, it gets boring. Just wanted to prove my point, me and sea travel do not agree!

Here is a link to some remedies for seasickness and I noticed that steering the boat was one of them but I don't think they would let me steer the Voyager of the Sea anyway.

See ya'!

Skyping away

I had a little Skype morning today, with a girlfriend in France, and older daughter in Africa. I just love Skype!

Not much happening here right now.  I am spending a lot of time on the computer though. I am trying to finish the photo-memory book that I started when my mother lived with us. I made her sit down now and again and tell me things from her childhood and youth etc. and now I am putting it all together. I have found a company called Solentro which is quite easy to use. It is just that over the years that mum lived with us the book became quite long, so now I have to edit it, and it takes time. You can only have 100 pages and I have quite a few more than that, but editing is good. I repeat myself a lot, and since this has been an ongoing saga over several years, it needs cutting down a bit.

I had a meal out with my painting group again, the same place as last time but with more people. The oldest one was 93, and I think she had driven her car there!!!

This coming week end we are going to the Hunter Valley.  For non-Aussie readers, it is a wine region and we are staying in Pokolbin, in the heart of the wine region. I'll tell you more when we get back. Again hubby is going for work and I am going to play.

So long, dear readers!  Have to drag myself away and get some milk. Take care!

Sunday in Cronulla

We had a lazy morning at home but then we decided to have lunch in Cronulla. There is a great fish place there, nothing fancy but the best seafood ever. So after having a great dish each we wanted to go for a walk on the beach and loose some calories.

 I needed to "walk in" my new walking boots, so I had them on (soo uncomfortable!) but that was not the only reason we didn't really get very far. There was a fair on at the beach with music and dancing and vintage cars and wine tasting and a surf competition and other stands. We got caught up in all the fun and didn't get very far. To do the wine tasting, all you had to do was to buy an empty glass and five or more coupons and then you use them for the winetasting. One if you only want to taste a little, and two for a full glass.
Here is the group who played very danceable rock and roll, and as always, it was good fun to watch people who really know how to dance. One couple was down-right acrobatic, but I was so mesmerized that I forgot to take photos.
There were prizes given for the vintage cars as well, and I think this car got a prize, and if not he should have gotten one. It was a beaut! (Aussie expression again)

In the surf competition they had different age groups and this guy won the over-60's longboard prize. He wanted to give the lady handing out prizes a kiss but she wouldn't have it. 

Concerning the last picture of the lifeguard on the beach, is it just me or is he looking the wrong way? (I think the photo becomes bigger if you clic on it). 

Until next time, I am going to try to live by this little saying that I read somewhere recently: "The trick is to enjoy life.  Don't wish away your days waiting for better ones ahead!"  Sounds simple and doable, let's try it!

....Any color as long as it's black

This is a quote by the maker of the Ford automobile but it certainly doesn't apply to life in a brilliantly sunny country, like Australia.

I went window shopping with my sister-in-law on Sunday in Balmain, and the clothes are mostly made in brilliant colors, orange and turqoise and yellow and pink etc etc. It just makes you feel  happy and alive. When we first moved to France it was very clear that to be chic you had to wear black and be very understated; all else seemed tacky and a bit too bright. Since I never really succumbed to the "black trend" I am very happy to buy clothes in happy bright colors.

Speaking of window shopping, it is again that strange time of year. I mean seeing windows decorated for Christmas with snow and reindeer and sleighs while walking around in a sundress in +28°C, will I ever get used to it? 

We also had a nice lunch there at the Top Deck Cafe, where you could (with difficulty) see the Harbor Bridge, which was their claim to fame. Very good service though, and a fun waiter!

Before our visit to Balmain we went to the Rozelle Market which is on every Sunday. It is always fun to poke around. I was looking for an easel, but the one I found was not for sale. So that gives me a good reason to go again soon, right?

I have had a fun week with my sister-in-law and her son visiting for a week and my other brother-in-law for a few days. We did lots of painting which is very inspiring to do together with someone.

Yesterday after my painting class I went for a walk on the beach and saw all these kids having a picnic with school. They were all wearing sun hats, and if you didn't have it on you were told off. They take sun exposure seriously here in Australia. The teachers were all walking around making sure they had put on sunscreen as well.

Until next time, take care!

Days with family

We have had the pleasure of having family visiting for a few days and have had lots of fun. Yesterday was a trip to the Blue Mountains, always fun but quite a long drive.

Today was a picnic and a paddling competition on the river, en famille. While some of us went out in the paddling boats, built like tractors, two of us stayed back to look after our belongings and the food. Unfortunately, we were not vigilant  enough and came under attack by the cockatoos. They got away with a bag of bread rolls and a whole cheese before we scared them away, almost risking our lives because they got very aggressive. However, the contestants in the paddle boat competition did very well, only thing was that they had left their shoes at the picnic table and had to walk back barefoot, from the other side of the lake. Did I mention that here was a lot of duck poo everywhere!!

The evening finished off nicely with a prolonged game of charades with the three siblings in the family excelling. They must just have the same way of thinking.

Start of paddling competition

Imagine about twenty of these attacking your picnic table

Yours truly after a walk to a waterfall.

Candy shop in Leura

Snakes in the playground

As the title shows, we went to a park by a lake in Mittagong with a big playground for kids and had a picnic lunch before separating from our Melbourne friends with whom we had spent the weekend. A lady with a dog came up and warned us that there was a snake nearby and hubby had to go and take a photo and just as we left we also saw this:

Would you let your kids play in that playground?

So back to our weekend. There was a lot of eating a drinking and reminiscing and a lot of fun.We stayed in a self-catering cottage in Bundanoon which is close to vineyards. Hubby and myself had lunch in the Lambert Vineyards near Canberra before even getting there and then on Saturday we had dinner at the Exeter Studio. That was a real treat and I wholeheartedly recommend it. It really is a hidden gem!

Canberra's underbelly

Here we were, hubby and me at a local brasserie, no pretentions , but offering very good food. Suddenly there was a kerfuffle. Hubby with his mouth open staring at something behind me, and all of a sudden one of the chefs or maybe it was a waiter yelling at someone who ran out and he, the waiter ran after him.

It turned out that this person had come into the restaurant with a hood and a mask and brandishing a  hypodermic syringe, and wanted cash. The "he-man" waiter yelled at him and when he (the baddie)  tried to run off, he (the he-man waiter) ran after him yelling to the others to call the cops. The cops came very quickly and apprehended the villain and then came the tedious interviewing of all of us, the customers. I had not even taken my handbag to the restaurant since it was very close to the hotel, so I couldn't identify myself.  Sorry I also had not brought my camera but it is all true; it really happened.

This was not the first scary thing today. When I was walking back from the Australian War Memorial I came across a bikie who was laying in the street after having been hit by the car of a young girl. He really looked like he was dead and I was quite shaken up.To the point of dropping one of my favorite cardigans that I had been schlepping around all day, and not noticing it until I got back to the hotel.
However, the cop who interviewed us in the restaurant said the bikie was okay. So thank goodness for that, since I was convinced he was dead.

There was also my 250 dollar haircut!  I strolled out this morning, past a hairdresser and since I needed a cut and highlights, I stopped by. I got in there just after nine and got out just before two in the afternoon. It was a thorough job, every strand was cut seperately. The hairdresser was Korean. But 250 for highlights and a cut, is that normal? It did include cappuccinos and wine though so it was very pleasant.

Back to the War Memorial. I didn't even really want to go but thought that I should. Let me tell you I walked around and tears sprung to my eyes several  times. It covered all the wars and conflicts that Australia has been involved in and there was so much I didn't know. I guess in European schools you tended to learn more of what happened in Europe.  Anyway, if you are in Canberra I recommend that you take time for a visit.

Hundreds of soldiers back from the war

Australian War Memorial

Wall of small photos of the death March in Borneo where more than 1,700 Australians died

Aussie prisoner of war

Typical restrained handshake between father and son on returning
from the war