While Not Working

We drove down the highway at 110kph and what do you know, in no time at all we were in Melbourne!  I guess that's how highways work. The weather system which had spent the past week causing all sorts of havoc throughout South Australia was due to arrive in Melbourne at the same time as us.  Thankfully, the weather system was late and we made it to our Air BnB without meeting a drop of rain. We stayed in an old dairy. Our little building was built in 1925 to cool and store the milk in the Oakleigh Dairy. The brine cooler shook when in operation and thus needed to be on a concrete floor and in a brick building, thereby providing us with somewhere to stay 100+ years later. The sloping floor was a reminder of the time when the dairy needed to be hosed out to keep it clean, and made for an interesting adjustment when sitting at the table or on the couch. Adjacent to the dairy were the old stables where the horses lived when they weren't delivering the milk and where we could ha...

Driving down the highway at 110kph does not make for an exciting day.  Yes, there are moments of excitement generated by too many trucks crammed into too little road, but those (thankfully) were few and far between and most of the time we just drove down the highway.   Being a solid 400km from the coast, we had not factored submarines into our plans. Lo and behold, a submarine!  So we stopped and took a look.  The truly entertaining story of how the HMAS Otway came to berth in Holbrook can be found here.   Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the periscope and fully explore the intricacies of the submarine museum, so Holbrook and the HMAS Otway have been placed on our ever-growing list of Things to Come Back  To. By 5pm we only had a kilometre of New South Wales left and that wasn't going to take long to cover at 110kph, so rather than carry on right into Victoria we decided to spend a night with the Knights at the Albury Manor. I met my old friend fr...

Lane Cove Caravan Park hasn't gotten any busier since we were here last, back in December.  Not we were complaining, mind, because after the little flat in Newtown it was a great pleasure to loll around in an air-conditioned cabin, looking out at the trees and doing a spot of work here and there. We had lots of visitors. The kind of visitors from whom you have to protect your breakfast. And your lunch. And your snacks. On Monday evening we went  for a walk in the National Park with our son, past the Fairyland Pleasure Ground s. Sadly,  one can no longer  test one's strength on the strength-testing machines, pay a penny  to watch a silent film, or ride the razzle-dazzle to  wherever the razzle-dazzle goes.  Bought by National Parks  in the '70s, the Pleasure Grounds have gradually reverted back to bushland with a strong complement of mosquitoes and the odd relic here and there.  An occasional reminder of the Pleasure Ground rides.   We qu...

I sat at the computer at the kitchen table, attending to the boring business of maintaining life on the road. Roger wandered out into the kitchen, fresh from his afternoon Nana nap. "How about I get you some nice things?" He said as he opened the fridge.  "I haven't gotten any nice things for you lately." Touched, I turned from my computer to see what nice things he had in store for me. He was talking to the cat. I think it's time we left this house sit.  George has become all together too attached to Roger and, deny it as he does,  I think the affection is reciprocated. We cleaned the house and did the laundry and decamped to Lane Cove National Park where I get to work while Roger comes back tomorrow, to make sure everything is shipshape and check for anything we've forgotten. That's what he tells me he's going to do anyway.  I suspect he's just coming back to bid George a fond farewell and share one more Nana nap with the cat. Off we go the...

 Not many people get the opportunity to live in a heritage-listed cottage with a heritage-listed sewer vent as an integral part of the front fence.  Only two of these sewage vent/cottage combos were ever built, so there's a real estate opportunity not be be missed in  Corunna Road, Marrickville, Sydney.  After all, who doesn't want to live in a cottage with their very own 25m high sewage vent as part of the front fence?  Not to mention that said sewer vent is strapped together with metal bands to prevent it from falling down as it's over 100 years old and is getting tired of standing up. Having (not) always wanted to live in a house with it's very own sewage vent, we just had to go have a little look-see.   Views from the front room are one of a kind. Some preservation is  needed. After appreciating the sewer vent for longer than was probably necessary we were in the mood for more old infrastructure, so off we hiked to have a stickybeak at the Pe...

Our time in Sydney is drawing to a close. On Tuesday George's owner comes home and we tootle off to a cabin for two days so I can deal with pesky work. After that we're off down to Melbourne where two little dogs and a cat await our care while their owners are away. Oh, and I expect our daughter will visit once or twice too, seeing as we'll be just around the corner from her and she loves little dogs. I had high hopes of climbing Mt Kosciuszko on our way from Sydney to Melbourne but alas, due to the need to get to Melbourne to meet the next sit's owners in real life,  that epic adventure will have to wait for another day.   We're spending our last days in Sydney doing the most important stuff: spending time with the family.  Tonight our son and daughter in law came for dinner, and a very good time was had by all. They even gave us tips on how to order from the scary Chinese grandmother who runs the best dumpling shop in King St. They asked after George. "You wo...

At the moment we live under the flight path for Sydney Airport. Roger follows the planes on FlightRadar. At random intervals throughout the day he leaps to his feet. "Quick!" he yells.  "An A380 is coming!" And we run out into the street to watch it roar overhead on its final approach to the runway. A380 incoming. He frets over the A380 that spends a couple of days doing lazy laps over Sydney, landing and taking off.  "Do they know how much it costs to run that thing?"  he asks.   We have to gratify his urge to spot planes, and it dovetails neatly with my urge to photograph things.  Thus it was that on a warm and humid Saturday afternoon we pedaled back along the Cooks River and crossed the bridge to "The Beach", which is where fishermen/swimmers/kitesurfers go to spot planes and plane spotters go to fish/swim/kitesurf. Along the way we discovered how the golf balls at the driving range are retrieved. Golfers would be far too responsible to ever ...

 We had an exciting morning. We were carrying our grocery shopping home through Marrickville Park early in the morning when we heard a zzzip! behind us, and turned in time to see a bicycle and rider tumble head over turkey onto the paving stones. "Are you alright?" we asked the woman who winced and groaned underneath the bike. We relieved her of the bike and she climbed gingerly to her feet.  "I'm OK!" she said. She didn't look OK. By now a man, a woman, and a dog had joined us. "Where are you going?" we said.  "Can we help you get there?" "I've go to go to an appointment.  But I'll have to go home and clean up first."  She had landed in the mud that was to blame for her fall in the first place.  Her pedal took a bite out of her leg, and she was bleeding.  Between us four we managed to find one tissue to sop it up.  The dog did not contribute. It transpired that home was a 15 minute walk away and the man ran off to get h...

 A couple of days ago we decided it was time to explore the downstream half of the Cooks River.  We waited until the UV had reduced to sensible levels, hopped on our bikes, and off we went. And very nice it was, too. One of the best things about riding a bicycle is that even in really big cities, the bikeways follow the rivers and the railway lines and it's possible to pretend that you're pedaling in the country when really, you're not.  We pedaled along an old railway line where serious signs threatened dire consequences if we left the path. Roger survived, but barely. We pedaled along deserted railway corridors, and beside swampland with twittering birds and a background symphony of frogs (the first frogs I've heard in Sydney, by the way). The Cooks River turned suddenly from swampland to an actual river, complete with lots of boats of all kinds, and then we were very surprised to find a farm,which was not what we expected to find in Sydney but was very nice all the s...