Port Lincoln = Makybe Diva

Port Lincoln, I love this town and this is going to be my seachange one day and hopefully that is not too far away. Everything is so green and it rains regularly, which I could learn to live with.

The people there are also very friendly and tend to come from everywhere in South Australia to retire or enjoy the different lifestyle. Port Lincoln is the home of tuna fishing or fishing in general and the town where Australian Olympic Weight lifter Dean Lukin comes from. There is a deep sea port for when grain ships come in to get their load for overseas export. There is a large lot of grain silos for the storage as well.

Below is the newly erected statue of the famous Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva. This fabulous horse won this prestigious cup 3 years running. She is now retired. Her owners live in Port Lincoln. The statue is positioned on the front foreshore for all to see.

Our friends Bill and Cindy were kind enough to take us out in their boat for look around the Marina and surrounding area and to do some fishing. The weather was a bit cold but this didn't deter us.

Jack helping to cast off.

This is a view of some of the houses heading into the Marina.

Picture of a nearby island, I think it is called Boston Island.

Some boats moored in the Marina.

Some of the housing around the Marina. Some of these are really nice.

This bridge opens upwards to let yachts through.

The grain silos near the Port Lincoln jetty.

Rainbow if you look hard above the silos. We were a fraction too late getting this photo as the rainbow was really bright while we were driving along, but by the time we pulled over to get a photo it had faded.

School holidays have finshed for another term, so back to routine tomorrow.

Hope your weekend was an enjoyable one.

Tania

Penong and on to Fowlers Bay

Heading west toward the whales is the little agricultural town of Penong, known for it's windmills and nearby popular surfing place Cactus Beach. This is grain and sheep country and the people that live here are so friendly and community minded.



How's this for windmills?? There used to be a lot more when I lived in the district but a lot of them have been pulled down. This is one group of wind mills just on the outskirts of town.

If you are keen on fishing this is the place to go. Fowler's Bay and nearby Scotts Beach is very popular for fishing, you can walk over the sandhills from Fowlers Bay to Scotts Bay, or go by 4 wheel drive if you are not enthused about walking over hills carrying all your fishing gear.

Below is the view of the bay from surrounding sandhills. There were a couple of whales frollicking around here a few days before we got there.

Jack loved running all over the sandhills. He made friends as soon as we arrived with a young boy his age and they found a toboggan type thing that someone had made and left in the sandhills, so they had a bit of fun trying that out. It didn't work very good, no wonder it was left behind.

Soccer ball chasing was another fun thing to do, but not so easy was trying to stop running while going down hill, always did a tumble before reaching the bottom.

This picture is of the small settlement mainly for tourists now. Very busy at school holiday time especially January when they hold a New Years Day sports day.

We tried to catch some fish from the jetty but with no success, I think this area has been fished out by all the holiday makers.

As soon as we arrived in Fowler's Bay and were putting our camper trailer up, we had people from all walks of life and all areas of Australia come and chat with us. One man named Lou brought us a feed of fish. He had caught so many that day while out fishing in his boat that he was giving it away to everyone in the caravan park.

That night after having some dinner we were invited to a gathering around a bonfire, where plenty of yarns were told and plenty of wine was consumed to keep warm. Lou also treated us to some performances of the poetry that he writes and told us he has a book of his poems published.

We will certainly visit here again, next time staying longer. I miss all the friendly people from the West Coast.

We are off to Port Lincoln tomorrow for the rest of the week, still school holidays here. Will be back on the weekend to blog.

Tania

Remote Australia - Cook

Hello again. The computer is back up and running.

Cook is located on the Nullabor Plain along the railway line. If you ride the Indian Pacific train you will pass through this place. Total population 5 at the moment although many years ago it was a thriving little town of 80 to 100 people in it's hay day. There was a hospital, school with swimming pool, billiard hall, railway station, ice works, post office and general store. Now there is little remaining with only a few houses left. While we were there we stayed in one of the houses and had a much needed shower.

The people that live at Cook at the moment, clean the resthouse, sump water for the town and sump deisel for the locomotives as well as the generators that power the town. The water and deisel supply is brought in by train from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.


EH on this sign stands for Eyre Highway.




This is the place where my husband travels once or twice a week on the trains. Port Augusta to Cook is 822kms by rail, and takes between 12 and 15 hours to get there. He stays in a resthouse that contains a kitchen, showering and toilets area, snake pit with pool table (recreation room) and sleeping quarters.




Not much to do or see at Cook....Below is the very wide main street, watch out for cars, lol

Looking north, south, east and west this is what you see!..... the neverending treeless plain called the Nullarbor.

Just outside of Cook on the rough dirt road is a couple of blowholes....On really windy days you can feel the wind in the blowholes all the way from the ocean about 12okms away. On this particular day there was no wind.

Having a barbeque on the Cook road, no need to pull off the road as there is no traffic. We had a few crows hopping around eager for some scraps.

Found some wombat holes that were lived in. There are thousands of these out west.
You can see that bushfires went through here last year. These were started by lightening strikes.

If you look closely at this picture below (just click on picture to enlarge) there is a dingo... I just managed to capture him as he was running away. They are pretty quiet though. A lot of dingoes out here also.

The corner of the old dog fence....heading east and south. A new fence has been built to replace this old one. A dog fence is built to keep dingoes outside of the pastoral/agricultural areas of Australia, so they don't kill the livestock.

Back on the highway are these signs. We didn't see any camels, (Hubby sees quite a few camels when travelling in the train) we did see a few roadkill wombats but no kangaroos this time around.

See you soon,

Tania

Pause

Due to computer problems I am unable to blog for the time being. I think it has caught a virus and hubby is away this week (he is the one that can fix these things), so it will have to wait until he gets home. I am however getting plenty of housework, decluttering, sorting and cleaning done. Goes to show how much time I waste on the computer, when I should be doing other things!

See you soon,

Tania

Whales and the Great Australian Bight

After travelling nearly 2000km in four days we have arrived home safely. Luckily the weather was beautiful while we were away because it is now freezing. Today's temperature is 14 degrees Celcuis. We had a bit of rain overnight, 13.5mm (54points). Included in this was some hail.

I wish I had a decent camera to take photos of the whales. They looked brilliant in the binoculars, but my camera couldn't zoom in good enough to capture perfect photos. I have put my order in for a new camera for Christmas.

On the day we were at Nullarbor there were over a dozen whales on display, including a couple of calves with their mothers. We didn't see many tails and they were so hard to capture as it happened in a split second.

Below is a spout of water from one of the whales.

The whales were a distance away. To get the best pictures you would have to watch them all day.

Surrounding sandhills at Twin Rocks where some of the whales were. Twin rocks is the rock in the water pictured, although I think one of the two rocks has fallen down now.

The head of the Great Australian Bight...

Absolutely fantastic views.....

Phil and Jack taking in the view.....

Following the whales we drove to Cook on the railway line in the middle of the Nullabor somewhere. Will post some photos of this tomorrow.

Wishing you all a blessed, peaceful day.

Tania

Weekend happenings

The weather was dry and blustery outside so inside was the best place to be. Mind you the washing dried really well in the wind. I think winter has passed us by as it is real spring weather here in our neck of the woods. No rain in sight. Once again South Australia has recorded below average rain fall so far this year which is worrying especially for the farmers, who are in desperate need of a good year. The top soil continues to blow away every windy day cutting the new growth off before it has established itself.

This is what I was doing this weekend:

Making felt board activities for the daycare children. Although I am not caring for any dear children at the moment as I am on a break, I thought it was a good opportunity while I did have time to prepare things for when I do start up again. I am still catching up on the bookwork in preparation for tax time.


10 green bottles standing on the wall,
5 little ducks went out one day,

Down in the meadow, in a iddy biddy pool, lived 3 little fishies and a mumma fishie too!

We have oranges!! First crop on our tree. We planted this tree some years ago but our dog chasing something broke some of it off. There are five oranges and we have sampled one. They taste so much better than the bought ones.

Our mandarine tree is heavy with fruit and they are nearly ready to be picked. My daughter has put an order in for a mandarine cheesecake, she tried one while over in England.

I will be having a break from blogging this week as we are travelling west to have a look at some whales. Will be back soon with some photos, hopely of the whales. We actually had some whales visit our gulf last week but I missed them.

Have a great week,

Tania

School woes

A family photo taken Christmas day 2006. L-R Son in Law Jarrad holding grandson Blake, Third daughter Talia, Middle daughter Kyla, me (Tania), eldest daughter Sarah and Jack in the front.

This year has been a shocker as far as school for my youngest (son). He has been put into a class that he is not enjoying at all.

Last year he had serious trouble with a bully that was getting physical with him. We were forever ringing the school and trying to sort out the situation, but in the end I refused to send Jack to school until something was done. The education department got involved and then things got better.

That was until this year when Jack was hoping to get into his favourite teachers class, but sadly this didn't happen as the bully was put in there. This particular teacher loves athletics and sport as does my son. He takes his class out for physical education every day sometimes twice a day.

The teacher Jack has this year doesn't like sport or believe it is important. We had our parent teacher interview last night and she told us that sport was a privilege and not part of her cirriculum. We couldn't convince her otherwise. We have rang the principal this morning and he is going to have a chat with her about it. She said Jack was a very intelligent child and will go a long way if he applies himself.

This may seem trivial but it is very important to Jack. His behaviour has gone downhill and his personality is changing for the worst. He has become rebellious and backchatting something awful. He has always been a well mannered child but the teacher has complained that he is rude and disruptive to the rest of the class. This child is usually a shy, quiet child. This year has changed that. He is also giving the relief teachers a headache. He seems so angry and frustrated.

I admit it could be the age (he is 12)and maybe the other infuences at school. Maybe he is just becoming rebellious fullstop. I am going to have to figure out a way to deal with this. I would love to homeschool but husband won't agree to it.

Next year we have Jack enrolled at the local private school so hopefully things will improve.

We have tried to explain to him that in life he will come across people in authority that he will not like or agree with, but he still has to respect their position, it is the same now with his teacher and he still needs to respect her.

Wishing a great day to all,

Tania