Wednesday, December 24, 2014

I am constantly covered in bites! The old ones don't even disapear before a load of new ones show their ugly itchy faces!

Anyone form the Northern Hemisphere will tell you the same thing when they're in the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year, but I just can't get in the festive spirit, I mean yeah today is 24th and yeah I did get out of work early, and yeah we do have some pretty epic Christmas decorations up in our house! But Christmas isn't Christmas in the middle of the summer, when you ride home from work and it's 31°c outside, then head for a swim in an outside pool. I mean, I'm definitely not complaining, but I don't have the Christmas spirit right now. But I am definitely looking forward to having the next four days off from work!

So a little recap from the last few days. I'll start with the work stuff and get it out the way! As usual, not too much has been going on at work......Buuuuutt, we are now well ahead with the roll-out with our project of the new units for all the drivers working in public transport around South-East Queensland. I got on a bus the other day, and noticed that the driver was using his nice new equipment,,,,and when he breaks it (and he probably will) then I'll be seeing that unit again!

OK, work done..other stuff!

So for ages and ages (and I mean years) I have thought that Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary were the same place, and I have been to Daisy Hill, so I was in no real rush to go back, there's not too much there (it is a really nice area, having said that). But the other week, I was speaking to an American couple, who had visited Lone Pine earlier that day, and after speaking with them for a while I realised that I was thinking about a completely different place to what I was talking about, and it also turned out that I haven't been to Lone Pine before, although, I didn't say that to them, I just said that it must have changed after they were telling me that Lone Pine has loads of animals there. So how could we not go there, this sanctuary had every animal Australia:


Perentie






Sandra scarred all the wallabies away!




Magnificent name...


...And a not son magnificent name

Tasmanian devil

Dingos

Platypus, believe it or not!

"Goodbye"

Wombat



I spent the rest of that Sunday afternoon chilling round Rosie's gaff. We went over to her next door neighbours', and with Mitch on guitar, the 3 of us had a jam session, with both Rosie and I on separate drum kits...I've never jammed with another drummer, it was fun and challenging, and I wish I had the video to post up here!



It's been over 2 and a half years since Rosie and I did an outback adventure (it is never really "outback", but "back out of the city" adventure!), and this past weekend we finally got the opportunity to do it again. Typical us, we had no real plan or direction, so after Rosie picked me up on Saturday morning (late), and with a loaded car we decided to head north as we always head south. Within 10 minutes of leaving we stopped for Rosie to get her breakfast, and apparently that was a good time for her to lock her keys in her car. So we had to phone Tash and get her to bring the spare set of keys (but not without one guy trying to break into the car for us whilst we were waiting. I didn't really know whether to be grateful for his efforts, or worried "I used to be able to do this a lot quicker" he said, as he was trying to pull the lock open with a cable-tie from the outside in through the door). Anyway, 30 or so minutes later, with that issue sorted, we were back on the road. The rest of the trip was kinda all planned as we went along, we started off stopping in Noosa for a swim, lunch and chill.



We later headed from the coast a bit more inland to Mt Ninderry, for a short walk up to the top, before heading back down and setting up our tent on the waterfall. And when we realised that we didn't have any gas for our BBQ we did NOT make our own fire to cook our kangaroo burgers, and when we realised we didn't have any oil on us, we did NOT use my beer as an alternative oil. Dam they smelt so good whilst they were cooking.









We woke up on Sunday morning, chilled for a long while, before heading back to the coast and hiring out kayaks for the day, and whata gloriously suuny day it was. We ventured to islands, beaches, tracks through mangroves, we did NOT jump off any bridges.





Leaving Mt Ninderry on Sunday morning

And that pretty much brings us up to date. Like I said, I got to finish work at midday today, so Dandy and me caught up for a swim and an after swim margarita. And Jeff and I just got awesome burgeers from just outside Ipswich...The T-Rex burger was nothing short of awesome, Jeff did not lie!

It's just over half an hour till midnight here, and if I'm not asleep soon then Father Christmas won't show up here. Gonna chill here at home tomorrow morning, then head over to a couple of houses tomorrow to catch up with peeps. That's pretty much the plan for this whole weekend really. Then back to work on Monday for 2 days, before Sandra and I fly to Sydney early on Wednesday morning, aka New Year's Eve, where will be staying with James until Sunday 4th January. And that is that!

And I know that he won't want me to go on about it, but thoughts are with you Gramps (a regular reader must get a shout out). And good luck with getting your appendix out today Rosie, that one also came out of nowhere.

But on a much happier note, I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas tomorrow, and (assuming that I don't get on here before next Wednesday) a great start to 2015 next week....2014's already nearly over, crazy aint it! Thanks to all my readers over the last year, old and new, frequent and spontaneous. All the best for 2015, we will speak again then!

Oh, and as a Vegan, Sandra couldn't eat her Salt and Vinegar Pringles, but she could eat these!?!:



Sunday, December 7, 2014

Für Das Geburtstagskind!

This car wasn't "for the birthday girl" as the heading might suggest, I just wanted to carry on from my last post!
This is from the storms, the week before last! Damage is gonna take a while to clear up here in Brisbane, we still have a sellotape covered hole in our bathroom ceiling!


So it's official: Sandra is old now! On Wednesday Sandra turned 30, but prior to that I surprised her with a trip down to Surfers Paradise last weekend. Any Brisbane local would say (and have said) "uuuggghh, why would you take her there!?!" to that, and on many levels I agree with them. But it's a nice escape for a short while, plus when we were down there I surprised her again with "The Man in Black" tickets, which was a Johnny Cash tribute band/show at Jupiters Casino.

The Thursday before last I told Sandra that we were going away for the weekend, and that she would need to pack for the beach and a Saturday night out (not "out out" but for "kinda going out"). We left Brisbane late last Saturday morning via Greyhound coaches, and that's when she found out that our destination was to be Surfers Paradise....and when we arrived, this was our room for the night....







The view from the throne







Even though we were away form Sandra's birthday, it wasn't her birthday yet, so the first beer of the weekend was for Stavros' Birthday!

And whilst we were in Hard Rock Cafe I told Sandra the real reason we were down in Surfers for the weekend...the shock on her face, with the nervous tone in her voice..."aaahhh why!???"
"Don't worry, not that, I aint that stupid!...but this..." As I handed her the tickets. So a couple of hours later we headed to the casino. Although I almost wish I didn't tell her what we were seeing after we arrived, there was no adverts anywhere in the casino, nothing to indicate why we would be there or what was going on. And as we sat down we (and by "we" I obviously just mean "me" now) brought the average age of the crowd/audience down by quite a bit. So it would have been well funny to watch her face as all these older folk would've slowly started sitting around us..."What the hell did you bring me to....?...."






They were all really good, and very close to the real (I think). But Sandra loved it!


We stayed out for a few drinks after the show, but I did forget that it was Schoolies week (Australians kinda version of America's Spring Break, but for school leavers) but it was the tail end of it, so we managed to stay clear of the worst of it. And then the following morning we started the day with an All-you'can-eat breakfast, in which I probably over ate! Before chilling out around Surfers, including spending a few hours in the arcade, and heading back to Brisbane on Sunday evening.

The view  from our room on Sunday morning!





Our hotel on the left. We were on the 8th floor, in the corner

It sucks loosing to the Germans at any form of football!







Sandra got a Turkey!




And we found this little scarred guy on our walk home last Sunday, on the side of our road.


This week at work was pretty non eventful really, but this week in food......


A free gift from Woolworths

And a gift from home. LIME JELLY. Thanks Mum
Wednesday was Sandra's birthday, so I put out these classy balloons that my Mum sent me for her in our room in the morning. I had to do an induction coarse in the city on Wednesday, so I couldn't get the day off of work, but I did take her out for a meal in the evening in South Bank.



For her birthday I also got Sandra and I flights from Brisbane to Cairns, for the first week in February flying back from Proserpine. So now we've got a couple of months to plane what we do between the two locations.

Another storm brewing on Friday. I left work in a rush, and had the traffic lights in my favour, and managed to ride my 11/12km ride in half an hour....speedy! Was pretty pleased.

My ride up the Gateway Bridge on my way home from work....but my way down on the ride to work!

...And my ride up the Gateway Bridge on my way to work, and the way down on route home. You can see so many reasons why I prefer riding from work rather than to work!
And in short, this weekend has been a bit of a let down. But it was good catching up with my parents yesterday morning, and Tyler (in the USA) this morning, we will carry on that conversation soon. And Happy Birthday Stinko for today!

9 weeks of my contract with work done, only 17 left now! Just gotta figure out what's going on after that! Oh and what to do over the Christmas and New Year period now!