Its busy so it must be Xmas

Busy: Can't update as busy with mainly the Raffle. So very quickly -

Mine disaster: What a bad year for NZ. The quake and now this disaster with it looks as if maybe up to 30 dead.

Rugby: The Grand Slam approaches and with SA losing to Scotland and it would seem Wales in disarray I hope we hold it together.


A cartoon to keep us alert - I am a fast responder and slow responders get my ............

Australia 2

Australia 11: The name of the yacht that first won the Americas Cup from the USA.

Also this years results.

We (NZ) have had a golden run against the old enemy this year. At the Commonwealth Games we defeated them in both the Netball and Sevens and apart from the last game in Hong Kong have been on top in the Rugby with the Bledisloe Cup firmly in our grasp (although they lost to England at the weekend don't write them off for the RWC 2011).

Now the League and again we beat them so the Kiwi's have won the World Cup and the Four Nations.

As for AB's 49 Scotland 3. A great game with Sonny Bill Williams outstanding. However the tall poppy syndrome is alive and well as all the knockers come out.

Back to reality

Kipp doing a flip

Back and some updating on things that have happened while we were away.

Religion (ie Rugby): Before I went away I made comments about the AB's about to be selected. My worst fears came true. Donald in the team - good grief. As I said a journeyman at best. As for some others. Messam makes an error - he is droppd. Vito makes one mistake - he is dropped and Messam is back.

I am pleased we lost in Hong Kong as it may cause a rethink.

Trouble at the League test in Auckland due to booze. I don't think they will have any trouble at the RWC as that is League and dare I say it but Rugby fans will be different.



US Election: Are they the worlds most incompetent voters. Yes!!



Guy Fawkes : Went and watched the display but viewed it from the car as cold and windy.

Paul Henry : Resigned while we were away from TVNZ and upon our return bland, bland, bland. We now have robots with no real views.

Up to the fly capital of the world and the Wave

The Wave: After Esperance we drove up to the Wave rock formation.




It is situated at the small town of Hiden where we were inundated with flies. Many of the locals seem to wear netting dropping down from their hats as protection. Luckily I had a supermarket flyer in my pocket and we used it fanatically to try and wave them away.

The Wave looks far better in the photos than real life and we thought it was not worth the long drive.

We then made a decision to abandon our idea of going down to Albany. The distance and heat were beginning to tell. Another point is that there are few places to stop and stay for the night. We could see why they use caravans and camper vans. We used caravan parks for our stays 80% of the time.

We then went to Wagin as I blogged a few days ago before heading along the Tin Horse Highway. Some pictures of this as well as a some salt lakes we passed are below.




At Perth we stopped on the outskirts for 4 days and traveled in by bus each day where one day we visited Kings Park where we went over the treetop bridge.

Some final thoughts: We thought the roads were great. You could easily drive at 140K (limit 110) but with the tremendous distances allied to the boring scenery, heat and little traffic you easily got bored.
We had no problem cashing cheques at the NAB but would have preferred to have a card - which we have tried to get for about 5 years, even going into the NAB the last time we were in Sydney. They are hopeless.
The car was good except for the cigarette smell and that we had to pay by credit card as they wouldn't accept cash.
While we were in Perth they were advertising that shops would be allowed to open on weekdays until 9 PM from Noverber. Also it seems most Sunday trading is limited to the city centre.

Then it was back to cold Wellington.

Moving On

Monty's - a restaurant in Kal. This was unusual as it was open all sorts of hours
- probably to cater for the miners working shift.

The "Outback": But not really in their terms as they consider that part as the very arid desert regions well outside the sealed roads.

After the Pinnacles we drove inland to the mining town of Kalgoorie (the second biggest city in W.A. - called Kal by the locals) which is basically a twin inter-linked city with Boulder as they overlap one another.

Quakeland:On the way we learnt that the State has earthquakes. Lots of earthquakes. Last April they had a 5.0 in Kalgoorie-Boulder which didn't greatly affect Kal but in Boulder about 40% of the shops and building including the Town Hall are closed and cordoned off by scaffolding.

On the way we went through Meckering which had a 6.9 in April 2010 and we took these photos.

On the way to Kal we went past an RAAF base and a F111 did a pass over our heads as we drove along.



Kalgoorie - Boulder: We spent 2 days in Kal, including taking a tour of the Super Pit - the largest in the world. We went up to the lookout during both day and night. We thought it was all lit up at night but this was a fallacy and you can only see the lights of the trucks etc working away getting the gold.

On today's prices about US$1 billion worth per year.

The trucks as you can see are unbelievable with each tyre worth about US$250,000 each - and they soon wear out.



A photo (not taken by us) of the aftermath in Boulder.

Some days of the week they have a blast to loosen up the rock at the bottom of the pit and we saw what the locals called a large one. Bit of a let down. No real noise and just a big movement of tonnes of dirt and rock with lots of dust which probably took 45 minutes to clkclear. The point is that the mine is so deep and the explosives are geared downward so any blast if quite muffled. However a worthwhile event.

Night Cricket: Going for a drive one night we saw some lights on at a huge park. It was several teams of boys playing night cricket. You just drove in and watched from your car - a bit like a Drive In Movie.

Esperance: After that we drove down (a long drive) to the southern coast and stayed at Esperance. Very pretty town with a great scenic drive. Temperatures were similar to home. It was named after a French ship which had as one of its commanders a Kermadec. So I learnt who our islands of the same name was named after.

Talking about leaning something - somewhere I saw a plaque acknowledging that the first camel brought into Australia was in 1840 from the Canary Islands - he was called Harry and was the only one of 5 that survived. Also I learnt that the so called Afghans who looked after the camels in Oz were actually from Peshawar in India and that the term Afghan was really a racial slur.

Then we headed north to Hyden to see the Wave.

The Pinnacles

The Pinnacles: We picked up the rental car. A Hyundai Getz - quite a neat car although the boot room was limited and it smelt of cigarette smoke which we couldn't get rid of. This along with having to put it on Credit Card instead of cash at the end, which wasn't explained when we booked it, thereby costing us 1.5% more for the rental, was annoying.

We have emailed Eurocar a complaint but expect little as usual.

We drove north to the Pinnacles. When we went to pay go in the woman on the booth asked to use our pen as she has just started her shift and they hadn't left her a pen. We said she could have ours as we had been picking up free ones everytime we cashed a cheque at the NAB. So she charged us the concession entry fee!!

The Pinnacles were well worth the trip. Similar to the Mountains of the Moon we saw in South America but better as the colours are incredible. It is only a few K's around and we thought how long would that take. But you had to to get out every 2/300 metres to take in the scene before you.

The Trip - Part 2

The Quokkas

More Perth: We stayed in Perth 5 nights. Good weather, when it did rain itt was at night and still by our standards still warm - about 12C although one night got down to 6C.

Rottnest Island: We took the ferry to what everybody recommend - Rottnest Island.

Just average in our view. The ferry takes about 2 hours so you arrive late morning and get the bus around the island which takes an hour so. As you have to be back to get the ferry at 4PM by using the last bus at 2.30 the time is limited.

The instructions to get the bus were hopeless. They said we could get the tickets at the bus depot but it was closed. So we had to go back to the Info Centre then found that that the driver sold them.!!!
However, we had a view of the island and went on a walking tour to look at the Quokkas.
They look like large hopping rats and are very friendly.

Christine at Fremantle

Fremantle: Took the train to Fremantle and spent the day there. Pleasant place with a good free bus service. Looked at the prison and various other tourist traps. The Prison is the biggest tourist attraction in W.A.

The Trip - starting at Perth

This sign indicating the way to the Perth railway station defeated us as the arrow pointed the correct way but the writing was upside down!!

The Swan Bells - a bell ringing tower. We went to the top as far as you could go which is about 2/3rds of the way and watched the bell ringers in action.

Near the Art Gallery hamming it up taking a photo in a stainless steel artwork

A fabulous church which had a rooster on top.

The Trip: First to visit Clive and June in Caboolture, Queensland for a few days then on to Perth for a couple of weeks. Queensland was as usual - warm and dry although they have had several storms this year.

While we were there a woman was charged with an illegal abortion under the Queensland abortion laws. The law that applies was passed in 1899. That is EIGHTEEN 99. She was found not guilty in under an hour- but are these people mad. They say that when you enter Queensland as they do not have daylight saving you put your clocks back 100 years.

After leaving Queensland it was the long nearly 6 hour flight to Perth.

Perth: Probably the best city I have been in to get around. Good streets well laid out with large carless areas and best of all FREE buses. They have 3 free bus routes called the Central Area Transit (CAT) which are just incredible. A new bus is along every few minutes and you just hop on hop off and switch routes as you wish.This is repeated with a service in Fremantle and to get out of Kings park it was free.
As usual, the Ozzies have thought it through as it lessens the cars in the city and no school buses are required. Plus, as usual they look after their seniors - all trips, even outside the central city are free.

I know it isn't really free - but I think the effect on cars in the city makes it well worthwhile and should be imitated in Wellington.

The Travellers are back - Make up at Wagin

Back: We are back from our Brisbane one week, Perth and Western Australia 2 weeks sojourn. I will write about this next time but below is the piece I wrote for our Rotary Bulletin.

MAKEUP AT WAGIN

On our recent trip to Western Australia we drove from what we believe is the fly capital of the world, Hyden, where we went to see the Wave Rock formation (not worth, in our view, the long drive) to the small town of Wagin (pronounced WA as in wagon and GIN as in the drink).

Wagin is a wool and wheat dominated community about 230 kilometres southeast of Perth with a population of just over 2000. It is the home of the Giant Ram and the Rotary Club of Wagin which boasts 21 members.

When travelling, we are always moving on, so a makeup is by chance. Only once before has it proved serendipitous - Manchester, Tennessee.

As we entered Wagin, Christine spotted a worse for wear sign that she thought read that a Rotary Meeting was to be held that night. So after finding the motel (where we asked about the meeting but she had never heard of Rotary!!) we drove back to the sign.

Sure enough - at the Town Hall meeting rooms, every Monday at 6.30 for 7pm.

So we went and enjoyed a very pleasant evening where we were made most welcome.

The speaker was a Rotarian from Perth who is involved with the Handicamp program (http://www.handicamp.org.au) which takes a person between 18 and 35 with a disability and buddies them up with a peer at a Camp. As she explained the outcome for both parties is tremendous and many ‘buddies’ return year after year.

Her husband, also a Rotarian, was there as well and they were to drive back to Perth that night. They are members of different clubs and she is a member of a Pilot Club that meets monthly. However, this has not been entirely satisfactory and they now meet twice monthly plus a projects only meeting from time to time. The DG’s have difficulty with the sheer size of the District which has recently been split. Also, with many people in the mining industry working 3 weeks on and 3 off, attendance can be variable and the ‘rules’ are adapted to suit local conditions.

As for the local Club; it was a big meeting – seventeen for dinner. Twelve members plus ourselves, the two Rotarian’s from Perth and a guest of a member.

They have a song book and a fellow chooses a song (Home on the Range was that night’s offering) which they sing at the start and finish with the National Anthem. No Sergeant – but instead by weekly rotation a Fines Person. The Secretary has been doing the job for 25 years and the Treasurer almost as long. They rotate everybody else through as President.

You will see the photo of the carved Fines Box where they put the money into. I saw it was padlocked - probably due to some past heritage - but I didn’t dare say that!!

As it happened they discussed the sign that we saw as a new one is in the pipe line with the Masons, RSL, Lions, etc and they were talking about getting an electronic version and asked our views. Interestingly even in a small town they have a graffiti problem.

Was I fined – yes?

They were at a loss to understand how we have so few members when we meet every Monday at 5.30 for SEX!!!

Cheeky sods.