King's Canyon in February

A less-known place, catty-corner to Uluru, is King's Canyon. Stunningly beautiful without all the hype. Click on any photo or page to pause.

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We paid 7.00 for a can of Pringles and about 8.00 a gallon for gas, but otherwise, it was a great time. A tour bus or two was at the resort. This was a REAL resort with a pool and restaurant, but also with native bush, goannas and dingos.
Anyone coming to visit?

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Well, we are back from New Zealand.
If you didn't know, we were there from January 10-28th. It was a bus tour around both the North and South islands (that's what NZ is made of) and not so much like what I expected. Your tax dollars flew us there and I am not ungrateful.
It's just that New Zealand isn't there.
It has been replaced with 30 million acres of American pine trees, Indian shrubs, blue-grass pastures, English gardens and Chinese herbs.
Sorry, but someone also thought it a good idea to bring rabbits to hunt for fun, stoats (like weasels) and foxes to kill the extra rabbits, traps and poison to kill the stoats and foxes before they kill all the kiwis who thought they had no reason to be able to fly and the bird song you wake up to is English house sparrows.
The bus tour would give us 2 hours at a vineyard but 10 minutes at a rainforest. An hour at a MALL, 2 hours at a castle, but no whale-watching. By day 3, I was looking for a way out of the contract; by day 12, I was resigned to the life-style.
Our fellow captives were all so nice. The food was really good and if we had been left to our own schedule, we'd still be about a mile from the airport, staring.

Enough. Just look at the 186 photos and enjoy.

Oh, in Queenstown, Tom and Thomas went on the Shotover River jet boat ride. Proof is here:http://www.shotoverjet.com/?estory_id=197919
I went looking for wool. Found a nice possum blend.

There was Perth

I went to the state of Western Australia for a week in early October for the Southern Hemisphere Felters Convergence. Just me. Flew to Perth for a couple days and then a 2 hour drive south to Bunbury. It's right along the left bottom edge of Australia where if you fell off, you'd have to swim to Africa and that's really far.

I've never been anywhere so beautiful in all my life. No disrespect to Rainbow Valley or the prairies of Illinois or a Virginia woodland in April; it was just prettier.

and I was all by myself which was great most of the time but hard by day 4 when I missed my baby and really hard when I took Cave Road and went into an enormous cave and had no one to point at things with.
I let the Indian Ocean lick my ankles. I wondered why no one was in the water but took it as good advice.
I was in Bunbury to make felt and learn about it and meet 150 other felters and see their gorgeous art. I got to live in a dorm at the Cathedral Grammar School with 7 other crazy broads.
I made friends and walked in woods and said I hoped I saw a possum before I left and one was outside my window the next morning.
It all worked and the spell hasn't broken yet. I'm creating and making notes of ideas and selling my work and stealing other ideas and enjoying it immensely.
I will take my men there in 2012 and I hope they love it as much.

PS I've left room for photos if I can ever access them. White sand, blue sky. Possum like a big-eyed, really soft cat in a tree. Pine forests underlain with white calla lilies and circled by screeching egrets, pelicans so big they could swallow a child, sunsets like crazy.

2012

I'm not much for New Year's resolutions. Last year, as I recall, I resolved to be late more often, eat more chocolate, have more lunches out with friends and dress really comfortably.
Like most people, I forgot about my resolutions in short order and don't really remember whether I fulfilled them or not. Input?
This year, I'll blog. It had become yucky to do so for many reasons, none of which are cheerful or interesting.
Don't expect a lot of photos, but more regularity. What shall we shoot for? Daily? No. Weekly? Doable - especially without photos.
Going backwards from here, which is the opposite of how Blogger likes it:
CHRISTMAS
Christmas was a good day; not a Christmassy Day, but good with food and friends and pressies. The Aussies don't echange gift so much as Americans do and that's a relief. Your kid's friends don't give him more than a lolly or card (overall, there are exceptions).
Santa was tracked on the NORAD site so we could see when he was headed for New Zealand and scamper to bed. Aussies leave Santa cookies and beer and water for his reindeer. We went with cookies, carrots and the water.

Christmas Day hit 50 degrees Celsius which translates to about 123 F. We stayed in and have been since.
There was a New Years Eve party at Lasseter's Casino last night, out on the lawn (there arose such a clatter). It was still 87 when we went home about 9:30, after the fireworks.
One Aussie Christmas tradition I liked and may bring home: cherries. They are at peak around Christmas time and you find the ones with two stems hooked together and hang them from your ears. Good fun.
Carols by Candle light is cool, too where almost the whole town gathers on a sports oval and sings carols, holding LED candles. It's organized by all the Christian churches together and there is usually some short Christmas "message" from a pastor. Takes place in every bigger town and city in Australia. Can't see it happening in the US, but really beautiful.
Alright, I can't help myself. Let's try for some photos:
First, check out that transitioning, sharky smile. He sings, "All I want for Christmas is ONLY two front teeth."


How CAN he fold himself up like that?




Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas (which cracks him up!) while "acting it out" with his Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Thanks Okie Do and Aunt T.



That's it for today, don't want to pull a blogging muscle.
Happy All Year!

I guess we're rich

Most of my life (well, the last 46 years), I thought people who went to Hawaii were really, really rich, like Elvis and the Brady Bunch. Has the world changed, or is it me?
Holy cow! We went to Hawaii!

It looks like you think it looks. It's absolutely beautiful. I kept... smiling.

There are basically two types of visitors to Honolulu - military and tourists. So, if you don't look militant, they know you are there to have a good time and their job is to help you do just that!
They talk about "the aloha spirit." Aloha means something like love. Treat people with aloha and get aloha in return and live the aloha way.
Nothing wrong with that.
My sister went, too. I knew she wanted to go to Hawaii since we were little and she saw Beach Blanket Bingo or somesuch. She'd never flown before; but she bravely did, and got Hawaii.

She never came back. Well, she kinda did but keeps doing stuff like buying a pineapple just to look at and using mango-scented air freshener. If she ever goes missing, that's a good place to look - even if she isn't there.


Luau at the Hale Koa.

Why yes, you may adorn my wrist with fresh orchids. Thank you for asking.

Hawaiian men are just so pretty.

though unattainable.




There were lots more flowers, everywhere. The hotel lobby had no walls. The temps are in the 80's with a breeze most days.


The submarine ride was really neat.

Your brain ignores the blue in a few minutes, so you see more of the colors of the fish. Well, YOUR brain probably won't, but it works in the sub.
Viewing window for whom?

We went all island-y. Right ear means you're available.
We were only there for 4 days and one was flying. We have to go back.

Good thing we're rich.

jingle... bells?

We went home to the US for Xmas. "A month R&R" turned into 3 hectic weeks of VA - PA -VA and 4 days in Hawaii. Here are some photos. Uncharacteristically, that's about all I have to say.

We caught up with (imposed upon, leached off of) some friends and some family, but not nearly enough.



We hunted a Christmas tree and caught two. The owners of the farm felt so sorry for the poor, little Australian boy who had never cut his own tree before (sniff), they gave him the one he captured. He inherited my taste in trees -kill the one you feel sorry for.


Thence to "Gramargaret's Farm" in VA.



Off to Honolulu. Being cute gets one lots of perks.


PS Now, I figure Hawaii needs its own post. We took lotsa photos. Who knew?

We're dry...ish. Thanks for asking.

Queensland is getting hammered. For the last month -floods. Now tonight, the cyclone of the century. Thanks to all the friends and family wondering if this is us. It's not. We are in 120 degree heat - Now, with bonus humidity! but we are in no other danger.
If Australia were the US, Queensland would be kinda New England and Alice Springs would be in Missouri. We may get some rain from super-cyclone Yasi by Friday or Saturday which may cause some local roads to close, but not the half-meter Cairns is expecting tonight.
Cairns (pronounced "Caans"), where Yasi is expected to make landfall, is where people go to see the Great Barrier Reef. Let's pray for the people of Cairns and the creatures of the reef.
This category 5 cyclone is about the size of Europe with winds about 280 kph (c.170 mph).