Geoff and El's Travels

A post... at long last

2008-08-19T09:40:00.010+10:00

So I know we have been mega slack and have not posted anything on here for over a year (yikes... how time flies...) You can blame Facebook if you like. But I like the idea of an online diary and I don't think Facebook quite cuts it for that. And we understand if no-one is even checking this anymore. I know I would have given up!!

My nephew Chase is 14 months old now and has started walking. It is the greatest thing to be greeted by him, all smiles and walking towards you. Here he is with his Uncle Geoff, watching the footy. Chase is holding a massive anzac biscuit (for his size anyway) but managed to get through the entire thing. :-)

Last weekend we went on an impromptu camping trip to Inskip Peninsula with a couple of Geoff's dentistry friends. We were camping pretty much on the dunes and the view was spectacular.

The water was pretty much flat with gentle rolling waves and the view out to the coloured sands was pretty cool.

Geoff caught two bream, two whiting and a dart but they were all very under the legal limit. On the Sunday morning we headed to Bullocks Point and fished off a very old, very rickety jetty. We watched as a young boy pulled in quite a few fish. Beginners luck I say!

You know you've had a good break when two days feels more like a week. :-) We are hoping to go camping again in September so I'm looking forward to that.

Hope everyone is well. :-)

Mama and Chase

2007-08-12T17:47:00.000+10:00

Recently my gorgeous nephew Chase had the pleasure of meeting his Great-Grandmother, our lovely Mama.

Mama cannot always express in words what she is thinking, but the smile on her face when she laid eyes on the little boy was priceless.

It kinda makes my head spin that there is over 90 years between the two of them. I am just so glad they have had the chance to meet each other.

Camping underwater

2007-07-20T21:01:00.000+10:00

Here is our luxury accomodation. Ignore the grey sky.

The lads out for a spot of fishingJulissa and Katherine enjoying a break from the rain.

The wet McGregors.

Demon Kangaroo.

The new way to enjoy a campfire. Wet, cold, miserable. Not yet drunk enough to not feel the cold. Drunk enough to stay in the rain a little longer waiting for it to stop.

El likes sitting in the rain too. Until her chair filled with water and she almost drowned.

Isla hitching a ride with dad. Geoff smiling sweetly for camera. Duncan not so happy later when Geoff wanted a go.

Well. Its been far too long since we put stuff up on this blog. It is even harder now that the keyboard has died after having red wine spilt in it. We are constantly fighting the 1 key and the 2 key wants no part of it either.

I have recently turned very old(according to El) and turned the big 30. My eyes and bones feel the age, I got new be-spectacles and feel smart now but this cold weather is wreaking havoc with me old bones.

At least at uni where I spend the far majority of my time, the kiddies keep me feeling young, just like a spring chicken. El says I am rambling but she doesn’t have the wisdom that only comes with the age that I have.

I survived my first semester of second year. It has been more full on than I thought it would be. We spent six weeks doing anatomy of the entire head and neck and had to try to memorise all the little branches of all the arteries, all the veins, all the muscles, all the nerves, all the bones, all the connections and so on. Then we had to do other parts learning about the heart, a crash course in pharmacology and respiration and so on and so forth. We had exams at the end of the 1^st semester and a third of the class failed the exams for this one subject. Luckily I wasn’t one of them and don’t have to sit any supps.

But that’s enough on uni, El is sitting here pestering me to talk about camping.

After my exams we went down to northern NSW to go camping with friends. Tash and Dunk and their little girl and Julissa and Jason and kids came down to go camping at Bundjalung national park.

The days leading up to our camping trip were wet and miserable and unfortunately the camping trip weather wise was not much better. WE did get two days of semi-dry camping in before torrential rain and cold temperatures drove us away. Poor Julissa and Jason’s tent turned into a shower on the 1^st night so we rigged up a tarp to protect them the next night.

We pretty much had the entire campground to ourselves except for the other brave souls that were out in the elements. One night the group of us sat around the fire with umbrellas trying to enjoy the atmosphere. There is only so much cold that the fire and green ginger wine can take away when your back is wet and it is cold.

It was Dunk and Tash’s first camping trip with Isla and hopefully they were not too traumatized by the experience. It was still a great trip though. Better weather would be nice, but at least we set up camp when it was dry. Pulling everything down in the rain was a bit annoying, and the kids loved being in the rain.

Besides, I don’t know if we had enough beer to last another night anyway.

So here we are now, back in Brissy. I’m back into the swing of uni reliving my nightmares of T cells etc as I endure Immunology lectures. So much detail. Seems so crappy and irrelevant. El had a fun day mashing up mouse livers. She is glad the week is over.

That’s enough crazy old man ranting now.

See you later dudes.

Geoff( El is sitting here being the punctuation police- but I don’t care,./)…!

More Chase photos

2007-06-13T17:10:00.000+10:00

The proud parents...One proud Daddy...

Nellie...

Chase 4 days old...

I really love this photo...

Chase Mark

2007-06-07T21:09:00.000+10:00

I'm in love...
:-)

Easter Happenings

2007-04-22T17:34:00.000+10:00

Happy (belated) Easter everyone. I hope it was a relaxing and fun time for all.

Easter this year was a little different for us. Normally we head off down to Casino to catch up with Geoff's family. It also involves heading to the beach with a spot of fishing during the day and spending the nights sleeping in their lounge room in front of a roaring pot-bellied stove. Well, we didn't head down to Casino this year. And I guess sleeping in front of a fire would have been madness anyway (what is with this weather - get cold already!!).

Instead we spent time at home. We went for two walks in Toohey Forest - one time we managed to head off the beaten track a bit and ended up on a dirt bike track which had us climbing up this very steep hill and walking through dry creek beds. We weren't too worried about getting lost when you still have mobile phone reception and can hear the SE freeway close by though!

We also took another kayaking trip to Hinze Dam. The other half of the dam which we hadn't explored turned out to be quite short in comparison. It did however have an awesome view of some mountain which made us pining for the Rocky Mountains. I know the sizes aren't really comparable though, but eh!

On the Saturday night we had a family dinner at my Dad's. It's always good to catch up with everyone. My brother Mark and his girlfriend Jenna are expecting at the end of next month... getting really close now guys!

On the Monday afternoon we went to Isla's naming ceremony. It was a great afternoon and Isla looked very cute in her white dress. We also caught up with Robbo who is back in Australia now. Isla is very close to walking. As the afternoon wore on, she was doing lots of unassisted steps that just got longer and longer in duration. What a champ!

Geoff had a nice week off over Easter and managed to fit a bit of fishing in between some study. He's back at uni now and has a busy week ahead of him with two exams.

Not much more to say so will finish up here. Hope everyone is well!

March Update

2007-03-25T16:36:00.000+10:00

Since our last post we have done a fair bit of kayaking. Two trips to Lake Currimundi (with Mum and Geg with their new toys on one of the trips) on the Sunshine Coast, one trip to North Pine River and also to the Hinze Dam on the Goldy Coast. The 4.30 am starts on a Saturday have been a little difficult (read: Geoff dragging me out of bed) but well worth it when you're out on the water without a care in the world. We think we may be getting a little stronger too, with our last effort at the Hinze Dam being probably 12km. It was especially taxing on the way back with sideways blowing winds creating mini waves. All good though.

Geoff has had some success fishing from the kayak. He managed to bring in two catfish on the North Pine River, unfortunately they weren't worth keeping but it was exciting all the same. I was in charge of "backing up" the boat and keeping it on track so Geoff could wind in. We would have kept going to North Pine except for all the ski boats that whiz by creating so much wash. It wasn't the most serene place. Hinze Dam, by contrast was extremely peaceful, with hardly anyone else out on the water. You aren't allowed any petrol craft on the water which is great for us! We are planning on going back there next weekend to check out the other half of the dam which we didn't get to see. Apparently that is where all the perch are caught so fingies crossed Geoff will land something decent.

In other news I am now a year older and wiser (!?!) . The actual day was a bit of a flop, being midweek and also feeling a little under the weather. I did however, have a yummy meal a few days before with Mum, Geg and the boys, a BBQ dinner the following weekend with the lovely McGregors and a dinner the following Saturday after that with Dad and Eleanor. Geoff bought me Season One DVD of "My Name is Earl". The reverse-karma episode made the DVD worth it all by itself. I also scored a cool floppy hat for kayaking, some perfume, a funky green work bag and lots of chocolate. Not bad going me thinks. :-)

Geoff has been ultra-busy with uni. He has already had two practical exams and on Tuesday he has an exam for the 6 week anatomy block he has just finished. It is amazing how many notes he has for that - it is equivalent to a whole subject's worth (for a science subject anyway). Geoff is feeling really stressed and is looking forward to the Easter holidays.

Today we were bad and bought a tent. It's a 10-12 man tent, which means really, it fits about 6 people comfortably. It is pretty cool, with high spots to put your keys and wallet, vent holes at the base and other spots to keep your shoes away from critters. We can't wait to try it out - we were kinda hoping we might do some camping over Easter but with the crowds it might not be such a good idea. May have to wait until mid-year, damnit.

Ka- POW

2007-02-26T20:32:00.000+10:00

Bec, as promised, here are some photos of my Mum's pet chooks. The fluffy one on the left is Sydney (a Silky) and the other one is Star (a Silver Spangled Hamburg).

No I didn't make up the name of the latter breed. It really does exist. :-)

And below shows their fighter nature. Not surprisingly, they both ended up being roosters and had to go back to my Uncle's farm, unfortunately. I hear they are both quite happy there though. :-)

Babies

2007-02-12T10:16:00.000+10:00

In the last few weeks four baby girls have entered the world.

Congratulations to my workmate Grant and his wife Eldene on the birth of their daughter Adyson, born on the 24th January.

And a BIG congratulations to my workmates Macky and Aleks on the birth of their triplets - Klaudia, Amelia and Charlotte, born yesterday.

We wish them all the best. :-)

They made me do it

2007-02-12T10:15:00.000+10:00

We have moved over to the new blogger system. Fingers crossed everything will be where it should be!!

Dentistry is fun

2007-02-09T18:51:00.000+10:00

Woohoo.
I survived my first week back. We start a lot earlier than the rest of the uni people(with the exception of the med students) and this week has been pretty full on. We have at least 35 hours of contact time a week and a lot of it is repetitive with 2 whole days a week on anatomy involving 6 hours of lectures and 10 hours of prac. We are working with a cadaver at the moment and are removing his scalp to get access to the face a bit further down. A bit gross for most people but some people I am sure will know what I am talking about. No one has been really queasy in the anatomy pracs with the exception of one girl who faints all the time. She fainted in the intro prac when they were telling us about the rules and there was no gory stuff around. She also fainted way back in O-week last year at an info session. She is very slight and only 17 or so and everyone thinks it is probably lack of food before classes that causes the fainting.
This week I have had my first go at the drills, learning the different sized burs and different speed handpieces for different things. The water/air squirter is pretty cool. Lots of technology in dentistry which is another cool thing for me.
To those out there reading this do not be too amused at what I am writing next. We are paying good HECS or PELS or whatever they call it to spend time assembling model cars in one subject. The only catch is we are using dental wax instead of glue to stick it all together. Some of the skills seem a bit distant to those of a dentist, but you can see they are developing our manual skills as we go. I was putting the engine together and it was so fiddly when the pieces are about a 10th the size of my fingernail. I wonder if my ample sized hands will be a disadvantage. The demonstrators warned a lot of people that their marks will drop from the sevens they are used to to maybe 3s or 4s . They said some people cry. The whole academic thing needs to be matched with the manual skills and that sometimes seems a bit scary.
We had a 2 hour lecture today on the anatomy of teeth. I'm sure some people would say why, but I was amazed how much detail we are supposed to know. We had a prac trying to identify different teeth, and for some it was easy such as your incisor but the difficulty comes when you work out whether it is upper or lower or left or right. We have to know the number of cusps, roots, grooves etc and it is hard to know straight away what is going on. It is all a bit much the first week back. Normally you would expect a bludge the first week but not this time.
They keep asking us to fork out money for kits, textbooks and the cycle seems neverending. $400 for an operative kit with a couple of things in it,$200 for teeth models, etc, etc- silly stupid heads. And we have to pay hecs on top of all these miscellaneous fees. Worst thing is I'd just finished paying hecs from my first degree.
Only one week down and 4 years to go.

If anyone reading this has any form of a color atlas of anatomy (I know I spelt color wrong- silly American spelling) with the big pictures of dissected things that you would be willing to loan or sell to me please let us know.
Hope everyone else is having as much fun as me.
We are getting up at 4.30am to go kayaking tomorrow and have a 30th birthday party to go to tomorrow night so I will forget about uni for a couple of days and take it easy.
I would love to say that I'm studying now, but alas I am watching Tv and having a beer.
Geoff

:-)

2007-02-08T16:15:00.000+10:00

WICOE

(Women In Charge Of Everything)

is proud to announce the opening of its

EVENING CLASSES FOR MEN!

OPEN TO MEN ONLY

ALL MALE FORM WELCOME

Note: due to the complexity and level of difficulty, each course will accept a maximum of eight participants. The course covers two days, and topics covered in this course include:

DAY ONE HOW TO FILL ICE CUBE TRAYS

Step by step guide with slide presentation

TOILET ROLLS- DO THEY GROW ON THE HOLDERS?

Roundtable discussion

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LAUNDRY BASKET & FLOOR

Practicing with hamper (Pictures and graphics)

DISHES & SILVERWARE; DO THEY LEVITATE/FLY TO KITCHEN SINK OR DISHWASHER BY THEMSELVES?

Debate among a panel of experts

REMOTE CONTROL

Losing the remote control - Help line and support groups

LEARNING HOW TO FIND THINGS

Starting with looking in the right place instead of turning the house upside down while screaming - Open forum

DAY TWO

EMPTY MILK CARTONS; DO THEY BELONG IN THE FRIDGE OR THE BIN?

Group discussion and role play

HEALTH WATCH; BRINGING HER FLOWERS IS NOT HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH PowerPoint presentation

REAL MEN ASK FOR DIRECTIONS WHEN LOST

Real life testimonial from the one man who did

IS IT GENETICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SIT QUIETLY AS SHE PARALLEL PARKS?

Driving simulation

LIVING WITH ADULTS; BASIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUR MOTHER AND YOUR PARTNER

Online class and role playing

HOW TO BE THE IDEAL SHOPPING COMPANION

Relaxation exercises, meditation and breathing techniques

REMEMBERING IMPORTANT DATES & CALLING WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE

Bring your calendar or PDA to class

GETTING OVER IT; LEARNING HOW TO LIVE WITH BEING WRONG ALL THE TIME
Individual counsellors available

Kayaking 101

2007-02-03T16:05:00.000+10:00

What a great idea it seemed at the time, buying a kayak. When you read the guidebooks they say it is just a short paddle and is full of enjoyment. They dont tell you that when you are paddling into the wind and against the tide you need to multiply the distances by about a 1000.

A couple of hundred metres in a kayak seems to equal the same intenstity as if you had walked several kilometres. At least at this stage of becoming one with the kayak.

Today we got up at 5am to go for a paddle in Currumbin Creek. It is weird seeing all these super buff oldies doing tough laps up and down the creek, lapping us several times while we haul our sorry arses along. They must have engines hidden somewhere in their various wave skis, racing kayaks and various other watercraft to propel them at speeds that seem close to the speed of sound. I like to think of our kayak as a big old limo. We aren't the fastest, but we do it with style.
It really is a good thing though, there is nothing more enjoyable than paddling early in the morning looking at the peaceful waters and trying to have a fish from the kayak. I am still a bit wobbly when I try to fish and kayak at the same time but I have worked out that I can fish a lot better if I take it easy and let El do the paddling while I drop my line in. Today we did a 10km return trip up the creek and are feeling the effects now. Most muscles are sore, even the ones that you didn't know you had. I am trying to get El stronger so I can have a snooze in the back while she paddles. It is good fun, but you do get really sore. I even saw all those whiting I have tried to catch in the past swimming by, taunting me with their beady little faces.
I am back to uni on monday. Only 4 more years! Back to being old man Connolly.Mr "mature age". I learn to drill this year so are there any volunteers for me to practice on? I've got a pretty good cordless drill here at home and with a few medicinal rums I'm sure noone would be able to tell the difference.

A mammoth post...

2006-12-29T20:53:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since we have posted any news so I guess now is a good a time as any.

On the 14th of Dec Geoff, Tony and I went to the Robbie Williams concert. This man really rocked Suncorp Stadium. He was running around, jumping and singing his little heart out for the full show, and kept us amused with all his arrogant antics. My favourite (although extremely daggy) song he did was Take That's "Want you back for good". What a blast from the past... Bron I'm sure you remember singing that with Megan don't you?!! The only downside to the evening was the crowds causing bottlenecks as they exited the stadium.

The following night we had our work Christmas party at the Carlton Crest in the city. This was the best work party I have ever been to! The food was excellent, the drinks were flowing (sort of) and I had a ball dancing the night away with heaps of other slightly inebriated people. Afterwards, since we had booked a room there, we only had to go up the elevator to crash for the evening. Perfect.

The following Thursday evening we had Christmas at my Mum's. I helped put up the tree and the deccies (read: I did most of it - slack brothers) and we had a yummy roast dinner. It was a shame Bron and Ben were on the other side of the world (we miss you guys)!!

On Saturday night we had Christmas at my Dad's. It was hot enough for a swim in the arvo, then we had a yummy cold meat and salad dinner.

On Sunday we drove down to Casino to have Christmas with Geoff's family. Sunday night we went to his Nanna's place and caught up with all his family on his Mum's side. The following day we spent at Geoff's parents for lunch and present giving. I think we ended up with more presents that what we gave... Santa was very kind this year. :-) It really wasn't hot enough for it but we had a water pistol fight. Always good fun.

While we were down in Casino we also went to a river at Evan's Head for a day of fishing and paddling. Yep, you heard right. Paddling. We were a little naughty and bought a kayak. It seats two people, and also had a cargo pod and a spot for a bag (or an esky). It was absolutely brilliant trying it out for the first time. Geoff and I took it out first and discovered that we can stay upright in it! I also took it out with Trina and also had a go by myself. Just awesome (pardon the pun). I am looking forward to trying in out in other waterways next week.

The other exciting thing that happened that day was that Craig caught a beauty of a flathead. This was very unexpected but very much appreciated. Geoff's Dad cooked it up for the brekky on the Thursday and it was absolutely delicious. So much nicer than the crap you buy at the supermarket!

Geoff and I also went for a trip to the Border Ranges National Park. We went on a short walk that wove around a creek and waterfall, and we also drove up to the Pinnacle. The view was spectacular, looking out to a massive valley and also Mt Warning. Such a beautiful part of the world that I had never seen before. I was also quite taken with all the birds around the place. There was heaps of Eastern Rosellas, brown pigeons and these beautiful blue and white-breasted pigeons. We also heard heaps of whip birds and bell birds. Definitely going back to camp there sometime soon!

We said our goodbyes to Geoff's family this morning and headed back to Brissy. I have one more week of holidays which is absolutely brilliant. Geoff is on holidays til February then he is into second year.

We hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and has a rocking New Year's celebrations. We are still debating about it but seem to be leaning towards a quiet New Year's. I think we need to back off a bit after too much Christmas cheer!

Oh, and by the way... do you like our moose on top of our tree? Makes a change from the usual angel or star hey? :-)

Blog Tiggy

2006-12-22T20:28:00.000+10:00

Our friend Chris has tagged us for blog-tiggy. So here are 5 things you most likely do not know about the both of us (or perhaps you do?).

1. Geoff's favourite band is Queen (he has all the albums and that's a LOT).

2. As a child, Geoff was in the emergency department a lot and has more stitches than every year of his life.

3. Geoff has had leptospirosis (kissing too many cows) - Red Cross does not like him now.

4. Geoff does not drink any caffeine but goes a little crazy if he has any coke with his bourbon.

5. Geoff is a real history buff and knows seemingly insignificant details about WWI and II.

1. El is afraid of the dark and insists that the cupboard doors are closed before going to sleep at night (you never know what monsters lurk in there). I kid you not.

2. Some of El's T cells have been to France (but the rest of her hasn't). This was for doing a crystal structure of her T cell receptor and a picture of this is going to be published in Nature Immunology next year. (Sorry, that one was a bit nerdy.)

3. El much prefers winter to summer.

4. El does not have her ears (or any part of her) pierced and isn't too keen on getting it done.

5. El longs to be a better writer that what dribbles out on this blog.

As for who "is it" next, we wish to tag:
Bron and Ben,
Tash and Dunk and
Tony.

Knock yourselves out guys. :-)

Have you ever?

2006-12-11T19:40:00.000+10:00

Have you ever seen an exploded bullrush? Neither had I - it looks pretty cool hey? I collected it a few weekends ago while kayaking in a waterhole with my Mum and my Uncle Richard.

We had gone up to visit Richard at his bush block near Imbil. It was a hot day, and after doing some strenuous tractor work (not really - actually all I did was drive it up the small hill and sat and waited while Richard did all the controls to pick up some sawn-off logs!!) we went for a drive to a nearby creek. There was plenty of water in it, thanks to a recent release from the nearby dam. The water was cool and refreshing and this beautiful shade of green. There was so many birds around, and they were not fazed by our quiet paddling through the water. It was such a awesome experience, and has made me really, REALLY want to buy my own kayak and get back into it.

Later on in the evening we enjoyed a yummy lamb roast cooked on Richard's wood stove, and sat outside by a campfire, enjoying the quiteness of the bush. The next morning we ate breakfast in the same spot, and had a great view of king parrots, finches and other wild birds feeding on a nearby setup.

Richard also had some two week old chickens (about 15) that Mum and I were quite partial to picking up one or two for a cuddle. They are just so soft and sooky.

I promise to post again sooner rather than later. :-) Take care everyone.

Family happy snaps

2006-11-08T20:01:00.000+10:00

A couple of weekends ago we went up to Bribie Island for a picnic for my cousin Janine's little boy, Jordan, who was celebrating his first birthday.

It was a beautiful hot sunny day and just perfect for lazing by the water and catching up with some family that we had not seen in a long time.

I went on the playground with my cousin Rachel. Perhaps thinking I was 11 again, I went on the monkey bars and did some flip arounds. Seemed easy at the time - pity about the next day with me moaning and groaning about my sore shoulders and great coloured bruises behind my knees! Anyone would think I wasn't a kid anymore!!

Procrastination on a Monday

2006-10-23T14:03:00.000+10:00

Thought I might do an update of what we have been up to lately.

Last Wednesday night Geoff and I went to our work's annual memorial lecture/awards evening. It was held at Customs House and it started right smack bang in the middle of peak hour. Traffic was an absolute nightmare with the closure of the riverside expressway, and it took us 45 mins to get there from work! Anyway, the evening was really good with lots of free wine, beer and nibblies (which is always a bonus). The guest speaker was the former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett. He spoke about the National Depression organisation "Beyond Blue" and his involvement in giving depression more public awareness. It was a very enjoyable and inspiring speech.

On Saturday we had the pleasure of meeting Sally and Andrew's new little boy, James. What a gorgeous kid, and so well behaved - he was quite happy to be cuddled. The three of them just looked so happy and relaxed - lovely to see. :-)

Yesterday (after missing yet another phone call from Bron - d'oh!) we went round to our friend Jen's place for her birthday bbq. She has recently moved into a house with - wait for it - a full sized tennis court in the backyard. How sweet is that?! I'm so jealous. So we had a bit of a hit around, me wearing jeans and Geoff wearing flip flop sandals which made it a bit interesting. I used to play tennis a lot but haven't in years. It was such good fun but today my right shoulder is killing me. Must be getting old. Anyway, it was great to catch up with Jen and enjoy a snag on her new bbq.

Anyway, I should stop procrastinating and go do some work now. Take care everyone. :-)

Some photos

2006-10-13T20:16:00.000+10:00

Last Saturday I went to Janani's and Jeyanthan's wedding reception lunch. Once everyone was seated they made their entrance and looked absolutely stunning in their traditional gear. After watching a video of their wedding in Sri Lanka, we were given the opportunity to wish them well, then we sat down to a yummy vegetarian lunch. I felt decidedly ordinary wearing normal attire with all these women wearing beautiful sari's around me!

Saturday night we caught up with Dunk, Tash and Isla. Isla is 6 months old now and does gorgeous really well. She was a little naughty though, by not going to sleep but it meant we got to spend some time with her and give her some cuddles. :-) She is absolutely smitten with Geoff - laughing and carrying on and really enjoyed gnawing on Geoff's index finger. We think she may be teething.

On Sunday afternoon I saw "The Full Monty" at Southbank with my mate Julia, and some friends from work - Itaru and Paweena. It was absolutely brilliant - it followed the movie really well (except for it being set in New York State instead of the UK) and we got our fair share of laughs out it. Thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering seeing it - I think it runs for another week yet.

TGI Friday

2006-10-06T17:38:00.000+10:00

Not that it has been a particularly arduous week or anything. I did however set a new record for myself by doing 35 RNA extractions and cDNA syntheses(?) which wasn't a whole lot of fun. Mmm, repetetive pipetting, what more could you want?

Geoff also had a fairly busy week, with the handing in of 2 major assignments and also assisting with a root canal procedure this afternoon. He tells me it was interesting. I still can't believe he can watch stuff like that without the need to gag!!

Anyway, enough about work and uni. Tonight we are having a BBQ dinner which is something guaranteed to put me in a great mood. I don't know, but there is something very therapeutic about cooking a hunk of meat outside, having a few drinkies and listening to the radio, whilst slapping off mossies. Gotta love this time of year.

Our weekend is fairly busy. Geoff has a two day first aid course he has to do for uni. I have a friend's wedding lunch tomorrow and I'm going to see "Full Monty" at the Lyric theatre on Sunday. Will post more about these afterwards - hopefully with some photos.

Our thoughts are with Sally and Andrew as they rapidly approach "M-Day". M being of course, for Munchie. :-) How exciting. (Incidently Sally, the other night I dreamt you guys had a boy.). :-)

Anyway, time to open the wine. Hope everyone has a brilliant weekend. :-)

Sally's baby shower

2006-09-16T14:08:00.000+10:00

Sally (my good mate from undergrad days) is having a bub next month and last Saturday I went to an afternoon tea in her honour. Unfortunately I don't have any photos to post (do you have any Sally)?

It was great to catch up with the Mum-to-be and see her glorious bump (and no Sally, you are definitely not fat)!! I really enjoyed catching up with lots of others, including Fliss and her new baby Isaac.

And finally, the afternoon tea was really yummy! Thanks to Sally and her Mum for organising everything. :-)

at work

2006-09-11T17:27:00.000+10:00

We'll here I am waiting for a gel to dry: certainly is exciting stuff. I'm pretty tired because I got up at 5.30am to get to uni for an 8 O'clock lecture on the merits of the kidney. Damn glomerulus(for nerds out there). We have been busy but I have been a bit boring. El went to a friend's baby shower on saturday but I will let her fill you in on that. We hired a ute on sunday to take some rubbish to our local tip. Coming from the country where the local rubbish dump is a big hole in the ground, chandler refuse transfer station is like the hilton of garbage dumps. We made a couple of trips to get rid of some dead couches and a heap of crappy palm fronds that rip your hands to shreds when you try to pick them up. There was a bit of a bingle right outside the tip entrance on the second trip. Two cars had collided and a trailer had fallen off one of them. Noone seemed to badly hurt so they were just playing the blame game.
Uni is going OK, I am looking at all the gross pictures of teeth and various things that people do to them. Not for the faint hearted. All the young uns(most of the class) goes oohh and ahhh everytime a new slide comes up. I wonder how many are doing dentistry because they want to and how many are doing it because they got the OP or their parents pushed them into it.
Oh well, I have to go and check my gel dryer. This gel is the final accumulation of 3 years work so I hope it works. At least I have a good view of the city to make it seem a little less dreary here.
Bye for now
Geoff

1, 2 and 3 in August

2006-08-25T13:31:00.000+10:00

Weddings are wonderful things.

Happy three years for Sally and Andrew on the 3rd, happy two years for Bron and Ben on the 21st and happy one year for Chris and Nigel on the 27th.

Congratulations from us both. :-)

Janani's hen's day

2006-08-20T18:39:00.000+10:00

Picture 14 grown women dressed as fairies, having a great 'ol time bowling and playing party games. That's how I spent my Sunday and had an absolute blast.

My good friend Janani recently had her official marriage in Sri Lanka to a man named Jayanthan, and is going over again at the end of this week to have the Hindi style wedding ceremony on the 3rd of September. Afterwards the two of them will settle in Brisbane.

We had a little get together in her honour, with everyone donning the fairy wings, tiaras etc and playing a game of ten pin bowls in the city. Afterwards we played some games and ended the day over coffee. It was awesome to meet some new people, and catch up with others I hadn't seen in a while.

All the best with the ceremony Janani and good luck with this new and exciting chapter of your life!!

Go the mighty bulls!

2006-08-19T15:22:00.000+10:00

We had a great weekend down at Casino, catching up with Geoff's family and watching Craig play footy in the reserve grade for Casino against Wollongbar-Alstonville.

Although his team won, to make it into the finals they needed another team in the competition to win and they didn't. It was great game to watch - I am slowing learning about Rugby Union... it's such a a hard game to follow. All I know is there is lots of line-outs, and occasions where they all jump on each other to get the ball, and then another guy charges in to get the ball. I'm sure Geoff could explain it better! Anyway, it was all very exciting to cheer Craig on, and he even scored the first try. :-) The cool thing is Craig will get to play some more footy before the season is out because he is going to play a few first grade games.

Being the huge drinker that I am (not) I was democratically elected (hmm) to be the designated driver for the trip back from the footy. Imagine carting four slightly enebriated and very boistrous boys back from Wollongbar to Casino. We only had to make one pit stop. The boys thought they heard a funny sound coming from the esky so we had to pull over and investigate. Once home, we went out to a local pub for dinner and then Geoff decided it was time he'd had enough of the festivites. The rest of them carried on to the wee hours of the morning; Tony ended up singing karaoke at a another pub and waking up a little bleary eyed.

Sunday morning I drove back to Brisbane. This is something I rarely do and I can now understand why Geoff is normally so tired after the two and half hour drive. Luckily we had some excellent audio tracks to sing along to (who would have thought The Doors would keep me on the ball)?

As of last Thursday, it has been one year since we arrived back in Brisbane and scared the daylights out of my parents who weren't expecting us back until September. :-) It's amazing how fast the time goes. At times it doesn't even feel like we were away at all.

Here is a photo of where we were about a year ago, on the island of Lefkada off the coast of Greece.

Geoff had his first clinic on Friday. He was a little nervous about it, not knowing what to expect I suppose but he tells me it was really interesting. He did the suction for and got to watch a debridement (fancy word for clean and scale) assisting another student. There was a lot of blood but it didn't faze him. He has a few more clinics this year assisting but over the next couple of years he will get to be in the driver's seat more.

This and that

2006-08-09T19:27:00.000+10:00

Hey dear readers, I know it's been a while so here goes my attempt at entertaining you for at least 30 seconds.. :-)

Last weekend we caught with some former work mates - Julissa, Yvonne and Angela. We all had a yummy lunch at the Bull and Cactus and found out that Yvonne is pregnant, she and hubby Charles are expecting in February next year! She is looking really good and even has a bump to show for it. :-)

Now onto something completely different. Work has been absolutely crappy lately. I can't really go into any detail because you all know where I work and that would be bad. I sometimes wish I had an anonymous blog and then I could rant and rave all I want. :-) The good thing is that I am taking this Friday off and we are heading down to Casino to visit Geoff's folks for a long weekend. Geoff's brother Craig is playing an all important "finals make or break" game of rugby on Saturday so we will be there to cheer him on. It's also so nice just to get away from the big smoke for a bit. Brisbane is just too crowded sometimes!!

To finish up, I want to share a work email that the building engineer sent to everyone a few weeks ago now. Sorry to whoever has already seen this (hi Tash and Kath!) but it was so funny. Take care everyone. :-)

It would appear that someone has taken a liking to our shower curtains in CBCRC to the extent that 3 have now been removed.

I was not aware that these were a sought after collectors item as they are readily available from all leading hardware stores!!!!

I have now ordered new ones and these will be installed upon receipt, so no more emails please. Please direct all your energies to catching THE CURTAIN BANDIT as he or she is the one causing you the inconvenience.

If THE CURTAIN BANDIT wishes to contact me I can direct them to the appropriate supplier and they can try paying for one!!!!!!!

Our book list

2006-08-02T19:13:00.000+10:00

Christine and Nigel (www.blog.co.uk/main/index.php/viapaschale) have tagged us about 10 books.

I would just like to mention that Geoff's replies are shown after mine and I take no responsibility for them!!

1. One book that changed your life:

Lonely Planet Guide for Canada
Bear Attacks, their Causes and Avoidance by Stephen Herrero

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
The complete guide to home brewing in Australia by Laurie Strachan

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

Collins Pocket Guide to Stars and Planets
A Lonely Planet Guide to Desert Islands

4. One book that made you laugh:

Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man, by Tim Allen
Far Out Brussel Sprout by Paul Jennings

5. One book that made you cry:

April Fools Day by Bryce Courtenay
So thats what its like when doves cry by Amanda Huginkis

6. One book that you wish had been written:

How to travel around the world on minimum money
Get rich quick by Richard Rich

7. One book that you wish had never been written:

Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus by John Gray
Chemistry by Zumdahl

8. One book you’re currently reading:

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
A Brief History of the World by Geoffrey Blainey

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

The Harry Potter series
Kokoda by Paul Ham

10. Tag others.

Umm, whoever considers themselves lucky enough... go for it!!

Jerusalem Creek

2006-07-11T14:09:00.000+10:00

We recently took a trip down south to visit my parents and do a spot of fishing. After loading the subaru full of borrowed camping gear(Thanks Dad) we headed down to Bundjalung National Park to camp for a few nights. It is one of my regular spots that I like but this was El's first visit.The facilities are minimal with pit toilets and no showers or running water but we managed. It is quite invigorating having cold camp showers hiding behind the tent. We had all our warm gear from Canada so we weren't too cold but El managed to steal most of my stuff to wear over the top of her multiple layers. Nights were not too cold until the last night when the dew made its way onto the outside of the sleeping bags and everywhere else. Not quite as cold as when we camped in Nova Scotia though.
I did lots of fishing but had more luck in catching beers from the esky than fish from the sea or creek.
Jerusalem Creek runs out to the ocean eventually, we nearly died(not really-just got really tired) walking the 9 kms return trip (complete with fishing rods,esky and heavy camera). Even though the esky was getting lighter as I removed various shiny metal objects it seemed to get heavier as we went along. We walked along the creek as far as the mouth of the creek and decided to walk along the beach back to the campground to make the trip easier. The only problem with that idea was the south easterly swell making tides bigger than they should have been. We walked about 800 meters back toward the campground and then saw our path blocked around a headland by rather large incoming waves. We took the wussy way out and clambered up onto a rock shelf to escape the seas. Once we got to the top of the shelf we could see that the beach was a no go zone. The problem with this was that we were seperated from the path leading along the creek by various prickly plants, pandanus palms and assorted scratchy looking sticks. Reliving my childhood I managed to bush bash our way back to the track, trying not to pay too much attention to the look of terror on El's face.

This time of year the campground is virtually deserted, mainly due to the cold. Only die hard fishermen and silly people like us go camping at this time of year. It got down to close to zero degrees one night. I got up to look at the sun come up while El was too busy sleeping and steam was coming off the waves.
I also nearly managed to get the car bogged in some soft sand. It only went up to the door on the passenger side but with a little encouragement, some low range and a lot of revving I got out and moving again, much to El's delight. For some reason she did not want the car to get swept out to sea.

Above is a more gentle type of sand-the hard stuff. Its like driving on a highway so you don't have too many problems. At high tide when the sand is soft you have to be more careful as if you lose momentum you can easily get stuck.
I have caught heaps of fish at this place in the past but a combination of bad weather and apathy stopped the fish from biting.

After camping we went back to my parent's place and gave the car a good wash. Probably half the sand on the beach seemed to come out of the car and sand was in spots that you didn't think a car had. We got it fairly clean though, just clean enough to notice the fresh dirt put on it driving back to Brisbane.
El is back at work now, doing her science thing. I'm still doing a bit of work as well and enjoying the last days until I go back to uni. I'm starting dentistry subjects next semester so I'm really looking forward to not doing all the science stuff again. I've got credit for a couple of subjects next semester so the workload should be easier. Luckily Organic Chemistry was one of the subjects I got off-I hate that stuff.
Today I am working my way through El's list of jobs while she is at work -doing the house husband thingy.
I'm back to Uni on Monday and have to get dressed up for the dental school so my days of ultra casual are numbered.

Gotta love the serenity!

2006-06-27T19:16:00.000+10:00

Hello! Thought we'd do a post with some pictures for once! We had a great weekend away at my aunties farm. It was really peaceful to get away from it all and I could have easily stayed a lot longer. Sorry Bron and Chris (and any other misplaced Aussies) - hope these photos don't make you too homesick!

We helped feed the one year old cows some grain and this fella was particularly curious about the camera.

We also went for a walk down to the river bed. It is unbelievable how dry it is. It was only at Christmas time that a few of my family members were swimming at this exact spot.

This is the view from up near the house. My auntie has alpacas and chooks in the pen to the left of the picture.We saw this fella on a walk we took around the back of her property. It was as close as we could get with Geoff's super duper mega zoom lens. We think the koala had a cub as well.Here's me getting in touch with nature. I wasn't drinking, I swear!Mum and Geoff feeding the hungry herd. Mum and I looking particularly spiffty in our floppy hats.
Another cow photo sorry. I think they're cute. :-)

It's a boy!

2006-06-25T18:11:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to our friends, Eric and Sally, on the arrival of their second boy, Carlos Jorge, born last Wednesday morning. We are looking forward to catching up with the 4 of them soon!

Things I have learnt

2006-06-18T14:20:00.000+10:00

We had a work trivia night on Friday... what a hoot. It was great fun getting to know some of my lab members (and significant others) a bit better. Although our team "The Tragically Hip" (no, I don't really get it either - someone else named us) didn't win, or come even second (but we weren't last either!) I learnt a lot of useless information.

1) John Howard's middle name is Winston (is that a bit presumptious to name your child after a former politician? Apparently George Dubuya's middle name is Washington as well).

2) The Rabbitohs have won the most Rugby League Premierships.

3) Archer was the name of the horse that won the first two Melbourne cups.

4) Kangaroo is the first Australian aboriginal word to be incorporated into the English language.

So there you go.

Our Saturday

2006-06-11T10:45:00.000+10:00

Geoff had his first exam yesterday -Chem (yuck yuck yuck). It was in the early afternoon so I decided to drive him over and then go to the Indro shops until he was finished. I probably should have thought about this a bit more because it was a) Indro b) a Saturday c) lunchtime and d) raining! The carpark was a nightmare! I drove around for what felt like an eternity, cursing and swearing at incompetent drivers, people that park in the turning space, people that beat me to stalking a person walking back to their car and just people in general! I had admitted defeat and was on the way out when I decided to do a last minute check in this little parking area off the main craziness. Unbelievably I found a spot! I did a check for disabled signs, etc but thankfully there was none. Yay for me!

What I really wanted to buy was a denim jacket and a pair of jeans. I must have went into at least 20 different clothes stores and made an interesting observation. Everything is made in China now! It didn't matter whether it was Target, Myer, Jacqui E, Country Road or whatever, they all had the same tag. I think that is really sad. What's even more sad is that the clothes are probably all made in the same sweat shop but the price variations are huge! I did notice however, that a $40 pair of jeans from Target did not fit and feel as nice as a $160 pair from, say Country Road. They are both made in China though. How does that make sense?

Anyway, eventually I had success and bought a nice pair of jeans and a 30% off jacket. I haven't been clothes shopping by myself in a long time and found it was quite good, you don't have to worry about anyone else getting bored and cranky!

So I got a message from Geoff saying his exam was over so I picked him up and headed home. Geoff isn't sure how it went but is glad one is over. Now he is into the physics which is next Thursday. Fun fun. :-)

Ma

2006-06-07T20:04:00.000+10:00

Totally forgot to mention in our last post. Happy belated Birthday for my Mum for last Tuesday! We played a bad version of "Happy Birthday to You" in our concert band rehearsal on Monday night. It's become a bit of a tradition where everyone just plays random notes because no one has ever worked out how to play it and what key to play it in!

Not much else to say since Sunday. I did however, finish a 6 week yoga stint this evening. Every Wednesday after work at work. It has been the best thing - it has been helping me with my flexbility and toning up. One cool thing I have learnt is to do "alternative nostril breathing". It sounds weird but is awfully relaxing. :-)

Bush Weekend

2006-06-04T18:17:00.000+10:00

I just got back from a weekend away with my Mum. First up yesterday morning we went to the Eumundi markets. I couldn't believe how busy they were. We had to park a mile away and had to walk up several steep hills to get back to the car afterwards. Mum's knee is now not thanking her very much! There were some pretty funky items at the markets, including a silver spoon and fork wind chimes and lots of nice woodwork. I ended up just buying some yummy strawberries and a pineapple.

Afterwards we went out to my Uncle Richard's bush block near Imbil. He is living in a shed but has a few mod cons that run off solar panels and wind turbines. He doesn't have running water as such, just a tank and a dam. It was primitive but so peaceful out there. He has lots of chooks, geese, pheasants and various other birds. His partner Alison (who I have never met before) was also out there for the weekend.

After lunch we headed out to see our good friends John and Susan at Gympie. In the afternoon we helped feed their cows and collect firewood. After a yummy roast dinner we all sat around their fireplace for hours. Today we helped put mulch around some of their gardens since it is so dry. I always love going up to their place because it is so peaceful and they are great company. We were quite reluctant to go back this afternoon. I should have counted the number of "no dam" signs on the highway... there was just so many of them.

Geoff is on Swotvac as of tomorrow and spent the weekend studying chemistry. That exam is next Saturday. All his exams are nicely spaced out which is awesome. He finishes up on the 23rd of this month and then has something ridiculous like 4 weeks holiday! I am hoping to take some time off work so we can go camping. We are thinking about going to Jerusalem Creek which isn't far from Geoff's parent's place. I will have to drag out the Canada thermals for that trip! Brr.

Work has been really busy in the last little while, which is great. A month ago I got vaccinated for smallpox which was not a whole lot of fun. I won't go into the graphic details but will just say that my arm felt like it had been punched repeatedly. :-) Good thing is that the sore is nearly healed and I will be able to shower normally very soon! (And if anyone decides to release the virus as germ warfare I will be safe?!?)

I have some photos to post but they are of the old-fashioned film type and are yet to be developed. Will do that at a later date. I had some great photos taken on mother's day and we have proceeded to lose them. They are not on the computer, or the memory card, and not even retrievable when we use the special software. Very weird.

So that's enough for now. Hope everyone is well. :-)

Bron's getting old. :-)

2006-04-30T09:49:00.000+10:00

To our dearest Bron

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

We hope you have an awesome day...
Love always, El and Geoff

Perhaps it's time...

2006-04-25T17:47:00.000+10:00

... to update this thing.

What has happened in our lives since our last post? Well, lots of things actually.

Firstly, our good mates Tash and Dunk had a little girl, Isla Jane, on the 24th of March. She was born seven and a half weeks early, and after doing extremely well, was allowed to go home last Wednesday. We had the pleasure of meeting Isla quite a few weeks ago in hospital, but got to have a cuddle of her on Sunday afternoon. What a cutie. She is the most placid baby and was quite happy to be passed around to all her admirers. Tash and Dunk are both looking great and don't appear too sleep-derived at this stage. :-)

While we are on the subject of babies, we can't fail to mention Sally and Andrew's wonderful news. Their little bundle of joy, or munchkin, as it seems to be called, is due on the 12th of October. I caught up with those two this morning and Sally does not seem to be showing a bump yet. :-)

Now onto something completely different. We got our new car!! It is the only baby we'll be having in a while! It is over a month old now and purring quite nicely. There's something very cool about having a car that a) takes off at lights b) doesn't require you to turn off the aircon when you go up hills and c) still has a new car smell! We tried the car out on the beach at Evan's Head over Easter. It powered through the sand quite well and it was only scary coming on and off the tracks from the road onto the beach. Geoff assures me that the bumping and bouncing around is quite normal and you have to go reasonably fast to power through the sand. I am learning. :-)

Geoff did a spot of fishing while on the beach, and didn't catch anything except for rocks and seaweed. It was a pretty crappy day for the beach - overcast, rainy, windy and cold - so Trina and I chilled out in the car instead of lounging around on the beach.

Over Easter we also went for a drive out to Mummulgum, about an hour from Geoff's parent's place. It was coming on dark and there was lots of kangaroos out and about, trying to hit our car. It was a really scenic drive, lots of mountains and farms. It was our car's first semi-offroad experience, going through creek crossings and gravely roads.

Geoff is still surviving uni. He passed two mid semester exams and has got back into studying even though he says it is hard to adjust to being a student again.

The Reality of it all

2006-03-23T20:55:00.000+10:00

The whole uni thing has struck me in the face. I forgot how much fun it was to have constant assessment, saturday exams and having to actually pay attention for hours on end is. Besides all those normal fellings of apprehension, things are going ok at the moment. I have a biology exam in about 3 weeks at 1pm on a saturday so that will be fun. I also have another exam on a thursday for physics which I am not looking forward to. Its all questions like" What is the maximum velocity a dolphin will obtain if it jumps out of the water at 35 degrees and into a pot of custard bla bla bla". It is supposed to physics for the real world but I don't know what world these people live in.
Well thats all the whining over for now. The wholes uni concept is not so foreign anymore-the buses, the libraries, the boredom. The hardest thing is coming home and trying to study.
There has already been a dropout from the course. I'm hoping to do alright but tonight I've been good and bad. The good-studying physics and biology for 3 hours. The bad-having a beer or two and messing around on the internet. I have an 8am lecture tomorrow and am working tomorrow night so not too much shenanigans tonight I'm afraid.
We have thrown caution to the wind and have bought a new car. It is a new forester and is getting done up for us this week. It is El's car to replace the pulsar which is going to her brother. We thought if we aren't going to have much money, we may as well be silly about it and get a nice shiny new car(its blue).
As El promised I have the giant drop photo here. It is slightly out of focus but you can get the general idea. Our group is the six people from the left.
Will post more as everythjing develops.

Being sick. :-(

2006-03-20T13:17:00.000+10:00

Hello, I'm bored. Geoff is at uni and I am having the day off from work because I'm sick. I haven't had a good cold for ages, I put this down to not having a Summer/Autumn transition since 2004. I always seem to get sick in March. Geoff was crook all last week, and I started to feel yuck on Friday at work. Typical form, getting sick on a Friday! I spent the weekend with a pounding head and no ability to taste food. I slept most of it, but there is only so much sleeping you can do before you get bored with it!

I would like to thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes on the blog! I had a good birthday - had cake at work which was a real bonus, and got to talk to Bron in Canada in the evening (which was midnight for her)! My Mum got me the coolest gift - 2 funky looking platters laden with all different types of fruit - she knows me well. :-) Geoff got me a HUGE box of choccies and a bottle of sambucca... ah, sambucca... I have only recently discovered how good it is. :-)

However, turning 26 had it's downfalls. I am now that much closer to 30!! It's funny, but ever since I turned 25, I have no longer felt like I'm at a good age. 24 just has a certain good feel about it, whereas 25 (and 26) just seem old. I shouldn't complain though. I know when I'm 40, or 50, I'll look back and wish I was 26 again!

Geoff and I have been looking at buying a new car. We have spent the last 5 or so Sundays at local car yards, without the annoying presence of salespersons. I am going to sell my baby to my brother Mark. My car has been making some strange noises lately, and I have to get the clutch and something to do with the diff replaced. In short, I'm going to be car-less for over a week and it's going to cost a packet. Damn cars. I have it booked in for Thursday. I just hope the mechanic doesn't find anything else wrong with it.

Last weekend we went to Dreamworld with Craig, Melissa, Karina and Buzz. I hadn't been since 2003 with Julia and Rachel, and figured that was a long enough gap to forget how bad some of the rides really are on your nerves and stomach! It was also Craig's first visit so he was suitably apprehensive! We managed to do the Giant Drop, the Tower of Terror and the Cyclone rollercoaster. I drew the line at the Claw! I discovered that I still cannot stand the giant drop, and we have the photo proof. Going to have to get Geoff to scan it in. I look like I have seen a ghost, my face is ashen and all droopy. Not one of my best looks. I still cannot get over how long the drop feels like, when it's only a few seconds! I also discovered, that when going on a rollercoaster and doing the loops, to keep your eyes open. It makes the experience far less scary.

Anyway, by the end of the day, all your glucose stores are all used up from all the adrenaline rushes. We hit the lolly store and the ice cream shop, and all was good. And we also stopped at the Yatala pie place for dinner. Yummm...

So that's about it for now.

Back to uni

2006-03-07T15:56:00.000+10:00

I am in my second week of uni now. I am doing first year subjects and although everyone tells me I should be able to get credit, I don't particularly want to. Even though I will be paying more hecs, I need to get my brain working again. It has been a decade since I did these subjects and to have to go straight into second year dentistry without having time to adjust to studying seems a little daunting.
My entire first week left me drained. I actually paid attention in lectures which in itself seemed to deplete most of my glucose reserves. I am trying not to sleep in lectures like I used to in my first degree, but when you have statistics at 8am it can be a little dificult.
Adjusting to life at uni again is only proving to be difficult when it comes to study. I got in trouble after my first day of lectures because I had a beer instead of hitting the books. I explained to El that drinking beer and being a student go hand in hand so she let it slide. I just don't know how many times I will get away with it.
At the moment the subjects are fairly mundane, 1st year biology, statistics, chemistry and physics. I am getting used to being one of the older students, possibly the oldest. They are a few other mature aged students in dentistry, but I still think I am at least a couple of years older. One guy is actually doing dentistry after med to do maxillo-facillary stuff. He must be super keen.
It is El's B'day today and she said she feels old. I just tell her how old I am and that seems to cheer her up.
I haven't broken my ties with research just yet, I'm working casually to get a bit of pocket money but I will see how that goes as the year progresses.

We had the time of our lives...

2006-02-26T15:51:00.000+10:00

Okay, so the pun is bad... :-) On Friday night Mum, Melissa and I went to see Dirty Dancing at the Lyric Theatre. It was an awesome performance. I think there was about 20 women to every guy, and every time the Patrick Swayze look-alike came onto the stage, the crowd went wild. The dancing and the singing were really good. We got last minute tickets and sat in the back row of the second balcony (as in as far back as you can get). The actors looked like little figurines but it was entertaining all the same. The musicians in the performance were really good too. A lot of the scenes they had a quartet of tenor sax, trumpet, piano and drums - they just went off. :-)

Geoff is in last minute preparations for becoming a full-time student (he is having a beer)! Yesterday we drove out to UQ for a look around. I was the tour guide, and was quite surprised how much I remembered in regards to building numbers and locations. It's only been 6 years since I was at that campus. Eep. I'm old.

We also looked at textbooks. They are so expensive! Only bought one for the time being. Can't wait until the next few years where they will be getting more specialised and even more pricey!

Surprise Surprise

2006-02-21T20:07:00.000+10:00

Friday afternoon was a weird one. After returning home with arms laden with sushi I discovered that I had a phone message. All I knew was that it was something concerning dentistry and that I had to call some dental school somewhere back.
I rang up and was offered a place to study Dentistry at UQ. I accepted and will start next week. It is a first year entry degree so there are a lot of young-uns. I think I will be the token mature age. It will be 5 years until I graduate but the only other option is to work year to year in research(of which I am well and truly sick of). I will be working a few hours a week in the lab to get a bit of pocket money while going to uni, at least while the workload permits.
Everyone has been really supportive concerning my quarter life crisis. Everyone says they hate the dentist but keep telling me they want free checkups so what can you do?
We went to Tash and Duncan's place for a barbecue on saturday.
They had these weird plastic teeth just to encourage me. They also bought me a nice plant for my study area so I can get a fresh hit of oxygen while I study.
On Monday I had orientation at the dental school. It looked very interesting but it is very overwhelming to see everything in the space of a couple of hours. It was very surreal walking into a room where 50 dentist drills were going at the same time(not for those that hate the sound of it).
I won't be spending too much time there until 2nd year when we start to do some of the more clinical aspects.
Not much else to write really, but will keep you posted on things as they unfold.
I am putting a few photos on here from saturday night and others I have taken when I'm bored. El is off at band tonight so I've been left to entertain myself.

More Beach Time

2006-02-12T09:28:00.000+10:00

Once again I hit the coast for a beach fix, this time with Geoff, Craig and Melissa. The weather was absolutely brilliant and we went for lots of swims in the surf and at the lake. The boys tried really hard to catch some fish, but even after a 4am stint they had nothing but a few bites. We bought a little portable bbq and cooked most of the meals outside in the cool. I can't wait now until we can get some more camping gear and can actually go camping and use it again. :-)

It was a little sad to leave on Sunday since it will be the last time going to the Wurtulla house. My aunt and uncle, after 13 years, have decided to sell up. We have had some really good family get togethers there and there are lots of good memories with that place.

Happy Birthday Wayne!

2006-01-29T16:36:00.000+10:00

Last night we went to our friend Wayne's 30th birthday. He held the party at the Campus Club at Griffith Uni. Not a bad setup there, they had this awesome deck overlooking the bush. Apparently it's a whole lot nicer than the Campus Club Geoff and Wayne used to frequent in their earlier uni days. It was good to catch up with Wayne and some other friends. They had a bar tab running which was an added bonus. :-)

Yesterday morning I went with my Mum to a garden show over at Mount Cootha gardens. It was amazing to see the amount of energetic people at 8.30 on a Saturday morning pushing and shoving to get the best plants. I wasn't going to buy anything there but ended up buying a Venus Fly Trap... it was just too cute to pass by. As we were leaving we noticed this massive plant growing in a pond outside the show. The leaves, I swear were the size of rubbish bin lids and the flowers were the size of dinner plates! Like something you'd expect to see in the depths of the Amazonian forest. Very cool. :-)

Happy Australia Day!!

2006-01-26T17:36:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since we last posted. :-) Oops.

I love public holidays! Today I went into the city and met up with Janani. We went to a few pubs that were playing the Triple J Hottest 100. The atmosphere was good fun. On the way home I saw the city parade as well. There was lots of people in the parade rollerblading and dressed as fairies. I don't see the relevance but it looked cool all the same.

For anyone out there that reads this and hasn't been in contact recently, Geoff got into Optometry!! We are both pretty excited about it. It's going to be a long slog of 4 years, but Geoff really needs a change in his career. Until uni starts he is still working part-time back in his old lab. Uni starts in late February. He is going to have to get textbooks, pay union fees and setup a desk. It has been a long time since either one of us has done anything like that!

Last weekend I had a beach fix at Wurtulla with my Mum and my brothers. The weather up until a few days before had been hot but (of course) we got all that rain and cooler weather as the weekend got closer. The weather up at the coast was alright though, it only rained for about 10 mins on Sunday. It was pretty windy but we got in two swims - one in the surf and one at the lake. It was just so nice being at the beach again. I hadn't been since before we went overseas. My aunty Jean was up at the house as well and it was good catching up with her.

So that's it for now. :-)

Back to Work

2006-01-03T13:47:00.000+10:00

Hey, well unfortunately my week off over Christmas has come to an end and I'm back at work. Trying to get my head into all things sciency again, it has been a bit tough. We had a good new years eve, with a few drinks at the local pub, a few pina coladas back at our house before going to catch up with Rob (who is on his whirlwind visit to Brisbane) and Tash and Dunk. We made up until midnight and saw lots of fireworks going off all over the city from the high position of Rob's brother's backyard at Mount Gravatt.

Geoff isn't working at the moment, instead he is entertaining a school friend who is staying for a few days. I believe they were going to hit the shops today to avoid the heat. I was kinda looking forward to going to work because of the airconditioning, but it doesn't seem to be working very well. D'oh.

Only a little over a week until we find out about uni. The days seem to be dragging on.

Not much else to say really. Best be off now.
El.

Hot Casino Christmas

2005-12-30T08:30:00.001+10:00

Well we are back in Brisbane after spending a couple of very hot days over Christmas down in Casino. It was El's first Christmas in Casino so the heat was a bit of a shock for her.
We spent a few days lounging around, going to family things and eating drinking and being merry quite a lot.
We also got to see Mum and Dads new dog -Storm. She is a replacement for the one that died recently. She is a smithfield Blue and they are born with little stubby tails which look quite interesting. She is only 8 months old but with all her speckled grey fur she looks like a distinguished old lady. We were trying to teach her a few tricks but she barks a lot and gets excited a bit too easily.

We followed the usual Christmas routines and went to my Grandmother's place on Christmas Eve. We caught up with a lot of people from Mum's side of the family. We haven't seen some of them for about 2 years so it was good to find out what has been happening. A lot of my younger cousins are bigger and there are some new additions I haven't met before. One of my cousins has had a little(but rather big for his age) boy that was the centre of attention. His dad said that all the ladies get clucky over him until they try and pick him up. El took a liking to him. He really liked trucks and my grandmother lives across the road from Norco so milk tankers come and go all night. El helped him unwrap his present and he was more interested in the paper than the present. He did a faceplant by jumping off El's lap and proceeded to try to pick up people's empties to get the last dregs. Luckily for him we all like a drink so there was never too much left in the cans for him to get.

On Christmas day we woke up early (Daylight savings) to open presents. We had a nice cold lunch , a few beers and an afternoon game of backyard cricket. It has been a few years since all us boys have been home for XMas so it was a good day. We eventually called it a day when the beer supplies finally ran out.

On Boxing day we visited my grandparent's farm for morning tea. We normally go out for lunch but with it being so hot we opted to go out earlier rather than swelter in the heat. We had a few afternoon drinks in preparation for an engagement party which was in a pub so we could save some money. We went and played pool at one of Craig's friends houses for a few hours before we went to the engagement party. The party was fun, with a good time had by all. Tony and Craig got a bit drunk, with Craig volunteering his services as a waiter. He doesn't remember.

My cousin Lee and Tony stayed at the party pretty late and Lee crashed at our place. The next morning we took him to pick up his car and went out to see Lee and his Dad on their farm out at Doubtful Creek. Lee was a litle seedy but took us on a 4wd tour of the property(1800 acres). 1st stop was his prized pumpkin vine crop and then he took us out the back to the run down shack and then we went bush bashing up some of the hills. The views were quite good. We could see MT Warning and a lot of valleys. El thinks she saw a wallaby(or possibly a yowie- we cant be sure) bounding across the track. Neither Lee or I saw it so it is possible she fabricated the whole thing. We were squished into the cab of a 4wd ute while Lee's cattle dog happily ran the entire time beside the truck, stopping every now and then to dunk in the cow troughs to cool off.

We are back in Brisbane now and are seriously considering buying an airconditioner. We went to check out the Myer Centre and Queen Street Mall with Wayne yesterday. It was good but there were too many people and the "sales" weren't that great.

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and has a safe and proposterous New Year.
Geoff and El

Monkey Nuts

2005-12-11T17:36:00.000+10:00

It's quite hard to come up with interesting titles, but I think this one is pretty original. :-) We have these annoying palm trees in the backyard that drop ridiculous amounts of fruit which El has affectionately called "monkey nuts" (a throw back to her primary school years). The bats get in there of a night time and have a dance party throwing the fruit all over the place. The problem is that they clog the drains(the fruit not the bats) and when we get a storm the house turns into a house boat. We don the rain coats and brave the elements to unclog the drains but it would be so much easier to get rid of the palm trees(sorry greenpeace). Pity its a rental. About all we can do is mow the lawn. We are a little envious of everyone we know buying houses but we will get there eventually.

It now a year since we left for Canada. How the time has flown! We are seeing all the reports of snow in Jasper and Whistler and with this heat, we are feeling very jealous.

Only two weeks till Christmas now. Last year we had a white christmas so this year it will be a bit of a shock to experience the aussie style swelter down in Casino.
We have a real beauty of a tree up and have bought all of our presents early for once in our lives. Might try and get a photo of the tree (sorry to copy your idea Chris).

Last night we went to Sally and Andrew's housewarming party. It was good to catch up with them and see their new place. Their dog was quite well-behaved and didn't try and hump my leg or anything. :-) We had a good chat with Kylie and Mekiel (spelt horribly wrong I'm sure) and played giant frisbee with Andrew's little cousin.

The storms lately have been pretty spectacular. The last one on the Thursday just gone was massive. Our yard seems to flood and all the monkey nuts that have dropped from the palm tree clogged the drains. We didn't lose any power but in the last house we lost power nearly every time it rained.

It is still about a month until I find out about Dentistry. Fingers crossed. Either way a lot of beers will disappear (mostly by El's hand I'm sure). I still have contingency plans so I just have to wait and see.

Whipper Snippers, work and life

2005-11-19T08:17:00.000+10:00

Well I have returned to work for a few days a week until I find out if I get into uni. The work is the same as I left a year ago and it has convinced me that I really don't want to be a scientist for the rest of my life. Hopefully one of the other options pans out and I can get on with things.

With all this rain and heat the lawn has finally got out of control; so much so we had to buy a whipper-snipper to cut through the jungle that surrounds our house(how exciting!) to stop the wild animals breeding. Its a real beauty.
El is still slaving away working five days a week at her job, we're both paying off debts from our trip but its all good getting back to reality. It is a challenge for her being a qualified scientician again. I have weined myself off my ebay addiction, especially after being beaten a couple of times(boohoo). So much stuff yet so little time(and money).

It has been a funny week with mix of good and bad events, but you need to roll with the punches. Unfortunately a good friend of Els mother passed away, so El and her mum went to the funeral yesterday. She said it was a good service. On a happier note, some people we know had a baby. They are going to name it Eleanore(El thinks they should spell it the same way as her name, not some imposter way).

We are both well and hope everyone else is the same.
Geoff and El

2005-11-07T09:35:00.001+10:00

Fancy flower pic(too much free time)

Life in general

2005-11-07T09:35:00.000+10:00

Us at the wedding

Hey everyone, life is getting back to normal. I think we are well and truly back in the real world after spending so many months in denial. El is back working full time and I am back a couple of days a week. I am still waiting on results to see whether I will get into dentistry, but I have to wait until January to find out which is a bit of a pain.Just to let people know our smugmug site will be finishing soon. I will be trying to upload photos to our blog so hopefully we will be able to add photos to not only new blogs but some of our old ones as well.We went out to show Els dad and Eleanor some of the photos we took at their wedding. We stayed for lunch and had a few games of kelly pool to pass the time away. El is at work today-I'm working a bit later this week so I'm the house boyfriend having to do all the cleaning/cooking/washing etc(as long as I can schedule it in between X-box sessions).I am trying to ween myself off my ebay addiction, slowly, one day at a time .Hope everyone is wellGeoff and El

Work, marriages and departures.

2005-10-22T14:35:00.000+10:00

Well, it's been a while since we last posted. Lots of interesting things have happened since then.
Firstly, I managed to find a job. Back at the same place (but in a different lab). I am really enjoying it so far - the lab is friendly and the work is interesting. It has also been good to catch up with my mates from my former lab.
Secondly, my Dad and Eleanor got married last Saturday. It was threatening to rain but it managed to stay dry for the park ceremony then bucketed when we arrived for the indoor reception. It was a good night - the bridal party all looked pretty spiffy and it was great to catch up with some family that I haven't seen in years.
Thirdly, Bron and Ben are off to Canada tomorrow. They have an early flight so we will all be out there at the crack of dawn (just about) to see them off. I am very jealous that they are going into cold weather. We are going to miss them heaps.
That's about it for now. I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this still but ah well! Good for a diary anyway.
Love El and Geoff

Post Travel Depression

2005-09-07T16:48:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
Well, the title is actually a lie but I thought it sounded cool. :-) We are slowly settling down to the real world. Pretty amazing that we have now been back for 3 weeks! We have both done the Centrelink thing to get us by until we find jobs. No luck yet but something's out there I hope. Last week we went down to Geoff's parent's place. It was good to catch up with the family. Geoff's Dad really liked the Ulu knife we bought for him from Alaska. The weekend before last Christine and Nigel got married. They both looked beautiful and it was also good to catch up with the old uni friends. :-)
Not much else to say really. For those reading this that we haven't seen yet - sorry for being slack and we will get round to seeing you soon!
So bye for now,
Love El and Geoff.

Home Sweet Home

2005-08-18T12:51:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
Well the time has come (very quickly I might add) and we are back in the good 'ol land of Oz. After saying our goodbyes to Rob and Chrysa, we jumped on a plane that took us to Bangkok. The flight was pretty long but there was plenty of movies to watch and the seats were pretty comfy so no complaints here. I would recommend Thai Airways for sure. We landed in Bangkok at some ungodly hour like 5am and then proceeded to wait at the airport for... wait for this... 18 (and a half!) hours for our final flight into Brissy! We had been warned though (and therefore cannot complain too much) that we should book a hotel for the day for some sleep and to freshen up. However we decided to do the stingy thing and just stay at the airport. I am not really sure how we managed to stay sane for the day! We were both dead-tired and found the hard, bumpy rows of plastic chairs at the viewing level VERY uncomfortable to sleep on. I ended up sleeping on the floor for a bit but even that wasn't too good. We got some weird looks from people (including a cleaner trying to sweep the floor!) but we didn't care. I'd like to say at this point that we observed an awful number of planes landing and taking off! Eventually the hours ticked by and we checked in, did some duty free shopping and finally got on that plane at some time after 11pm!
The flight home was really empty and everyone in our section got 3 seats for themself. It was awesome to stretch out and get some shut-eye! Needless to say, this flight went really quick and before we knew it, we were home.
Geoff is currently crashing on the floor of his brother's place. He tells me he got his meat pie fix and a few beers to wash it down with. :-) I went home with my brother and suceeded in surprising my parents who thought we weren't coming back until September. The looks on their faces was priceless. We are now starting to get over the jetlag but everything still feels not real and it may take some time for everything to sink in.
We are glad to be back but also feel sad that our trip is over.
Hopefully we can keep this blog going and keep adding interesting stuff.
So for now, that's all folks!
Love El and Geoff

Lefkada

2005-08-11T00:01:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
We are back after our 3 day holiday in Lefkada. This is one beautiful island. We visited 5 different beaches and were amazed with the beautiful shades of turquoise. The water was very pleasant to swim in and we enjoyed vegeing out on the beach as well. We also ate a lot of greek food and checked out the cool markets and shops in the main town. The island was packed with all the tourists and the roads were very windy, narrow and dangerous with lots of parked cars everywhere. Rob did a great job driving amidst the craziness of it all!
We stayed in an apartment close to the main town. The grounds were beautiful and it had a nice pool. We caught a few taxis into town for dinner and noticed how the cabbies had covered up the meters and then charged whatever they liked! Chrysa was on the ball though and stopped anything becoming too expensive!
Had a great trip - definitely worth visiting.
See ya,
Love El and Geoff.

Hot in Greece

2005-08-03T00:26:00.000+10:00

Well we made it to Greece and are now staying with Chrysa and Rob on the outskirts of Athens in a place called Krioneri (or Kpyonepi in Greek). We have been here for about a week or so enjoying the sites, smells and tastes of being in Greece. We have almost overdosed on Souvlaki and olive oil but we are bearing it.
We have been checking out a few sites around Athens including Roman ruins dating back to 400B.C. or so. We also checked out the acropolis and the parthenon. The old temples are really cool.
We have been sampling a few of the local taverns( tabepnas in Greek) and various cafes trying to have the true greek experience. We are4 eternally grateful to Chrysa for all her translational skills. All we can really get by ourselves are tickets, bread and beer(not too shabby).
We went to a tavern that overlooks Athens the other night for a few drinks. We had a table but you have to buy a bottle of spirits to share. We had a few drinks each from it but Rob and I both felt ordinary the next day. We were suspicious because there were reports on the news about tampering that takes place in some establisments.
Anyway, we managed to recover ok and we went for a swim at a beach not far from Athens (near the site of the rowing in the 2004 Olympics). The water was really salty and quite nice. Lucky we had a few beers on hand to get the taste out of our mouths.
We are spending time around chrysa and Robs place. The days are really hot at the moment-the next few days are supposed to get up to around 40C.
We are going to one of the Ionian greek Islands-Lefkada this weekend. That should be really cool.
We are really enjoying our time here though the whole language barrier is a bit tough sometimes. As long as we can get beer and bread we should be able to get by.
Hope everyone is well.
Bye for now.
Geoff and El

The Scottish Highlands

2005-07-24T20:58:00.000+10:00

We are back in London after spending the last week travelling through Scotland. We were on a tour that took us up into the Highlands and the Isle of Skye. It was a really good week, learning about the history, seeing great scenery and most fun of all drinking scotch at the top of these magnificent mountains. We stayed at pubs, hostels etc and the others on the tour were really nice.
We saw a few famous battle fields like culloden and bannockburn and saw other cool stuff like Loch Ness and various castles.
Scotland was really cool, well worth a return visit in the future. It did rain a lot but thats typical Scottish weather for you.
We are jetting out to Athens tomorrow to catch up with Chrysa and Rob which should be great fun.
Bye for now
Geoff and El

London Town

2005-07-17T22:07:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
Well we are here in London now. Our visit to Washington DC was fun, we went and saw lots of the president monuments, had a peek at the White House (from the fenceline) and also checked out Capitol Hill where the pollies live. It was unbelievably hot and humid, so we also spent alot of time in air-conditioned shops! We found the hostel where we stayed at to be a little too crowded and there wasn't any locks on the doors so we were a little concerned about our stuff... but there wasn't any problems as it turned out. We really enjoyed the backyard of the hostel... it was really leafy and there was a cool patio to sit back and enjoy a slurpie from the nearby 7-11 store. And they had hammocks in the yard which were very cool.
Early Thursday morning we caught a plane to London. Washington Airport was in shambles, millions of people everywhere, not enough signs and huge lineups for the security checks. The plane trip over the Atlantic was good though - we had little tvs in the backs of the chairs with lots of different movie channels. And the food was pretty good too. We got to London quite late in the evening and we were grateful to Geoff's mate who picked us up and directed us back to his place. The last couple of days we have done a fair bit of sight-seeing, we checked out Buckingham Palace (and saw the changing of the guard), walked through Trafalgar Square and got a look at the Tower Bridge from a distance. Yesterday we went to the Camden Markets and saw all the alternative people that we had been told about. Last night we went to a pool party over at Brixton. There was mostly Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans there and they were mad!
We are heading off to Edinburgh tomorrow on the train and we have booked with a tour group to see the Isles of Skye and other parts of Scotland. Should be fun. We will be back in London next weekend before heading off to Athens on Monday.
So that's about it for now. We have been a little surprised with the cost here in London. It's a good thing we aren't here for that long!
See ya,
Love El and Geoff

U.S.A.

2005-07-12T21:53:00.000+10:00

Hello. We survived New York City. We had a shared dorm in a so-so hostel that was really overpriced.We stayed in the upper west side of manhattan which was really good and close to most things in downtown new york. New York was a cool place to visit-but there are so many people that we started to get the shits with it all. We visited the statue of liberty and saw the empire state building. On the way to the statue of liberty on the ferry we had a coast guard escort, machine guns and all.
Any major tourist building that you went into you had to go through a series of security checks.
We rode the subway a couple of times and went to times square. Even on a sunday there were probably 4 times more people than you see in Brisbane on a weekday in peak hour. The drivers and the pedestrians are crazy-a lot of horn honking going on. There are even signs posted warning of a $350 fine for honking.
We caught a 4.5hr bus trip to Washington D.C last night and are staying at a hostel in Takoma Park, on the outskirts of the CBD. We had to do laundry in the heat yesterday(it is about 35C or so) and there is only so much recycling of clothes that you can do.
Today we are going to check out a few things in D.C, hopefully the whitehouse Etc which should be good.
We are due to fly to London in about 3 days and catch up with some friends so hopefully that won't be too scary for us. We are a little hesitant but we will visit and try to keep a low profile.
Besides the heat, America is expensive! Even without the conversion you pay a lot for a little. It makes you appreciate the cost of living back home. We are getting about 70 cents to the dollar over here so things can get quite expensive when they show up on the credit card statement.
Oh well, it might be good training for the uk.
Talk again soon.
All the best
Geoff and El

Bye Bye Canada

2005-07-07T08:48:00.000+10:00

Well hey hey everyone, the time has come for us to say goodbye to Canada and commence the rest of our round the world journey. Wye survived the camping , with bugs, noisy neighbours, rain, thunderstorms etc. We got absolutely chewed one night by ferocious little sandflies-they came right through the tent screen and drew blood by chewing behind our ears as we slept. Fun!
Well Canada truly has been a non-stop rollercoaster of thrills, kills(I hit a few little things in the rental car (Oops)) and chills and we are really going to miss it. This time tomorrow night we will be in the big apple but we are freaking out a little bit. We have been in a small city and camping so it will take a bit of time to get used to such a big city. We are looking forward to travelling again because it means we are getting closer to home(eventually).
We had a good last day in Halifax(and Canada). There is an international tatoo on in Halifax this weekend so there was an impromptu bagpipe and brass band performance for a couple of hours that we saw. We also went to the maritime museum which has a large titanic display and heaps of call maritime artifacts. Tonight we are in a guest house getting a good nights sleep before we catch a plane early tomorrow morning. After new york we will spend a few nights in Washington Dc before flying out to London to spend a week or so there.
Best be going now.
Hope everyone is well
Geoff and El

Crazy Camping Adventures

2005-06-24T03:37:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
we have survived our first week of camping. Air beds that self-deflate, toilet trips at 2am in freezing rain and windy nights in a walmart cheapy summer tent pretty much sums it up. Not really. The scenery has been fantastic, and the nova scotians have been really friendly(especially when we say we are from Australia- "You're from where?") Apparently they don't get heaps of Aussies visiting over here- must be too far or something like that.
We have spent the last week camping in various provincial parks around nova scotia. They have been pretty quiet campgrounds, with hardly anyone camping. It is the third day of summer here(by canadian standards) and we had to get our winter gear out again the other night. It is very wet and cold and you can feel it in your bones.
We have spent the last couple of days around the bay of fundy, which is in the north of nova scotia. It has the worlds largest tides,up to 16 metres or so in height and we have been checking out the sandflats. The cliffs are very red and apparently full of fossils and amethyst but we haven't found any yet.
We are following a series of tourist drives around the province, and we occasionally get off the track a bit and have to back track when the signs are missing.
We are sitting in a library at Parrsboro at the moment doing some free surfing and will return to our campsite a bit later for some canned food and copious amounts of toast.Yum!
We have been fending off the aggressive squirrels trying to steal our food and enjoying the scenery.
Bye for now
Geoff and El

Nova Scotia

2005-06-13T23:04:00.000+10:00

We are now in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We arrived here a couple of days ago after taking a 19hr train ride from Quebec City. The weather has been a little miserable (which can be normal for here) but not too bad. Yesterday we went for a walk around the waterfront checking out all the ships. We went to look around a WWII corvette which was pretty cool. We also went to the city's cittadel and checked out lots of old cannons, and a very extensive military museum.
We are in Halifax until Wednesday morning where we are hiring a car and planning to explore Nova Scotia. We are also going to buy a tent and try and see it on the cheap.
So that's about it for now.
Love Geoff and El.

French Canada

2005-06-09T03:22:00.000+10:00

Bonjour,
Zhe ne parl pas francais. I can't speak French as we have discovered. We have spent the last few days in the province of Quebec, first in Montreal and more recently in Quebec City. Montreal was cool, it is a vibrant mix of english and french speaking people. All the street and building signs are in french so we did a lot of guesswork. We stayed in a mixed dorm in Montreal for 1 night and met a nice couple from Ottawa. They took us around old montreal and showed us a cool lebanese bakery in the middle of the suburbs. Yum! We spent the next two nights in a private room. We walked to the top of Mont-Royal (where Montreal gets its name) and had a good view of the city. The buildings in Old Montreal were really interesting.
We caught a bus from montreal to Quebec City on Monday and have been looking around the city. We are staying at a hostel within the walled city of Quebec, built in the 1600s sometime. It is really cool to walk around looking at all the old structures and the interesting buildings. French is by far the dominant language here. We haven't had to use it too much- though we had trouble ordering subway in montreal- we think they ripped us off a bit but oh well shit happens.
We are catching a train to Halifax, Novia Scotia on Friday night. We are planning on camping for a few weeks around there, possibly Newfoundland as well but it depends on how much things cost.
Hope everyone is well.
All the best
Geoff and El

Toronto

2005-06-02T02:45:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone,
Well, we made it over to this side of Canada. Our flight on Monday morning was pretty good, only took about 4 hours or so. The in-flight movie was pretty lame--> "winndixie". Must have been cheap. :(
We had two nights in a really friendly hostel (much better than the one in Vancouver). Yesterday we went with a small tour group to Niagara Falls. The falls were really spectacular. There is, however, a really tacky, Las Vegas-style strip that kinda ruins it though, with lots of sky scrapers, house of wax style museums, etc. Our tour guide drove us out to a lardy-dar winery where we tried some ice wine. Ice wine is made from grapes that are harvested at temperatures of minus 10 degrees and the resulting drink is VERY sweet. At prices of $55 for the skinnest half-bottle, it is a little out of our price range!
We also checked out a monument overlooking the Niagara river, where the British/Canadians defeated the Americans in the war of 1812. This park also contained the biggest squirrels we have ever seen in our lives! In the evening, the falls were lit up with lots of multi-coloured spotlights and it looked pretty cool.
Today we have checked out of our hostel and we have two more nights in Toronto (at another hostel) before we head off to Montreal on Friday morning. Today we are just wandering around having a look. We hope to go up the CN tower tomorrow. Toronto is very much a city, not as leafy or pretty as Vancouver (at least not what we have seen so far).
So that's it for now.
Bye,
El and Geoff.

Vancouver again

2005-05-27T04:28:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
we are back in Vancouver spending a week here before flying out to toronto next monday. It is quite warm here compared to the winter temperatures we are used to(it is 25C or so and we are sweating). We seem to be the only people wearing hats though.
Yesterday being the true nerds that we are we went to the science centre. It was a pretty good afternoon-saw an IMAX movie about the nile which was really good. They had a lot of hands on stuff but we had to put up with the little shits of kids running around pushing in.
Vancouver is so much greener than when we were here in December. A couple of days ago we went for a walk in Stanley park and admired the flowers and beautiful green trees.
Our hostel is a bit on the dodgy side, room is small and the girls toilets are always clogged but it is in a good location and feels pretty safe. We are saving a bit of money which is always good. We went to the bar under the hostel the other night and had a few drinks but the server was a rude piece of work so she sort of spoiled it a bit. El was smiley after her mudslides and I was cheery after my few beers ("few" means lots hehe).
We have started organising hostels on the other side of canada, we have toronto, montreal and Quebec City all sorted at the moment. We will then decide what other parts of Canada we can afford to see.
Thats about it for now.
Hope everyone is behaving themselves.
Love Geoff and El.

yukon adventures

2005-05-22T09:36:00.000+10:00

Hello ,
we are back in Calgary after spending two weeks travelling through the yukon , alaska and british columbia in a motorhome. We got as far north as whitehorse in the yukon and also had a look at the towns of Haines and skagway in alaska. The scenery was very cool, with the full range of snow, mountains ansd several types of forest.And yes everybody we saw a BEAR!!(We saw about 5 or so). We also saw moose,a wolf and various big animals like caribou, deer and elk We stayed mostly in quiet campgrounds which was really good> Not many campers on the road this time of year. .
There is too much detail to put in one blog so we will try and post a few more in detail about the places we visited.
Will talk to everyone soon.
Geoff and El.

No more work for El

2005-04-30T03:19:00.000+10:00

Hello.
El finished up work yesterday. The skiing is not good any more so we have brought all our equipment down from the ski hill. El went out for a last ski on her lunch break yesterday and was not at all impressed.
She had to dodge dirt and rocks and ski very cautiously. Not fun at all.
We went out for drinks last night and had a good night. Still home in bed by 11pm though. We called the lab and talked to a few people before we went home. It was good to hear their voices.
Today we are bumming around town. We just overindulged at breakfast but it was all good. We had a quick squiz at a wildlife museum which has stuffed animals all through it. Scary and cool at the same time(not little animals like you see in toyworld). The size of the moose and the bears was quite scary. Wouldn't want to run into them in a dark alley.
Hope everyone is well and enjoying their long weekend (sorry those people in NSW-have to wait a bit longer for yours).
We are counting down the days until we get to leave jasper. This time in a week we will be in Calgary. Our last trip to Calgary was cut short so it should be good to have a better look around.
Bye for now
Geoff and El

Picnic in the woods

2005-04-27T02:44:00.000+10:00

Hello everyone, yesterday we went for a walk around 6pm to go out for a picnic. We did the healthy thing and bought some KFC (in french on the same container it is PFK) and went to sit by the river. We sat down near the junction of the Miette and Athabasca rtivers. It is kind of nice now to see the water flowing and not have so much ice in it. We went down and played in the river bed for a while and could look up to see Old fort point(previous blog).
In our walk we saw a few different animals including a wolf, elk and a solitary deer. It is nice to be walking around in a t-shirt instead of having to wear the big bulky ski clothes all the time.

On Sunday night we all went on a moonlight walk up to pyramid bench, which is a small range overlooking Jasper to have a look at the moon rising. We went with "Friends of Jasper" which is a volunteer environment type group. We listened for the different sounds of the night and even howled at the moon to try to get the local wolf packs to answer us back. We looked at the moon and the planet mercury through a spotting scope which was really cool. We could see the craters on both the moon and on mercury.
We all can't wait until the end of this week when the ski hill closes. We will have another week or so and then off to the yukon.
El is on the last 3 days of her job and she can't wait to finish. This weekend we are hiring a car so we will be getting ready for the drive to calgary soon which should be good.
Hope everyone is well.
All the best for now.
Geoff(El says hi but is working today)

A Hike in the Woods

2005-04-25T03:39:00.000+10:00

Well, from our last post we mentioned that we were going to do a 20km walk on Friday. We found out that there has been grizzly bears sightings on that trail and they were feeding on elk. So we decided not to do that hike!
Instead we walked up to Old Fort Point and did a 6km circuit around the back. We had previously bought some pepper bear spray just in case. We also walked quite slow and made a lot of noise, which is what you are supposed to do to alert any nearby bears. It was a little different to walking in the bush back home, not quite so relaxing when you are constantly clapping your hands, talking loudly and whistling!
Luckily for us we didn't come across any bears. We saw some elk and big horn sheep and a few squirrels. The scenery was pretty amazing as well.
It has been really hot here lately, getting up to 20 degrees most days. The skiing is pretty woeful now, lots of bare patches, streams and many runs are being closed due to the risk of avalanches. I have 3 days of work left now but there is hardly anyone coming skiing now so the days are very slow.
This time in two weeks we will be in our RV, making our way up into the Yukon. I can't wait to do something new.
I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.
Love El and Geoff

Moving house

2005-04-20T11:26:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, the time has come for us to up and leave our house. Our lease has run out and we have spent the last couple of days cleaning up. Luckily we are only moving next door so there is not too much of a hassle there. We have less than 2 weeks of the ski season left and will soon be moving on.
We have the three of us(Me, El and Jen) sharing a large room in the new house. The room is part of approved accomodation and each room has its own bathroom which is pretty cool. The girls do spend a lot of time in there though. The sunlight now is really different to when we first got here. El and I went out for dinner last night for cantonese and the sun didn't start setting until 9.30pm. If there weren't mountains it would set a lot later.
We will miss the place when we move out: a chapter of our travels is closing but a new one is beginning which is exciting. To have a routine like the one we had for the last couple of months was ok in the skiing and earning money aspects but we really didn't want to get into a rut again.
We will have no more high speed internet from now(at least until we have more stable jobs possibly on the east coast) so that is a bit sad.
I am back to wearing t-shirts and shorts(for those people who have never seen me in long pants) as it is getting to about 12C or so most days. It can still be -8 in the mornings though so I hold off going out until it has warmed up a little bit.
We are planning a 20km hike on friday so that should be really cool. We have to check with the parks office first though to check on bear activity. The animals all seem to be getting a bit more active. One of the big wigs at our work saw a cougar from the chairlift at the ski hill last week which is a little daunting. We might have to get some bear spray for the walk though.
Oh well, best be going now. Talk to everyone soon.
Geoff and El

Snow is going

2005-04-12T13:36:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
spring seems to be on its way. The days are getting longer, warmer and it is snowing less. The ski season will be finishing in about 3 weeks and then it will be time for us to move on. We are heading north into the yukon in a motorhome which should be pretty cool. We get to pull over and camp pretty much wherever we want.
Last week we hired a car to go and do some shopping. They upgraded us to a luxury sedan due to the rest of the cars being unavailable. It was cool-it had a sun roof and power everything(see our photos on smugmug). We drove to Hinton, the nearest town to Jasper and went to Walmart and Safeway(two big chains like BigW and Woolies) cause the prices and availability of stuff here in Jasper can be a bit ridiculous.
We put the car through its paces-its good to drive when you haven't done it for so long, even if you are driving on the wrong side of the road here.
El and I are both looking forward to travelling again, too long in one place and you start getting back into the routine again which is not so much fun.
We have to move out of our basement on the 20th of this month, so hopefully we will be moving to the house next door which will save a lot of messing around. Tonight is a quiet night at home-we are hoping to ski tomorrow if it is not too icy.
All the best for now.
Geoff and El

Happy Easter

2005-04-04T02:12:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
Well, I don't know how it happened but it's now April and we have been away nearly 4 months! I can't believe how fast the time is flying! We are now counting down the days until we finish up at the ski hill. They have set a closing date of May 1st, but our hours maybe cut back a bit before that. We aren't too worried either way!
I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter weekend/week. Over here they have Spring Break that runs after the Easter weekend. All week (since Good Friday) it has been a madhouse at the hill. I have never seen so many people queuing for rental equipment! My job was fairly slow (not so many groups booked) so I helped out with ticket sales, and confirming ski lessons. You get to talk to some really cool people but you also meet the exact opposite. :-)
All day Friday and into the night we had a massive dumping of snow in Jasper and up at the ski hill. Going home from the hill was "interesting" to say the least. We were fine but there was limited visibility and a lot of cars had gone off the road into ditches. Yesterday, being a Saturday, and being one the last day of the holidays, and having 23cm of new snow, was CRAZY. hehe So many people!! We weren't going to miss out on the fun however so Geoff and I went out in our lunch break and hit the slopes. It was just beautiful, all the trees were covered in white and the amount of powder was amazing. We had a lot of fun, even if Geoff was convinced to go down a blue (intermediate) run even though he didn't think he was ready for it. It was a bit choppy and he stacked it a few times, but he did well, and now he can say he's done a blue run!! Afterwards we went through some trees to get some "fresh tracks". Your skis sink down in the powder and the tops of our boots disappeared as well. Very cool. I then did a few runs by myself and managed to stack it coming off a chair lift. Quite embarrasssing, no broken bones, but I have a freaky bruise developing. Ouch.
Last night we had a BBQ and said goodbye to some Kiwi friends that had been working up at the hill but have decided to leave early. It was pretty cold to be cooking outside but we managed to do it quick and retreat back indoors. We had been missing the Aussie beer and BBQ thing so it was good fun.
Today Geoff and Jen are working and I'm buming around the house, contemplating whether to go skiing. I think today is going to much quieter up at the hill, so I should get cracking so I don't miss the bus up there!
Talk to you lot later.
Love El and Geoff

Snowing in Spring

2005-03-23T02:21:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, it is the third day of spring(spring over here starts on the 20th of March for some reason) and it is snowing heaps. We have had 10cm in town in the last day or so and everything looks pretty and white again. El and I had a day off together yesterday and spent the day bumming around town, having lunch, shopping etc. There is a bug going around here at the moment. Jen had it for a couple of days now I think I am getting it. We all feel a bit Bla! but are otherwise fine. We are counting the days until the end of the season when we will start travelling again. We have booked a campervan to drive up into the yukon and it should be a really good trip. El and I went skiing together the other day which was really fun, we are getting better each time and skiing for free really helps.
Today I am staying home cause I am a bit sick and don't want to ski. Last week Jen and I went up for a walk on Pyramid Bench, which is a small range overlooking Jasper(there are a few photos on smugmug if you want to seeg them). We saw bighorn sheep(with little horns) and a squirrel eating some food. Those squirrels can move fast when they want to. We trapsed through mud and ice but the view was worth it. Unfortunately on the day we went up it was cloudy and the park guys were using chain saws so the serenity in a few places was less than ideal. The walk was still good though.
Besides that , we have been enjoying fresh snow and relaxing. We both hope everyone is well. Bye for now
Geoff and El

El's birthday week

2005-03-10T09:05:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, it has been a busy week. To start with, El's mum came over to stay with us for a week and has left today to go to Prince George. And then El had her 25th birthday. We went out on Saturday night to do a walk through Maligne canyon, which has spectacular frozen water-falls and frozen water. We had to put ice-cleats on over gumboots which we got from a place in town. It was really quite different walking through this canyon at night with little headlamps on. One of the guys in the group fell into the river and got his feet wet, but all was really good after that.d
On Monday and tuesday we hired a car so we could go on a few drives around the place. On Monday we drove out to several lakes near Jasper. We went out to Pyramid and Patricia lakes and had a nice walk along the shores. The lakes were frozen but you could see the potential for summer fun with all the kayaks, canoes and sailing boats waiting for the ice to melt so that they could get out there. One observation we made is that it is much easier to skim a rock across a frozen lake than an unfrozen one:). We also drove to old fort point and climbed to the top. From up there you get views of Jasper, the mountains and valleys for miles and miles. Up there we were also lucky enough to see some bighorn sheep, though they were a bit far away to get any decent photos.
On monday we also drove out to Maligne lake via Medicine Lake(medicine lake empties in winter because of sink holes in its bottom). The drive was spectacular passing through avalanche country, towering cliffs and lakes. At maligne lake, El and her mum had a snowball fight in the carpark. I tackled El into a snowbank and my el cheapo pants ripped. It was a bit cool for the rest of the afternoon.
On the way back from maligne lake, we saw a car had nosed itself(with help from the people inside-doing fishies I think) into a snowdrift at the side of the road. I helped them get unbogged by putting rocks under their wheels and pushing with the help of another guy that pulled over to help. A tour bus didn't stop to see if anyone was ok. So that was monday.
On tuesday we went for a longer drive down into British Columbia to visit a few places down there.The drive through the rockies down into British Columbia is great, mountains and lakes jump at you everywhere you look. First stop was Mt Robson provincial park, which is home to Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. We couldn't see the mountain though cause it was snowing heavily. In the carpark for the Mt Robson info centre we smashed frozen puddles and played in metre deep powdery snow. It was really nice for El's mum cause she had never really seen snow falling before. We then went to the non-existent town Tete Jaune Cache, which is famous historically for Canadians, but there is not much else to see there. After Tete Jaune we headed down to Valemount, a town in BC which is famous for snowmobiling - not much snow there though. We had lunch at the "Loose Moose Pub and Bistro" before starting back for Jasper. On the way back we stopped at Rearguard falls-that was pretty. Looked like bear country to me- but still haven't seen any. We got back to Jasper eventually and went out to Jasper Park Lodge(where the richer people stay) and had hot chocolates to round off the day. We eventually got back to our house, sore and tired but glad we had been out and about.
El had to work today so I dropped her mum off at the train station. El was sad to see her mum go and sad she had to go back to work.
We both hope everyone is well.
Geoff and El

Now we have internet

2005-02-22T14:56:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, we now have the internet at home, which is pretty cool. Still working up at the hill though. I did the same silly thing as El did and bought some skis. Can't really ski though so I am more just pointing down the hill and hoping for the best.
Hopefully I haven't been too silly and we will have enough dosh to keep going for a while. I am picking them up tomorrow morning. We ski for free and get free lessons so it should be good. We just have to get them back to Oz at the end of the Season.
I just updated our photo page at smugmug to show the views we get from work. They sure beat the QIMR views that we used to have.
Just a quick note tonight, hope all is well for everyone.
Love Geoff and El

Fitness Freaks and Freaks in General

2005-02-18T09:13:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
Well, we've done it... we joined the gym. Probably not so much a shock for Geoff since he's done it all before. But it's new to me. So many machines... and I don't have a clue how to use them. hehe But I'm slowly learning about them all. With our membership we also get access to squash courts. Now that is a fun game. We have only done it once (but going again tonight hopefully). It's something I wouldn't mind starting up when we get home. :-)

I have an amusing story to share. My Mum is coming over to visit soon (yay!!) and we needed to round up a bed from somewhere. I saw an ad up at the shops about a moving sale and they had a mattress going really cheap. We didn't feel like paying good money to shift it home, so we decided that we would carry it ourselves. Geoff (aka pack horse) did a great job lugging this mattress on his head/shoulders down the main street of Jasper. It took about 20 mins to get home!! We got the funniest stares from people driving by and we couldn't stop laughing ourselves. Crazy Aussies, that's what we are!! :-)

One last thing to share with you all... I have now seen a pack-rat. At work we had a hole in the wall or ceiling and there was this little creature that kept coming into the photocopier room and startling people. It was doing a good job eating the flooring and phone wires as well. Well, they set up this live-trap to catch the little fella. I came into work on Tuesday and there it was sitting in the trap. About the size of a rat, with a bushy tail and big eyes like a possum. So cute. I think they were going to let it loose away from work. :-)

Anyway, enough of my ramblings.
Hope everyone is well.
Love El and Geoff

Head cold

2005-02-10T03:25:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone. It finally happened. I have gotten sick. Not too bad though. I think it may have started on the weekend when I had to carry bags in and out of -10C all day. It is just my head that is stuffed up and my eyes are watery. Today El is working up at the hill and I am down here in Jasper doing my email and stuff. It is about -10C today but it feels nice when you are all rugged up with multiple layers of clothes-beats being hot or freezing cold. I am working tomorrow so hopefully I should be good by then.
Not much else is happening here at the moment. Just working to get by and then go travelling again. I don't think we will get much money but at least we are not touching our savings.
Hope everyone is good.
Love
Geoff and El

Snowing Again

2005-02-07T12:12:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
We are pleased to announce the arrival of Winter again in Jasper. yipee!! hehe It has dropped in temperatures to below zero and there is LOTS of snow. It is amazing how it can lift your spirits to see the town again in a blanket of white. So pretty, and so much easier to walk around without stacking on the ice or slush. :-)
I went skiing on Friday and it was awesome. :-) So soft with all the fallen snow. I had a lesson too and found out that I wasn't doing turns correctly. It is always good when you get better at something.
Well, we have survived yet another weekend of busy crowds up at the ski hill and just finished eating at the weekly free community dinner. I love Sunday evenings now! :-)
Not much else to say really, hope everyone survived the massive storms that hit on Wednesday. We actually heard about them here so they must have been bad?
Talk to you all later.
Love El and Geoff

Road trip

2005-02-03T02:49:00.000+10:00

Hello everybody
I had my first go at driving yesterday in a new chrysler. Me and Jen hired a car and drove to Hinton, which is about an hour away. It is weird sitting on the left side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road but with someone there to remind you its not too bad. We saw a herd of elk feeding in a paddock beside the highway- the views of the lakes and mountains on the drive were awesome. We went to Hinton because Jasper is only a small village and has mostly tourist shops. I bought an el-cheapo DVD player for $48 so we can get movies every now and then.I will sell it again when we leave. WE also loaded up on groceries and Jen bought some house stuff. In Hinton we went to a few big-chain shops like "The Brick" , Wal-mart and Tim-Hortons fast food restaurant. The drive to Hinton was really good but on the way back it was blowing a gail. Car was swaying all over the road and I had to really hold it. It must have been the mountain winds sweeping through the valley where we were driving. Its a good confidence builder anyway for future expeditions.
Today it is raining and it is El's friday(even though its wednesday). It is my sunday. Pretty miserable today you might say.
Otherwise the mountains are still as pretty as always and the footpaths are still slippery. I'm back to answering phones tomorrow.
Hope all is good where you are.
Geoff and El

jasperiffic

2005-02-01T06:18:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone, another day here in lovely Jasper. Today I am on one of my days off and El is slaving away at the hill. The saturday just gone was the busiest day at the hill since 1988. We had over four thousand people there. Line ups were huge and there were people coming out of the woodwork. It was a good day though. Yesterday was quiet in comparison. I worked in customer service stuff this weekend. Hopefully it continues- the days aren't guaranteed yet but they really do need someone there at least on saturdays. We are still sliding all over the footpaths when we walk and at work on saturday I had another tumble cause I was carrying some big luggage to a trailer over some ice. I bruised my little finger but it seems to have disappeared now(the bruise not my finger).
Will keep everyone posted on our events- hope everyone is not too hot. It is about +6C today so nice and warm by jasper standards. It should drop to -20C or so in the next few days. It hasn't snowed for about a week and we really want it to so it will be easier to walk around.
Bye for now
Geoff and El

Happy Australia Day

2005-01-28T09:38:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
El here. Today is my Saturday (even though it's Thursday). Geoff is working today and tomorrow at his reception job. Yesterday he was offered another 2 days in guest services, so we are both very happy about that. He may even have a day in ticket sales. :-)
Yesterday we did our bit for Australia Day. There are 10 or so Aussies up at the ski hill so we all got into the spirit of things. We decorated the place with green and yellow streamers and balloons, and put "Hug an Aussie" signs everywhere. I got lots of hugs from complete strangers, it was nice. At lunch time they put on a BBQ up at the mid mountain chalet and few of the braver Aussies did a run down the mountain in board shorts and shirts. hehe
Last night we continued on with the celebrations and had some bundy rum and tim tams. Pity we couldn't do the usual thing and go to the beach, but it was fun all the same. :-)
I hope everyone enjoyed their day off.
And now there is only one more thing to say -
aussie aussie aussie
oi oi oi
hehe.
Love to you all.
El and Geoff.

Slippery

2005-01-23T03:08:00.000+10:00

Hi again everyone. It has warmed up to the +ves now and it has been raining. As a result the roads and footpaths are very very slippery. People were ice skating(with skates on) down the main street the other night as all the snow melts, turns to water and refreezes. It was so bad on Wednesday that I couldn't get across one of the streets near our house because as soon as you stood on it you slid straight back to the gutter. El tried to do the same thing on thursday and she couldn't do it either so she stayed at home all day. I slightly stacked it on wednesday with groceries in tow but only fell to one knee-no damage done. I have seen several people falling completely and doing some damage to themselves.
It has not been raining up at the ski hill where we work because of the higher elevation everything falls as snow. The road up the hill is better than the ones in town cause there has been no rain on it ,only snow. It snowed yesterday in Jasper which reduces the ice on the footpaths and roads, but it is raining now so it will be icy again soon. Last night we were going to watch an ice-hockey game but it was cancelled because the other team couldn't get through because of avalanches! We ended up playing indoor mini golf instead.
The highways around Jasper are opening and closing all the time as avalanches and slippery roads are too dangerous for anyone. The highway into British Columbia was closed for more than 24hrs so heaps of trucks were parked in the streets of Jasper.
Today it is overcast and raining here in Jasper and possibly snowing up at Marmot Basin(the name of the ski hill we work at). Otherwise all is good.
Hope everyone is enjoying the heat over there.
We are enjoying the warmer cold temperatures(if that makes sense).
Adios Muchachos and muchachas
Geoff and El

Its snowing(again)!

2005-01-18T04:01:00.000+10:00

hey everybody. It is quite warm here by Jasper standards(-4C) and it is expected to warm up over the next week. We survived the cold snap. For three days or so in a row temperatures were close to -40C because of an artic cold front that swept through. For at least a week it should be warmer then it will return to those cold temperatures.
Right now we are in the middle of Jasper in January, a festival that has different things like chilli cookoffs, ski races, dogsledding etc for a couple fo weeks. Yesterday there were a few things on up at the ski hill.
Every monday night there is a community dinner put on by a local group that puts out free food for everybody. Last night we had chicken, rice and vegies. Its good to save a bit of money every now and then. El and Jen are working up at the ski hill today and I'm bumming around town. I hope to go skiing to have a bit more practice tomorrow or wednesday. I think we are going to have a go at curling on wednesday night.
Hope everyone is doing ok. Feel free to email us--> one or both of us gets to our email every now and then.
Goodye for now
Geoff and El

Sent home from work

2005-01-14T05:32:00.000+10:00

Hey everybody, I got sent home from work on my first day. Not from incompetence, but because it was too cold. They closed the ski hill for the day for only the second time in 10yrs. It was -34C or so up there plus windchill so it was probably -40C.brrrrr. They sent home 90% of the people that worked there. It was -37C in town this morning. Yesterday I bought a neck warmer thingy that you can use like a scarf. Keeps cold out pretty well.
Handling switchboards is a tricky business. I didn't cut anyone off and didn't give anyone the wrong numbers (I think). Tomorrow will tell.
We have found a place to live. It is a 3 bedroom basement apartment that is already furnished. We will be living there with one of Els friends and possibly another guy from the ski hill. It looks ok and should be fine for the next 3 months.
Just have to find some sheets and stuff to put in it- Jasper has mainly touristy shops so we may have to really look around.
Got to go now and investigate the town for sheets and pillows.
Geoff and El

House hunting

2005-01-12T04:25:00.000+10:00

Hey everybody I am now a receptionist/office type person. I will be working at the ski hill for a couple of days a week to start with and then hopefully they are finding a couple more days for me elsewhere up there, otherwise I will look for some work in town. At the moment I work when El has days off so it will evenings when we do stuff together. We will probably stay in Jasper until the end of the ski season(first week of may normally) and then continue our travels.
I have been looking at apartments to rent. Not a lot out there but I think I have found a nice enough place to stay. Will put in applications tomorrow hopefully.
It is not so cold today, only about -15 or so. We have acclimatised so much compared to when we arrived in Vancouver(it was +4C) there. The only thing that really makes you cold is the wind. We are mastering the layering of clothes. In a couple of days the wind chill will drop to the temperature to the -30s so that might not be the best to be out in.
I think the mountains have captured us. We aren't really thinking much of Toronto at the moment because of the scenery and the small town feel here in Jasper. Hopefully we will get along ok but all is good at the moment.
Hope everyone is nice and warm where they are.
Geoff (and El)

Staying in Jasper

2005-01-08T03:49:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone, looks like we will be staying in Jasper for a while. El has landed a sales job at Marmot Basin Ski resort which is just outside Jasper. We were supposed to stay in Calgary and see Banff but we made a mad dash to get back to Jasper for an interview at the ski hill. Looks like it was worth it. I am also supposed to have a job for a couple of days a week being a switchboard operator up at the resort. I get to play with phones and talk to people. Pay for either of our jobs is not like what we get being scientists, but it should be enough to get by and not use our savings. We will probably be looking for a house to rent soon.
I am having to amuse myself while El goes up slaving away at the ski hill. When we work up there we can ski for free. Not that it is of any use to me at the moment. I will have to learn to ski first. Hopefully if I get a couple of days a week it will pick up and I will get more work.
We are staying in a house at the moment and are renting the top floor. It has a provate bathroom, fridge and kettle but no kitchen.
We have postponed our trip to toronto until the end of may. At the moment it is more miserable over there than here, and here we have the rocky mountains to look at every morning. I wonder whether we won't notice them by the time we are ready to leave.
The days are cold, as people would expect. Yesterday I had to use an outdoor pay phone for half an hour in a blizzard to change flights and cancel some hostel bookings. My fingers felt like they were going to fall off.
It is still dark at 9am in the morning so it is often hard for El to get up at six to get ready for work. There is a shuttle service that picks her up at the door, so it should be the same shuttle that I will be getting. Whether I have two days a week of work or 4 is yet to be determined.
Hope everyone is not to sad about going back to work. We didn't want to work, but this travel business is bloody expensive.
Hope everyone is well
Geoff and el (el is working today), I am out and about

Calgary

2005-01-04T08:41:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,
Well, we survived the cold of Edmonton and have moved onto warmer pastures.... sort of. We are in Calgary now, and experiencing a mild temperature of minus 15... :-) We found out this morning that we MAY have jobs in the ski resort of Jasper, and have cancelled our Banff trip and shortened the Calgary one as well. Kinda exciting tho, will keep you posted if we actually got them. We have to rock up Wednesday morning at the ski resort and we aren't sure if we will be working straight away or going for an interview.
Calgary seems quite pretty with all the snow around. We went for a walk this arvo around the park near the partially frozen main river. Very pretty. Saw alot of ducks sitting in a non-frozen pond.. they must have insulated backsides or something. :-) Later on this arvy we might head for this Australian pub that we have spotted in our walks. They sell genuine Aussie beers and tucker. There seemed to be a Fosters sign out the front!
Today we also went up the top of the Calgary tower... it is about 500 feet up. A bit woosy compared to the Sydney centrepoint, but still an awesome view.
Hope there wasn't too many bears with sore heads after New Years. Ours was pretty tame, a few drinks in the room and pizza on the run for dinner.
Okay, nuff for now.
Love to you all.
El and Geoff :-)

happy new year

2005-01-01T07:27:00.000+10:00

hey everyone, happy new year. We are currently in Edmonton and it is about -30c or so. Bloody cold. We have had a busy week. We went skiing(I went crashing and El went skiing) up at Marmot basin which is about half an hour out of jasper. It was a beautiful day, no clouds and quite warm but the snow is still cold when you spend most of your time falling. I can ski ok, I just can't stop. We have put job applications in to work at the skifield selling tickets or whatever so hopefully something will come of it. We went walking on wednesday out on some trails surrounding jasper. We saw a deer fall off the ice in to the river and disappear. It got sucked under the ice. We couldn't do much for it though. Saw lots of animal tracks through the snow, but still no bears. We had hot chocolate at Jasper Park lodge and lived the high life on a budget. Got so sore from walking and skiing. Yesterday we walked from where we were staying to the bus station in about -20c weather. It was blowing a gale so it felt really really cold. Snow was getting in our eyes and it was like being at the beach when there is a sandstorm except about 60 degrees colder. It was 6am in the morning and we bolted for a 6:25am bus to Edmonton which was delayed by an hour so we didn't need to rush. We got about an hour out of Jasper when the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. Transmission was stuffed. Waited on the bus with a load of whingers and whiners until a new bus arrived. Eventually got to Edmonton about 2pm, only 2.5hrs late. Got to the hostel and checked in. Pretty yucky, but cheap and ok. Went out to Mexican restaurant for dinner and had beers in Filthy McNasty's irish pub. More like a skatie pub than an irish pub.
Today we are checking out the famous West Edmonton Mall. It is so big- it has a wave pool and is making El homesick for aussie beaches. Also has a theme park and hotels.
Not sure what we are doing for new years tonight. Hope everyone had a good night.
Love Geoff and El

dogsledding and more

2004-12-28T04:05:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone, hope the christmas celebrations went well. We had a great lunch at a nearby restaurant - drank a bit too much wine and ate a bit too much, but hey it's christmas. :-) The cool thing about the day was that it was snowing! Very fitting we thought.
Yesterday (boxing day) we went dogsledding. This was more strenuous than we thought it would be. You see, you have to give the dogs and the sled a push to start, and help them up the hills with your feet. The dogs were really cute - not the traditional husky types - but a mixture of hounds, cattle dogs and part-huskys. Our first team was a little on the slow side - only 6 dogs, so we swapped with another couple and got an 8 dog team. Power! hehe The scenery was really beautiful, we were mushing on an old logging trail, about 100 km out of Jasper. It was freezing cold - we thought we'd lost our toes at one stage. :-)
Tomorrow we are going skiing with an Aussie friend - Geoff has never done this before, and I haven't for about 7 years, so I'm sure we are going to be hopeless! We are looking forward to it though.
We have extended our stay in Jasper for few nights and have cancelled our Banff stay. We are planning on going to Edmonton on the 30th of December for a few nights. It has the biggest shopping mall in the northern hemisphere, apparently. We are then going onto Calgary for a bit. We hope to do Banff after that.
So that's it for now.
Love El and Geoff

Merry Christmas Everbody 24th December

2004-12-25T05:28:00.000+10:00

We finally made it to Jasper. It is about -4 degrees or so and lots of snow around. We had a nice train ride from Prince Rupert with a stop over in Prince George-the scenery was really cool. On the train a couple of canadians were saying that there was not much to see with all the snow, but it was the snow we were interested in. The food on the train was pretty disgusting. We were supposed to stay with David and Elizabeth on the 22nd but they had problems with their plumbing so they took us to a friends house. Their friends ( a french-canadian Jacqui and her partner Lutz) ran an interesting B&B about 15 minutes out of town. It was an A-frame house and we stayed right up the top. It was only a short stay but we may try to get back there later. The b&B was quite interesting, they had a doghouse that was like a greenhouse to stop the dogs from freezing. El stacked it on the stairs.
Caught a train in pitch darkness at 8.30am on the 23rd. Sun doesn't come up until about 9.30am and sets around 4pm so we have short days. Arrived in Jasper at around 5pm local time(now in mountain time). The rockies are spectacular. Never seen so many mountains. Last night I had buffalo for dinner and el had some chicken. Also had a few drinks sitting in front of a wooden fireplace- was really cool. El set the alarm for 1am so she could ring her family at her dads place.
Today we are having a good look around Jasper and hope to get up to the ski areas sometime while we are here.
Hope everyone has a great christmas and a happy new year. We will try not to freeze. We have to buy some supplies for the next couple of days cause shops are shut for christmas.
Seasons greetings
Love Geoff and El

Tuesday 21 December

2004-12-22T05:13:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone!

Once again, it has been about a week since we have written. Time does seem to go really fast! :-) At the moment we are in sunny (not) Prince Rupert. This place isn't called the city of rainbows for nothing!

Since we last wrote in here, we have spent a few more days on Vancouver Island. We were staying with friends, and they took us for short local trips. We went to a couple of Provincial Parks and saw some impressive falls. We could not get over the amount of moss on the trees and the cliff faces. The mossy trees look like creatures out of a cartoon! We also went to see Cathedral Grove. This is a section of old-growth forest with trees that are over 800 years old. In 1997 there was a big wind-storm that uprooted alot of these trees. They have left the blown over trees where they lay and they are interesting to observe.

On Saturday we took a bus up to the Northern tip of the island, to Port Hardy. This trip took a little over 5 hours and we went through some amazing scenery. Up north there isn't much civilization, mostly firs, lakes and lots of mountains. At Port Hardy we caught the ferry that would take us to Prince Rupert. This trip was something like 24 hours. The first part we were sleeping in our lovely little cabin. It was really noisy due to vibrations in the ceiling and walls. It was quite choppy on the water and El was not feeling the best, to put it nicely. The next day the waters got calmer as we entered the inside passage that would take us to Prince Rupert. This boat trip is apparently very popular in the summer, with all the wildlife around. We managed to spot some porpoises and some whales playing around in the water. :-) The scenery was spectacular as well.

So now we are in Prince Rupert and have been for two days. Yesterday was quite bleak and rainy. We went to the Museum and saw an impressive display of first-nation people artifacts. One thing we really both love is the argillite (heat treated stone) carvings that these people do. Very expensive though - and heavy. Might get some yet. :-)

Tomorrow we are leaving early and catching the Skeena Train to Jasper. We have an overnight stop in Prince George where we are going to be staying with some friends, before we head off again the next morning. Once we hit Jasper, we are going to be there for 5 nights. Will be awesome to have a white Christmas.

Anyway, time to sign off.
Love El and Geoff

Tuesday 14th December

2004-12-15T10:50:00.000+10:00

Oops, sorry have been a bit slack and haven't written in here for a while. Tonight we are in Victoria (the Southern end of Vancouver Island). It is still wet and cold - we get really excited whenever the sun comes out!! Before that, we were staying with friends in Qualicum Beach, which is about a third of the way up the island. They took us out to Denman and Hornby Islands, which are very scenic. We walked around a Provincial Park and saw sea lions and seals playing in the waters. No bears yet. :-)

Prior to staying at Qualicum Beach, we were in Vancouver. While we were there, we walked around Stanley Park (it is a large park sticking out into the harbour) and took a million photos of the beautiful scenery. We also went up to Grouse Mountain Resort and had a play in the snow. For the most part it was just "freezing rain" falling from the sky, but I think we got a few snowflakes as well. :-) We tried out ice-skating and we both looked ridiculous with our metal pusher thingys to keep our balance. :-) We decided to retire to the chalet for food and warm drinkies. :-)

We also checked out Vancouver Museum which wasn't overly big or interesting. We went to the Royal British Columbia Museum yesterday here in Victoria and THAT was impressive. They had a very interactive setup of the history of the European settlers and some cool indian artifacts.

Today we have been wandering around looking at the British Architecture of the place. We went out to Craigdarroch Castle. It is a massive 4 storey place with 17 fireplaces. Built for some rich coal guy in the 1800s. Not a bad place. :-)

We have been walking everywhere and hope to be super-fit one day, but alas, we keep trying out Hershey Bars. There are so many different types! No Crispy Kremes yet but we keep looking. Our accents must be thicker than we think. We asked for a lemon, lime and bitters at a bar, and got funny looks. The barman thought we wanted a lemon lime and guinness. That would have been nice. hehe

Tomorrow we are back up to Qualicum Beach to have another look around up there. Depending on the weather, we may go out on a scenic boat trip on Thursday.

We will talk later. :-)
Geoff and El.

Tuesday 7th December 2004

2004-12-08T08:42:00.000+10:00

Finally made it to Vancouver. We are extremely jetlagged and so over aeroplane food. We spent a night in Papakura in New Zealand with El's cousin Lilian. We had a nice brekky and the local tour before catching an 8hr flight to Honolulu. The Honolulu airport was crappy and our flight to Vancouver was delayed. We then had to catch a 6hr flight to Vancouver and this flight was the most boring ever. Air Canada seats were very uncomfortable and the food wan't much chop either. Vancouver is cold and wet. It is good "huffy" weather and we are wandering around in big coats and boots. At 2pm it seems like 6pm because it is so dark. Mountains around vancouver are covered by clouds but still seem magnificent. We had a quick look around but will investigate things further when we adjust to Vancouver time. Streets have a cool feeling cause of christmas decorations and the real winter look of the place(no leaves). Our hostel seems nice enough and is close to everything. Gonna get something to eat and hit the hay soon-too much crappy food and not enough sleep-we need to recharge the batteries.

preparations

2004-12-05T19:32:00.000+10:00

hi

we are leaving brissy tomorrow, just testing out this blog stuff to see if it is worthwhile. :-)