Hot Casino Christmas

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

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

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

Fancy flower pic(too much free time) 

Life in general

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.