I can walk on water

All the really cold weather we have been having lately has meant that some lakes (including the small one around the corner from home) have frozen over enough to skate/walk/cycle on for the first time in about 6 years. And apparently manufacturers of ice skates are doing their best business in 10 years!

You can see me here standing ON the middle of the lake near home. It was quite a weird sensation knowing that there is only a 5 cm layer of clear ice between you and a very cold drenching! I was surprised at how clear the ice actually was, and I could easily see the water of the lake beneath the frozen layer!

Oh, and by the way, here also is a photo of the skating rink (at one of our local parks) we visited a couple of weeks ago. Yep, I'm proud to say I have finally been ice skating for the first time in my life! My back muscles still haven't recovered :-/

Alli xxx

Shortest day of the year...

...and it's brrrrr.........really cold here!!

It's been getting down to about -6 C at night and hasn't really been above -1 C during the day for the past 4 - 5 days! We had an amzingly heavy mist two nights ago and it was so cold that the mist caught in all the trees and froze there! Everything looks so pretty covered with a fine white frosting, looks very Xmas postcard-like :-)) If it stays until Tuesday I can honestly say I've had my first white Xmas - yippee. However, weather forecasts are for "warmer" weather early next week (more like a minimum of 1 C up to a maximum of about 6 C) so the whiteness probably won't last. Anyway, it looks lovely for the time being.

I took these photos on my lunch break yesterday.

Alli xxx

OMG can't believe...

...I forgot to mention that the airline we were eventually "offloaded" onto, to fly back from Bangkok to Amsterdam,(Eva Airways from Taiwan) is THE Hello Kitty airline of Asia !!!!!! Now most of you will already know I'm a bit of a Hello Kitty fan ;-) so imagine my excitement, after finally being seated, when I noticed the entire duty free catalogue was chock a block full of Hello Kitty products, including special bottles of wine for export only !!

I was soon to discover that there are entire Eva Airways aircraft decked out with Hello Kitty, serving Hello Kitty meals, issuing Hello Kitty boarding passes - OMG, I wouldn't be able to sit still. Pity that particular service only operates between Taiwan and Japan :-(

The best excuse yet to continue travelling

;-))

Alli xxx

Wedding date AND rings !

Yep, it's official - we have a date for our wedding ceremony :-) It's:

29 February 2008 at 12:15pm

And these are the rings we have chosen :-))

Alli xxx

Fruitarians & goldmines

Well we have been back home for almost 2 weeks already, and I am still finding it a bit difficult to adjust to the lack of daylight and the amount of rain we have been having. Already, in the first 9 days of December, we have had more than the average rainfall for the whole month - just our luck! I must admit that it is nice to be back at work and back into our "normal" routine. Those damn Virgos and their structure hey?! On Monday we are off to the gemeente (local government authority) to register to get married :-) We did visit them last week with all our papers in hand, filled in some paperwork for the immigration people here, and made the appointment for Monday. As far as I can tell we will need to complete yet more paperwork on Monday (!!) and choose a date for the wedding. Will keep ya'll posted.

In the meantime, another report from our time in Australia :-) The weekend after returning to Melbourne from Bright was spent with Bron and Maurice in Hepburn Springs/Daylesford. We drove up there on the Saturday morning and immediately headed to the central reservation service to book some accommodation. We hadn't really thought it would be a problem to find anything, but soon discovered that everything apart from ultra luxurious cabins for $500.00 a night was fully booked. And I mean everything - including dodgy motels and all the caravan parks in the local area! Apparently it is "wedding season" and Saturday nights get booked out weeks in advance, go figure. After an initial moment of panic we got in touch with Continental House in Hepburn Springs and managed to book 2 rooms there.

Continental House (or the Conti as it is affectionately known), for those of you who have never been there, is a big old rambling wooden house from the 1920s that has seen better days but is still owned and operated as a kind of hippy paradise/hostel/retreat. We were soon to discover it is run on strict vegan principles, meaning we couldn't even put cow's milk in the fridge or drink alcohol on the premises, and Bron & Maurice had to go right off the property out to the car park to smoke a cigarette. After that initial shock wore off, we learned that the owner takes it even one step further and follows a fruitarian diet! None of us had ever heard of it and we just had to look it up on google to find out more - heehee. Apparently it is based on a totally non violent way of living and the philosophy is one of waiting to receive what Mother Earth is willing to give up, without forcibly taking it, even if that means waiting for fruit to drop from the tree. Damn it - no cooked food, no meat, no vegetables, no dairy and not even fruit that you have picked yourself for the hardcore fruitarians!!! Apparently the owner of the Conti is a tropical fruitarian and has plans to relocate to northern Queensland to be closer to the "source" ;-)) And word around town was that he is not the healthiest looking guy in the world. More power to him but it all sounds a bit far fetched to me.

Our time was spent doing as little as possible apart from drinking and eating. I think Bronwyn and Maurice were very happy just to get away from Melbourne for a couple of days, but Bron would be pretty happy anywhere with a magazine and a coffee! She will probably hate me for posting this photo of her here, but hey, that's what you get when you refuse to "pose" for photos Bron; and for me it is SO Bronwyn - glass of wine, cigarette, cell phone and her Prada handbag! After a yummy Thai dinner we managed to mix it up with the locals on Sunday night at The Palais, when we (in effect) gatecrashed a farewell Disco Inferno party for a guy heading back to Switzerland to live. There was even a live fire twirler - just like being at a hippy beach party on Koh Samui!

On the drive back to Melbourne on Monday we diverted through Ballarat to visit Sovereign Hill. I hadn't been there since I was, I think, about 8 years old so was pretty curious to see it again, and Jeroen & Maurice were both very excited at the prospect of visiting a goldmine for some reason. It was a great afternoon. We did the tours of both goldmines, Maurice had his photo taken at "Ye Olde Photo Shoppe", we panned for gold, sipped on old fashioned lemonade, and were told tales of the good old days by just about every "shopkeeper" we visited. Jeroen (aka Hoinjsz) even managed to get himself "taken into custody for being drunk and disorderly & disturbing the peace" (see photos above) ;-) Made me realise that it's not only NL who can do a good open air museum!

Alli xxx

Family, mountains, and hotrods!

After our first 4 days spent in the "big smoke" of Melbourne we headed on up to the north east of Victoria, to Bright, to stay with my folks :-) Our train journey from Southern Cross station to Wangaratta took about 2 1/2 hours and my Dad was there to meet us and drive us the last 75 kilometres to Bright.

Bright is a little township of about 2,200 residents, lying at the foot of the Victorian Alps and ski fields, and it is where I spent my primary school years. It is very picturesque but I have to admit there is not a whole lot to do other than chill out, drink coffee at the numerous cafes, walk along the river, visit the local micro beer brewery, or make day trips to the surrounding mountain areas. We did all of those things, but most importantly spent time with my family :-)

We stayed at my Mum's place and it was so lovely spending the days doing as close to nothing as possible! Favourite daily activities soon became: reading, solving sodokus, sitting in the sun, playing with my Mum's crazy dog (Minty), complaining about the flies, and eating & drinking ourselves silly. At one stage those pesky bush flies were SO bad Jeroen bought a venus flytrap and embarked on a one man mission to hunt all the flies down and feed them to the plant!!

My Dad kindly played chauffeur/tour guide and we managed trips up to Falls Creek/Bogong High Plains, Mt Buffalo for a lovely BBQ in the sunshine, Beechworth, Harrietville, Wandiligong (gotta love those names), and Huggins Lookout. We were also "lucky" enough that the annual hotrod rally was in town during our stay! A whole weekend of muscle cars, hotrods, testosterone and petrol fumes :-)

I think the highlight for Jeroen was seeing his first star through a telescope during a night spent staying out at my Dad's "shed" on his bush block at Mudgegonga. I use the term "shed" loosely because part of it has been converted into a home away from home - complete with bathroom and kitchen.

All in all, two weeks of perfect weather and perfect company :-)

Alli xxx

Photos from Bright (& surrounds)

Melbun

Herewith a few photos from our stay in my fab "hometown", Melbourne. Jeroen and I arrived in Melbourne bright and early (and to sunshine!) on Tuesday morning 30 October. Eventually we were met by Bron and Maurice, dropped them both off at work in the city before driving back to the bayside suburb of St Kilda to catch up on some sleep. We did pretty well actually - only taking a 2-3 hour "nap" in the afternoon and managing to stay awake until about 11.00pm that night.

During our stay in Melbourne we managed to tick off pretty much everything on my "to do list" :-) Sunset beers at the iconic Esplanade Hotel; chicken teriyaki at the crazy busy Don Don's; a drink (or two!) at the ever grungy Lounge; happy hour at the oh so stylish Black Opal with my ex STA Travel colleagues; a visit to the Victoria Market; a spot of shopping at the Adidas & Converse outlet stores; the Myer Xmas windows; and most importantly, quality time with my lovely friends :-) Oh, AND, finally getting ALL the required paperwork so we can get married here in NL! Phew, sounds like we were extremely busy, but actually it was all pretty relaxed.

It felt totally normal being back again, almost like I had never been away, probably because not really much had changed! The only noticeable differences I could detect in the city itself were the completed Southern Cross rail station and the Eureka Tower (both of which were still under construction when I left last year). The one thing I did notice though was that everyone in the city is in such a hurry! I had never noticed how quickly and rudely so many people brush by you whilst walking the streets of the city. Must be a sign that I have adapted to living the relatively quiet "village" life here in Nijmegen ;-)

Alli xxx