Monday, 24 May Two other trips away before this one. Mooroopna near Shepperton and another visit to Warrnambool. Both uneventful trips. This morning I waited for the peak hour traffic to subside before leaving home. Joined the Caulder Highway just outside of Melbourne. It was a bleak morning. The clouds over head looked as if rain was going to fall at any moment. In fact as the day drew on, it became fine and I later heard it was the warmest 24 of May on record (twenty one degrees) When I arrived in Sealake I had travelled close to four-hundred kilometers from home and the weather was now quite warm. Its been two years since I had worked in this town and decided to visit the pre-school to refresh my memory as to where it was ... read more

Sunday 2 May 2004 Just after one in the afternoon, I left my driveway, heading out of town for another country job. I needed a change in direction; instead of going through Yarra Glen, I followed the Maroondah Highway through Healesville, then over the Black Spur to Alexandra. A short time later, the road joins the Yea Road, which in turn passes through Bonnie Doon. It was a nice change and the traffic was light. By four o’clock, I had arrived at the Commodore Motor Inn, located in the centre of Albury. As I walked into the reception, I noticed on the door it was a three and half-star complex. The room seemed to be larger than the room I stayed in, on a recent trip to Canberra. I unloaded the car and made myself comfortable ... read more

Monday, 19 April The Caulder Highway takes you from Melbourne towards the town of Hopetoun in the northwest of Victoria. I decided to stay at the Hopetoun Hotel/Motel. The rooms are pretty basic but the meals are the good old country style which suits me down to the ground. After a short walk around town I found the Kindergarten I was to work in the next day. For the life of me I could not remember being there before but there wasn't another centre in town so it must have been the same one I had visited two years earlier. On the outskirts of town I took a long walk around Lake Lascelles. It has been more then a couple of years since it has seen any water. This drought is evident in many places I ... read more

Sunday, 21 March It took an hour to reach Gembrook. I parked the car outside the Puffin Billy railway station and waited for another photographer to arrive. Our assignment was to photograph the scouts being presented with awards at Gillwell Park. As usual I had arrived ages before we had arranged to meet. This gave me a chance to catch up on some sleep. We hadn't seen each other for a while and over a cup of coffee, supplied by the friendly ladies of the scout movement we took the opportunity to find out what had been happening since we last worked together. The "shoot" started around nine o'clock. For the first hour members of each troop wanted group photos so they could be forwarded to their local newspapers. When the Governor arrived, we were introduced ... read more

Wednesday, 25 February Towards the end of last year I had pretty well made up my mind that enough was enough and photographing little children would not be my main stay of employment in 2004. In the long break that took in November and December of last year until now, I did the occasional wedding and a few other photographic jobs including formals and a large university graduation. Yesterday I drove from Melbourne to Portland and spent what was left of the afternoon resting in the motel room with the Discovery Channel playing on TV. It also gave me an opportunity to find out some interesting facts about the area. It seems Portland was Victoria's first permanent European settlement. One of the early families to make a living in the area were the Henty's. They owned ... read more