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Published: February 24th 2010
Red Cross Parcel
Important provisionsDAY 471
We had such a late night last night with Keith (otherwise known as Dobbo to his friends) and his lovely wife Merry, who come from Amesbury near Stonehenge now everybody knows Stonehenge, don’t they? They bring with them their lovely Wiltshire accent and every time Andy sees Keith he says “Aaarr Dobbo!” in his best Wiltshire accent.
Well anything past 10.00pm whilst we have been travelling is considered to be a late night so we subconsciously granted ourselves an extra half an hour in bed, what with the hubbub over the Wendy house and the busy Saturday we felt we had earned that extra lie in bed, besides its Monday tomorrow and we will be back in for another full weeks work.
It was a lovely morning, hot and clear as usual and today we were off for a picnic at Lake Burley Griffin with Helen, Susan and James. Helen has come across from Woodstock to see Susan’s new apartment in Bruce, which is a suburb of Canberra. Susan moved in after months of waiting for the builders to complete the building.
We had the morning all to ourselves with nothing to do, what
Picnic
Picnicing on Lake Burly Griffin bliss, all the shopping and the washing had been done yesterday so the most strenuous thing we could think of today was a swim and that was it.
We sat around in the morning shade, drank tea, lots of it, and did our best to catch up on the blog, we decided not to swim until we got back this afternoon and set about making up our picnic dinner that we would take with us.
Our planned meeting place was Stage 88 on the edge of the lake, but for some strange reason barriers were over the road leading up to Stage 88. Caroline got out of the truck and asked a very fat and lazy looking official why we could not get to Stage 88, she jumped back in to the truck and her first words were “officious git” he just grunted that we could not get to Stage 88 as Tropfest was on, apparently Tropfest is a short film festival which strangely enough did not even start until the evening and it was only about 12.50.
We phoned Helen to tell her about the barriers and we agreed to meet by the bike hire place
Sunday Talking
Carching up on the news just down the road.
Soon we were all sitting around the picnic table Helen, Susan and James and Caroline and myself. The tucker was in full swing, we had made roast Chicken sandwiches that were delish, it was nice to see lots of people out enjoying the sunshine, cycling and walking, in fact activity on and around the lake was in full swing, people enjoying peddalo’s, yachting, swimming, you name it as long as it involved water people were on the lake.
Helen had brought with here a parcel for us, which had been sent from the UK, from our long time friends John and Lorraine Butler who live in Oakley near Basingstoke.
Well the parcel contained a large Jar of Marmite and an even larger tub of Marmite and a letter, yes letter from them both giving us lots of news, it was fantastic, thank you guys.
We sat when we were on our own to read the letter which meant so much to us,the art of letter writing is sadly being lost to technology.
There was a fishing competition on, on the lake and the one who caught the biggest fish would receive
Black Swans
On Lake Burly Griffin the prize of $8,000,a little boy walked past our picnic with a bucket and the only bit of the fish that was in the bucket was the middle, the head and the tail were flopping over the outside. This little fella was very pleased with his catch, but I don’t think it was the biggest caught.
Caroline and I have promised ourselves a bike ride around the 35km shoreline of this magnificent lake, which incidentally was created in 1963 and named after Canberra’s designer, Walter Burley Griffin an architect from the U.S. The
It was great to catch up with Helen, all though brief she is a very special person and we always love seeing her, sadly Robert wasn’t feeling very well he had a stomach bug and chose not to come down, Helen said he must be feeling unwell as he didn’t go to work which is unheard of, he is very rarely ill.
Soon the picnic was over, Helen was going back with Susan, James was off and Caroline and myself were heading off back to the Wendy house for the rest of the afternoon, or what was left of it.
I had what
Here' one for you Barnaby Davies
This is your number plate Barnaby I deemed as a well earned nana nap then we got on with some serious swimming. We started to swim our usual 30 or so lengths, but the pool was getting busy and we started to engage in conversation with some of the others in the pool. We actually spent quite a while in the pool but we all had a good laugh. Unfortunately we did not complete the full 30, well Caroline assures me that she did while I did most of the talking, but after a long while it was starting to get too cool and I had lost my enthusiasm to complete the lengths.
We were just contemplating what we were going to have for our evening meal, both of us not really wanting much as we were still feeling full form lunch, when some people who we had been speaking to for a while came over and asked us if we would like to join them for drinks.
Soon we were sitting a few caravan doors away telling Ron and Joan who were from Victoria and Kerry and Richard who were from Noosa up on the sunshine coast, about our trip and our reasons
Camp side Friends
Ron and Joan, Dick and Kerry on there travels for planting ourselves in Canberra for a while.
Originally the girls had both worked together but since retirement they moved apart for various reasons but still travel together they had been friends for a long time, in fact they had some other friends from Melbourne fly in for the weekend and they had flown home earlier this evening.
It seems that they all had a fun packed weekend, putting as much sight seeing into it as they could, it exhausted me just listening to them!
They were fascinated that a couple of poms could have done so much and travelled so far and were quite amazed by our journey and our tales, and soon we realised that it was nearly 10.00pm and we, actually Caroline, needed to iron some blouses and shirts as it was the “W” thing in the morning and with an early start in the offing we need to be ready.
As we thanked them for a great evening we realised that we again had not even had an evening meal, but I think we obviously did not need it otherwise we would both have been hungry.
Instead of having to give the camp reception ten bucks to secure the Iron, Joan said we could borrow hers which just saved us a bit of aggro and soon we were hanging our stuff and snuggling under the sleeping bag after what we thought was going to be an easy day but ended up being as busy as usual, somehow life over here seems to be starting to imitate life over in England, the difference being in the weather and the swimming after work most nights.
So good night all, until we write again when we can hopefully interest you in more of our adventures in Canberra.
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lurpak34
barnaby davies
Ha ha! I just saw the number plate. Thanks so much for the mention - my eyes lit up! To be honest, I've got rather behind with your adventures - I can only apologise.. As for touring, I've been at home since November, trying to become a travel writer - with a little bit of success. It's nice to be published for money, but I've got a long way still to go. So yes, I'll be out touring again soon to pay the bills! Metallica go out on a European leg in April (Nambian and I will head out to Moscow for that one), and then we swap onto AC/DC and U2 again. That seems to take us up to October again - agh, another year gone! Great you're still blogging. And thanks again Andy and Caroline..