Blogs from Hamilton, Victoria, Australia, Oceania

A short trip now to see the Neesons in Nareen – Country Victoria. Got there just in time for the final day of the “Sheepvention” – an agricultural show in a town called Hamilton. We had a quick tour round, where we bumped into Amy Tierney, another member of the Neeson clan. We were only in Sheepvention for a short time, but we got to see the highlights, in particular the winning Sheep Dog – “Package,” who was definitely the best one we saw, albeit a little bit savage, and also the most expensive ram in the Auction. I don’t think he had a name, but he sold for $22000!!! He was a Pol (which means he has no horns and is a favourable trait for breeding) and also he had good “sperm lines.” You can ... read more

We woke up to our first sight of sunshine and blue skies in 5 days this morning, we thought we might have slipped through some sort of interdimensial time warp worm hole. The forecast was for another storm front to arrive that night, so we decided to make the most of it and go for a ride. The southern Grampians Regions beckoned. We got dressed, got bikes ready, Gail was at the front gate while Eoin put his gloves on and thats when everything came to a halt. Heidi was upset with the constant rain, cold and not having been started for a few days. Gail returned and the leads were connected, and after Henry jumped Heidi, the ride commenced again. We rode to Heywood, it was so nice riding in sunshine along curvy roads next ... read more

The Great Santander Debacle – no, not the name of one of the many shipping disasters that have occurred off the nearby West Victoria/South Australia coastline in the last two hundred years but an apt description of our attempts to liaise with Santander Banking over our credit cards. We have both been satisfied customers of Alliance and Leicester (formerly Girobank) for more than 40 years. So when A & L were taken over by Santander we were fooled by all the hype about how things would be even better under Santander with so many additional services and benefits. Their information about credit cards promised all sorts of advantages including “no charge” for overseas transactions – something which appealed to us before our departure from England for 12 months in Australia. Alas, there were also some restrictions ... read more

Tuesday 18th January – after the excitement of the previous evening at the Sovereign Hill ‘Blood on the Southern Cross’ show, we were a little slow getting going today. But we managed a drive to Buninyong, an historical small town, where we wandered round the botanical gardens and found a nice café for a bit of lunch. A nearby garage had an air-line and Graham, following advice from several fellow campers, raised the pressures in the car tyres from 30psi to 40psi. In the afternoon we decided to take the bikes over to Lake Wendouree and cycle the 6 kms around the lake. We had debated several times on our trip whether the hassle of loading and un-loading the bikes each time we moved the caravan could be justified. It’s quite a complicated procedure particularly as ... read more