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Published: March 28th 2013
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Stokie
Deep Well MX Happy New Year blogsters! Hope you had a wonderful festive season, can you believe it was all 3 months ago already? Felt like only last week that we got off the plane from Melbourne to Alice wearing jeans and hoodies, into 39 degree heat!!
What followed was a fortnight of temps over 40, right up to 45 (and the airport even got a reading of 47.5 one day) and what felt like the longest fortnight in history! Seriously, what were we thinking spending summer in the desert? Made all the more palpable because we had just spend a week in Melbourne catching up with family and friends, enjoying much cooler weather and even donning beanies while standing in front of the chiminea Christmas night – bliss! By the way, if anyone has some spare rain, could you please express post it here? We’ve forgotten what it looks like!
We had a beaut time catching up with everyone in Melb, thanks to those who provided motel rooms for us, and a special thanks to Mick & Bec who lent us their ute the whole time we were there. It made tripping around much easier to have
Megg's Rose
Molly bought this plant not long before she passed away, we got the first rose the morning we flew to Melb for xmas a set of wheels for sure. We finally also got to meet to the two new additions to the crew: Suzz & Jase’s little boy Fraser and Mick & Bek’s little girl Adele! Both seemed to cope well with meeting two new gypsy faces, although we don’t think Uncle Jeff is on Adele’s Christmas Card list yet!! Ha ha
We even managed to catch up with Tabs bestie Madge (who now lives in Newcastle with fiancée Mick) when we dropped her out to the airport on her way home on the 24
th Dec. Sure it was a quick coffee and car ride, but fab to squeeze in a little time where we could! Noticeably absent from this Melb trip was her man Mick and also Jason who was away at work…lets not make it too long before we see you fellas hey?
Christmas Day was spent at Adam and Carmena’s house where we had hoped for a swim (but were equally happy to don some layers!) where we enjoyed a feast with Tabs mum & dad and her aunty Linda, uncle Greg and cousin Morgan all the way from QLD. We got spoilt rotten
with gifts and gadgets and stayed up late into the night catching up on all the goss we’ve missed out on.
There were another two new additions in Jeff’s family too, Chris & Tess’s little girl Savannah and Rob & Nat’s 8
th baby Shiloh, along with all the other kids made for a busy festive reunion at Jeff’s parents place Boxing Day. There we got to catch up with most of the family and some cousins too so was a great day. We then got to enjoy some quiet time just with John, Colleen and Colleens mum Pam which was lovely.
Somewhere in the middle of it all we managed to squeeze in a night in the Yarra Valley where we spent the day wine tasting (you’ll be shocked to hear this we’re sure!!) and spent the night in a little rammed-earth spa cottage on the edge of the valley. We had lunch that day at a place called Innocent Bystander in Healesville…if you live in Melbourne give it a go for sure, the food was awesome, with a beer & wine list to match!
Before we knew it, our week
in Melbourne was up and Tabs dad Scott dropped us out at the airport for our 9am flight, on 31
st Dec. We had planned to head out to the Casino in Alice for NYE as they were having bands and fireworks at midnight, but after sharing a bottle of red and some dinner we zonked out by about 10pm. We woke briefly when we heard the fireworks, but didn’t even manage to drag ourselves out the front to watch them! Definitely the most low-key New years we’ve ever had (and the first time we’ve ever fallen asleep before 12) so we plan to make up for it this year – where-ever we may be.
Australia Day weekend we got ol’Boris fired up for his first trip since we arrived in Alice July last year (time to straighten out those square tyres from sitting for so long) and headed off bush for the Deep Well Motocross. It’s held on Deep Well station, a cattle station boasting amazing rock formations and a really cool desert racing track. Once again Jeff was part of the pit crew and this, being a lead up to Finke, was good for the race
Heading down to deep well
Despite letting some air out, we still got a puncture team to start getting motivated. The guys in Jeff’s team came 1
st and 5th respectively. The next night we camped out part the way home again overlooking some really cool rocks, and despite a flat tyre on Boris enjoyed the serenity of the bush. Boris turns 25 in April so he’s going to be a Vintage model very soon, happy birthday mate!
We also recently went out to dinner using a voucher Jeff’s mum and dad got us for Xmas, to a restaurant called Red Ochre. It was a lovely night out guys, thank you so much, where no manner of local beast went unscathed while we dined on camel, kangaroo & duck (all the crocs must have got away!).
So besides working we’ve been trying to do all the touristy things around here, seeing there are so many of them! A few weeks ago we went to the Pioneer Womens Hall of Fame (Molly was its founder) and went rock-hopping out to Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm. The weekend just gone we went camping, enjoying the sight of Tnorala (Gosse Bluff) which is a GIANT meteorite crater out between Mt Sonder and Kings
Gecko
Heaps of these little guys hang out on the verandah at night catchin bugs Canyon. This thing is HUGE and you can drive into the middle of it and you’d swear you were standing next to a natural mountain range, not walls of rock created by an impact. Having camped Friday night we had big plans of camping out Saturday night too, but the flies literally drove us (and could have carried us, including the car!) away. So we came home (Alice itself is fairly fly-free surprisingly) and spent the rest of the weekend enjoying good food, cold cider and airconditioning!
So that’s about all our news for now, happy 2013 to everyone and stay tuned for our next update J Hope you all have a happy easter – we are heading off to do some more exploring north-east of Alice on a 4WD drive trip, just wish we had longer than 4 days off!
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