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Happy New Year!
We decided to pack up a picnic, and walk up a mountain to start 2018.
Fiona came along with us too.

We probably hiked about 7 hours – 17kms up Mt Roland & back.
It was just gorgeous.

Its a reasonable slog up for most of the way. It stops been quite so steep at about the 2/3rds point
It was really lovely stopping to have lunch & a rest. Fabulous views.

Tiny wildflowers carpeted the mountain side as we got closer to the top

Of course, its never quite over until you reach the trig point! And just before that there are a number of boulders to navigate and climb before you’re done!

Its always so worth it when you reach the top of these places!
I have more photos but I am a ‘bit’ tired tonight, so will have to add them to my vast list of post processing jobs.
Anyone else do something mad on the first day of the year??

Cheers

Hello there!
Are you all ushering the new year in in style or going to bed early like me??
I was going to do a post rounding up the years highlights… but…with 15,000 images to choose from the task ended up slightly more daunting than I first thought!
Since I have plans for an early start to 2018, I will try that again tomorrow!

Thanks a million for sticking with me this year, following along with the gardening and other adventures and for those who had time to drop me a line. I really appreciate it!

Have a great night, whatever you are up to and all the best for a smashingly awesome 2018!

Cheers!

Hello! End of another week and I had quite the lazy day.

I bought a little netting thing in Japan that is used to dehydrate food. I thought I would fill it up with some of the excess oregano I have in the herb garden. I don’t actually usually run out of the fresh stuff, but if it works it would make a nice present for someone.

I do have plans to use my dehydrator a lot more this season. Just waiting on the food to start really coming on.

I had brought a few sweet little vases back from Japan so I thought I might fill them today.

This cute little fellow I found in a second hand shop for about 50 cents! Couldn’t resist

These little pudding jars were so cute too… the pudding was also delish!

Sweet peas smell so beautiful

A friend gave me these two gorgeous little vases that she had made herself. So unique

And possibly my favourite… one of my sisters gave me some birthday money in Japanese yen to get myself something.
I found this fabulous little sake/tea pot in Arita. I figured it would look nice as a vase
Cheers!

Well Pip and I had a little excitement this evening!
Jeff had gone to work and I am hearing all this thumping about on the back veranda. I usually assume its one of the possums, but this time it was pretty persistent.
I caught Pip at the back door staring at something playing with Jeff’s gumboots. I thought it was a cat at first – so I switched on the light expecting it to scarper, but nope. It was a baby devil and it was intent on chewing the boot!!
I was thrilled!

Sadly the photos are all pretty dodgy – very dark with a dark moving animal through glass. Not optimal!!

It was pretty happy to chew its way across the veranda!
Moved on to Pips harness and lead and played with that for a while.

Then it moved onto my crocs – relocated them and chewed each in turn!

I think I will have to call someone and talk about relocation. I don’t mind having them here but we live on the highway and since these little chaps are endangered, its not the best place for them I wouldn’t imagine.
It was such a treat though to sit and watch it play – with that ‘devil may care’ attitude?? haha
Oh… these are the little bite marks my crocs now show:

I took one shot with a flash, but as I suspected, didn’t help much except add the red eyes, which I suppose for a devil, is pretty suitable! Although it did show up the markings a little more clearly for you to see.

Hope your day is equally as surprising and fun!

Cheers

Hello! Not much from me today.
I tried to do not much.
Apart from some overdue housework, a lot of watering, berry picking, tracking down a few more people to call for this project and getting into a new crochet project I think I sort of succeeded!
I’ll have to take a photo of the crochet thingy tomorrow – I found a nice easy you tube tutorial and its been fun starting something different!

Hopefully I will get out and do something tangible in my flower garden tomorrow!

Cheers!

Hello.
I  got a bit distracted tonight – will stroll back tomorrow with a post as I haven’t gotten in to post process my photos.
Hope everyone has a brilliant weekend planned!
In the meantime… check out how laden the cherry plum tree is!! Here’s hoping they ripen this season before the birds find them! Running alarmingly low on plum jam!

Cheers!

Well hello there!

Yesterday was a bit epic. We were travelling for about 15 hours and crossed more than half of Japan. An unexpected highway accident put us back a couple of hours with missed trains…. but we got into Nikko around 10.30pm. We were very much ready for bed!

I fully intended not to get out of bed today… but of course I did. It was a lovely slow start and eventually we made our way up to the cedar forests and World Heritage Shrine areas.

We didn’t plan on going into any of them today – thats tomorrows plan. It was just nice to soak up the beauty of the area and walk off some of the food we have been eating!

This area seemed geared around couples and good fortune for love and relationships. Walking through the hoop of woven reeds three times doing a figure 8 is supposed to be good. People also write names of loved ones on the paper – or hopeful loved ones – and tie onto the hoop. I think the hoop is burned ceremoniously at some point of the year.

Little love fortunes everywhere.

Bought fortunes. Keep the ones you like, tie the ones you don’t on the lines or trees so the bad fortunes goes away… anway, I think that’s how it goes.

Anyway… that was a few views from our day! Hope your day was great too!

Hello! Me again.

Last Friday we packed our bags and departed our awesome airbnb home. Mum and Dad were due to fly out that evening and some lovely friends collected them from the Kyoto station and took care of them for the day before seeing them safely to the airport.

That allowed us (Jeff, Rachel & myself) to be on a train a little earlier to start our 5 hour journey across to Nagasaki.

Happily all train changes went smoothly and we arrived without drama to see our good friends Nozomi and Tetsu again and meet their little girl Maruno for the first time.

 

Our friends  run a cafe in a small town. Its a gorgeous quiet place and a dream after the busy craziness of Kyoto and Osaka. We explored the shrine which is just up the road from the cafe which has some of the wickedest rickety steps I have ever seen!

We enjoyed the change of pace and catching up with friends… and ooooooo amazing food!

Its been a busy day again today… so I am going to bid you goodnight  and dive into my futon!

Cheers!

 

 

 

Hello!

This might be my last post for a little while… we are heading off across to Nagasaki tomorrow and sending my folks back to Australia! Not sure how much reliable  connection I will get over the next little while.

Yesterday we jumped back on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima and went a little further to the island, Miyajima. I was so glad it wasn’t as crazy swamped with tourists as the last time we were there… it gave Jeff a chance of seeing it for how beautiful it really is.

We were really lucky to get there at low tide, so were able to walk out to the famous tori which spends half of its time up to it’s ankles in water. The shrine also appears to be floating when the tide is high as well.

We did attempt to sit and enjoy a picnic lunch when we first arived… but the deer soon made that about impossible. They were like bold four legged seagulls that honed in on the rustle of a plastic lunch bag – and did not take no/shoo/bugger off/go away or any hint seriously.

One snuck around the other side of Dad and slobbered on his sandwich, and Dad being of the red headed temperament persuasion said (edited) “Fine have it then” and the offending deer was probably surprised with a very quick deposit of a sandwich practically up its nose. Possibly why we couldn’t  get rid of it and its friends so lunch was extremely awkward for us and extremely amusing for all the other passers-by.

We enjoyed walking through the streets, looking at shops and headed up the hill a short way with the intention of taking the cable car up to the top of the mountain, however time was not going to permit so we just enjoyed the gorgeous countryside as we wandered back to the ferry.

Anyway, we have to be up and out of here tomorrow reasonably early with things to organise followed by a 5 hour train journey!

Best if I got myself to sleep.

Hope everyone has a super weekend planned and I hope to be back to say hi soon.

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

Hello again! Day 13 in Japan and still going everywhere possible without giving the poor parents a coronary!

They did take a well earned rest day yesterday while Jeff and I braved the Sunday bus & train schedules to go and visit our friends. We had a lovely visit, but gosh…. travel time was about 6 hours and we were a little bit ruined by the time we staggered in home!

Also apologies  for the lack of replies to comments. I clearly haven’t  gotten the total hang of this tablet system and my replies ‘fail to send’. So in the interests of less tanties on my part, I will wait until I am home to reply properly to you all who have had a chance to write something to me… I do appreciate and enjoy your comments.

Anyway – Hiroshima. This was what my Dad has been hanging out for. Not so much the city, but the train ride there via the Shinkansen (sometimes called the Bullet Train)

Zipping along the country at 300km/hr is pretty awesome and they are a smooth and comfortable ride. We have now all activated our JR passes which were well worth purchasing for the trips we are taking.

We went into the museum at the Peace Park to read and learn a bit more of the sobering history. Afterwards we enjoyed a stroll through the park itself.

The children’s  memorial… a young girl Sadoko (I need to check her name again) contracted leukemia after the fallout of the bomb and started to fold origami cranes in the belief she would be cured if she reached a certain amount. She sadly died like many others, but then other children carried on her folding legacy and a memorial was made.

School children from all over add their cranes to the memorial.

We all rang the peace bell before walking back past the dome and catching the bus back to go and see another beautiful garden before getting back on our speedy train back to Kyoto

This was an absolutely delightful garden buried in the heart of the city… many little paths, big pond, beautiful koi and numerous quaint bridges.

I could sit by one of these ponds and take koi photos all day… looking forward to getting home to play with the images from my camera!

There were a lot of fabulous tea houses scattered about the gardens as well!

Anyway, reckon its my bedtime again!

I hope you have all started the week fabulously!

Cheers