Category: Uncategorized

Hi there!
Hope everyone’s week has started nicely!
I had a great invitation from my cousin Leonie to accompany her and one of her daughters on a mini road trip over the weekend.
The main goal was to visit the Tahune Airwalk and enjoy the area around the Huon River.

The Airwalk is basically a steel canopy walkway through the treetops, giving you a different kind of forest walk.
The Tahune Forest is about 30km’s from Geevestown, south of Hobart.
The walk also straddles the Huon River and is very picturesque!

There are a couple of little short walks in the bush before getting to the actual airwalk.

The usual perspective – the trees looming above!

We walked through the bush and up a bit before getting to the first part of the airwalk

And then straight out into the trees!

There were plenty of little stopping points where you could pause to admire the views and oooh and ahhh about how high you were.

I liked looking down!

We were about 50mt above the river!

You can see the cantilever for the best view up the river!

It was an amazing feeling to be up high in the treetops. The walk was very stable so you didn’t feel like you were swinging about.

Looking straight up the Huon River

Back down on the forest floor we could look back up to see where we had been

14 year old Alana was full of impatient energy and pretty much was under the impression we were going to sprint around the whole area!! Much to her disgust, this wasn’t so, so she contented herself by scrambling up on a few fallen logs here and there!

The fun wasn’t over – a couple of swinging bridges to negotiate. These moved a LOT more underfoot than the airwalk !

The views from the middle of the river were so pretty.

It was hard to keep the camera steady on these contraptions! And you couldn’t stay still in these areas either as the March Flies were out and biting!

We finished up with a picnic and a zip-line flight that took us even higher above the forest!
Pretty great way to spend a day if you ask me!

Cheers!

Hello!
I was invited by one of my cousins (Leonie) to do a bit of a spur of the moment trip down south of Hobart for a couple of days to do the Tahune Airwalk.
Seemed like a good idea, so off we went.
I had a lovely couple of days catching up with Leonie and one of her daughters as well as seeing some beautiful countryside.

We had a fabulous meal at another cousins place (I simply call most of my relatives down here ‘cousin’ as it all gets a bit complicated – 2nd 3rd, twice removed etc etc 😀 )
They had a gorgeous garden, so will share a few of the flowers tonight and tomorrow pop back hopefully with a few snaps of the actual airwalk.

Hope your weekend was amazing too!

Cheers

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!