Camping Adventures on the Buckland River (yay!)

We finally went camping, Theo & I! Theo couldn't get another day off to make it a long weekend, but we left Friday night after work to make it a bit longer. We went to the Buckland Valley, near Bright. Theo's been there before. (p.s. don't you love the whole idea of a website dedicated to public toilets? Very useful). 

Here's my new raincoat. It packs up into its pocket, which is also a little bag. It's pink. It was on special. Need I say more? 

Breakfast/Brunch, whatever it was, by the time we got ourselves out of bed in the morning & the fire going, with all the wet wood we had ;)

Travelling up a very blackberry-infested creek, trying to get to a spot on the Buckland River to go gold panning. It wasn't bound to be very successful - the river was too full - but it was fun.

Just after here I lost my hat. Theo left me at the creek near the car and went back to get it. My hero! Lucky the hat was white....and it wasn't snowing...

Me, poking the fire with my fire stick. Enjoyable occupation.

Why not put a moth on my nose, says Theo.

And home again

To Ballarat & Beyond!

On the Queen's Birthday weekend, Theo & I went to Ballarat to visit his brother Nathan & his wife Sharon. It was meant to be a surprise for his dad's birthday, who was driving down to spend the weekend too, but I forgot/got confused/somehow wasn't told (probably just forgot) and spilled the beans to him the week before. So we decided to keep the cake and birthday tea a secret, but someone else let that one slip LOL;) 

Here's Theo at the lookout at Mount Buninyong. Too foggy to see much of anything & I had a bit of a freakout about the tower and heights LOL but it was fun anyway ;)

We ate lunch at a little cafe which had good food and pots of tea & lots of pink. And it's name was pretty good: 'The Cupcake Cafe' :) 

We had a trip in the afternoon to Nathan & Sharon's new house they're about to move into. There's a shack on the property that has been propped up and bits added on for the last hundred and something years, the house is more recent. Local rumour has Peter Lalor (of Eureka Stockade fame) living on the property, sometime after the rebellion. 

(Notice Theo freezing in one of the above photos, because he volunteered his jacket to me:))

And here's a pretty, unknown berry (currant?) bush that was growing on the side of the road on the way home.

And I finally got to visit The Lark in Daylesford, whose blog I like to read. Where I admired lots of interesting things & bought this little poodle handbag mirror, which is vaguely reminiscent of 70's and 80's swap-cards. 

Did you do swap cards at primary school? I must admit I hadn't thought about them a whole lot since then, although I do have a stash in a special childhood box somewhere. But, on another tangent here, I did a little bit of googling & found this website. To think of all the internet-window-shopping trouble I could get into here.....

Cooking, Whroo & Life in General

Been up to all sorts of bits & pieces. Theo constructed this pot belly stove of sorts from an old gas bottle & it now resides in the shed, complete with chimney thru the roof. It is really very nice and warm in there with the stove going. Theo works on stuff & I sit in a chair and read a book:)

And here is my new PINK kitchen baby, while Theo demonstrates the tastiness of things it helps to make:). It was a wedding present from my Dad & Sharon. 

This was all part of several recent cooking frenzies ;) 

All very belly- and freezer-filling.

And here's Ainsley and Simon, at their recent wedding :) 

And here's Theo & I, too :) 

Now Whroo. Always entertaining. With our broken handbrake, we had to resort to wedging rocks under the back car tyres;)

Someone suddenly decided the main mine was unsafe & decided to fence it off. Sort of.

There was some drama when a young man and three females (two of them from The City) went missing down a mine shaft for two hours. A large crowd of friends and family gathered atop the shaft's dark maw, two brave would-be rescuers went down the rope after them (yes, one of them was Theo), calls to the SES were narrowly averted, someone produced climbing gear and the would-be explorers were found returning safe & sound - although they apparently needed some help getting out of there. There were rumours of hanky panky, amongst the youngsters, but I think it unlikely considering the people involved ;)

Here's the trio of girls, and one of the rescuers, and the procession back home :).