Picking up Ethan and family

Uncle George and Aunty Loreen live here, but this place is just made for Ethan!

Uncle George is happy here too. We stopped by to pick them up on the way to North Carolina.
Here are some more pics <click here>.

Skymeadows

27 April 2002 we got married here! Nothing much has changed!

Grass has grown...

I have grown...

New bunnies...

Fresh Flowers too!

Morning Stroll around the Hood

Morning walk before doing my coughing... I had bought a new mucolytic medicine from the chemist, it was a bit dear this bottle, but we thought we'd try it. Low and behold the pill bottle contained 14 pills!! We thought it was pricey even if it contained 35 (the 'contents may settle' argument would not gel with me for this container!). It seemed to work. I coughed productively...

Anyway, back to hard facts. We covered an alleged 5.68 kilometers (3.53 miles) in 1 hour and 5 minutes, an 11 minute per kilometer (5.2km/hr) pace, and used up a measley 304 kCal (not quite a marsbar). The altitute ranged from a moderated 85 to 105 meters above sealevel.

Some forests are left between the golf course estates...

Wild-life on the path - a technicolor-centipede.

Back at the lake behind the Hitch Residence

Astrolab comes to greet us.

Hastings Graduation

Hastings Graduated today! A culmination of four years of discipline, and all the family was there to celebrate at the Blackthorne Inn afterwards.


For all the photos of the event see the slideshow <here>

Back in the USA

Nice to be back in the USA! We forgot some toiletries and thought we'd hit the local Giant store. All the Listerine mouthwash bottles came in 2.5 liter bottles or however big they were, and they were a fraction of what we pay for them in Australia. Also interesting to note that the shaving gel, in the regular and the travel size are both the same price; $2.63. I then noticed most travel versions are the same price as the regular sized ones. I still bought a travel size one. The shop assistant tells me ever since the new airline security measures wrt liquids this has been the case.
Energy bars are half the price too, not that I need them with my full on party diet here! K and I try to run/walk daily. Something else I found in the shop is a KEFIR drink!! The only kefir they had was in a strawberry drink of sorts, but hey, DILAIIGAF!

I also notice the huge trucks on the road, at RMA for Hastings graduation I saw a Hummer parked there looking like the more modestly sized vehicle amongst the Fords and Chevies there.



The Amex is accepted almost anywhere and often without as much as a signature. After my experience in Europe this is almost a highlight of the trip!

Well, the highlight is Hastings graduation at RMA. Here is a panorama of the graduation from my N95 phone-camera.

Hastings Graduation

Today was the big pass-out parade for Hastings Foote!

Watch the slide-show <here>

Family Abroad

Astrolab waiting for me!

Katherine sighted in her parents kitchen...

Jim tending the roses

Faith blowing kisses

What a huge flight that was! It took FIVE flights, each with a 3-4 hour wait on the ground in between. The fresh air and stretch in between each sector was good for me, but we were seriously sleep deprived by the time we finally arrived about 35 hours after leaving. The biggest downer was the no frill flights (we did it very cheap indeed!) which meant no food and alcohol on the flights, and even blankets were $8 or so to rent on the Jetstar segment!

Cataract Gorge

K and I went to the CF Mini Conference in Launceston today and I spoke for almost an hour. The 15 minute teaser went down really well, people there loved it! We went for our usual walk in the Cataract Gorge, to the Duck Reach Power station etc. Good walk, came back in the dark.

Photos taken with the phone and merged on Photoshop CS3!

More Mount Wellington

Mount Wellington

I know, we look tough, well prepared,... but, we drove up. Darn cold at dusk, I tell ya! Snow and ice.



And there always has to be someone!

(although this one was legit, it was a working dog in training).

Panorama shots of Crater Lake

To really appreciate these shots you will have to double click them...

From the Crater Lake Boathouse.

Phototrip with Wayne

The turning of the phagus was so nice I went back with Wayne in a photo expedition.

Nothofagus turning at Cradle

Slideshow <here>

We drove up for our 6th wedding anniversary in our new old Hyundai! It went really well.
The day was cold and wet. We had snow, rain and sunshine; a typical Tasmanian day. Hardly any tourists, mostly locals.



The tree is the Deciduous Beech Nothofagus gunnii. It's the only deciduous native tree in Tasmania and it's rather rare.
Nothofagus is one of the oldest genera of flowering plants in the world with a fossil record stretching back 80 million years. It's regarded by scientists as one of the keys to understanding how vegetation evolved and migrated throughout the southern hemisphere.


The Tasmanian Deciduous Beech grows in dense stands, but even in autumn colours it's not that easy to find. The beech is mainly restricted to high rainfall areas in the central and western mountains of Tasmania, with a few minor populations on some of the southern mountains. The name Nothofagus comes from the Latin 'nothus' meaning false and 'fagus' meaning beech. (The 'gunnii' is after Ronald Campbell Gunn who collected the first specimens on Mt Olympus).

We also saw some massive mushrooms! Fortunately we had packed a good lunch, and could leave them for others to see.


The Deciduous Beech is a direct link back to the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. Fossil records found at Cethana in northern Tasmania date back 35 million years to the early Oligocene period.

Read more <here>.
See the slideshow of our pictures by clicking on the picture below!

Turning Nothofagus