14th July 2013
We had a rainy night and now another drizzly day with a
breeze so Barry and Foxy haven’t gone on the usual 40 minute morning walk and
are hopeful that the weather will clear enough to let them do the shorter
circuit with Merry. Meanwhile, Merry will
play with her new toy and attempt to transfer her books, and audible books to it,
whilst Barry continues to watch the test match even though one excuse for an
umpire has already ensured England’s victory.
Apparently the English can’t be caught out if the ball nearly knocks the bat out
of their hands.
22nd July 2013
Due to weather conditions we have done little other than
necessary shopping with Barry and Foxy having a few walks with Steve and
Badger. The pathetic cricketing display
by Australia hasn’t helped cheer us up.
There appeared to be sufficient ex-Aussie cricketers in the audience
that played in previous Ashes test matches to form a better team than we now
have. Even when Ponting’s team lost the
Ashes they put up a better display.
Having mentioned the Ashes, we are currently only about a 30 minute
drive from the birthplace of the Ashes ‘Sunbury’ where the stately mansion
still stands but is now part of a school with school kids playing on the
original pitch. Perhaps our current team
should return and practise with them to find out how to do it. We can’t imagine why they dragged the English
team all the way out to Sunbury to play cricket rather than play in Melbourne,
and are amazed that the weather allowed it to happen, unless it was a very
short game. We can’t get enough dry
weather on any single day to get our washing dry, but this is our typical
Victorian winter. If they played in the
summer they may have gained a few hours of sunshine.
23rd July 2013
We tried
unsuccessfully to have Merry’s prescription for Saline solution filled at the
local pharmacy but they offered us an equivalent option at a ridiculous
price. We determined that it would be
cheaper to go into Melbourne on the train and get it from the Hospital pharmacy
which would also give us a bit of a day out and also let us get a haircut at a
better price. This worked out good for
us as we had acquired MYKI cards for train travel on the Metro train to travel
to the hospital from Garon and Sue’s place, but with them returning to WA and
us moving to Woodend the $50 available on our cards was not going to get used as
they where only good as far as Sunbury.
However, last Thursday the MYKI card equipment was activated at Woodend
and became usable for travel to Sunbury and Melbourne, or Bendigo in the other
direction, which is much cheaper than using our car and has no parking problems. Merry managed the three flights of stairs to
get out of Parliament Station and the 10 minute walk to the Hospital without a
problem. When we returned to the station
we passed straight through to Burke Street and used a tram to Elizabeth Street
to get the haircuts and lunch in the Galleria shopping centre. We then used a tram to continue on to
Southern Cross Station to get the V-Line Bendigo train back to Woodend.
24th July 2013
We took Foxy for a slightly longer walk than Merry has been
taking to continue building up her fitness.
In the afternoon we went with Steve and Terry to Kyneton but only for
shopping and a short drive around the outskirts of the town to see some of the
old buildings.
27th July 2013
The weather hasn’t been good for more walks but has improved
marginally today. We drove to Trentham
along with Steve, Terry and Sue for them to visit a rather large nursery for
some vegetable plantings, but whilst in the area stopped for lunch. Lunch was in the quaint old bakery which ahd
a nice atmosphere and was tucked away down a laneway but was still very
busy. On the corner of the laneway was a
shop that had every size of every item that you wouldn’t want in your
home. It was great for a 10 minute
drowse but we can’t imagine anyone buying anything. After all, who needs a Dalek, a larger than
life, moulded plastic, gorilla or any other plastic animal or imitation
dynamite complete with electronic timer?
The village itself requires a thorough check out as it had a lot of
appeal plus we want to visit the Trentham Falls where we visited some years
ago, so we will return when Merry is more able to walk for longer distances and
the weather warmed up. Trentham is higher
than Woodend and therefore colder.
28th July 2013
Merry accompanied Barry, Steve and the dogs on their morning
walk but shortened it slightly towards the end by taking a short cut. It still took nearly an hour which is a
really good walk for Merry. She hasn’t
been eating as well as she had for the last 4 to 5 days because she feels
permanently full so we are hoping the walking may change that. We phoned Abby to wish her a happy birthday
and to find out how she is recovering from her appendix operation, which is all
good.
29th July 2013
We had a really good short, sharp thunder storm last night
and when you are already up in the clouds that are making the noise it get real
loud. Nothing of interest happening
other than Barry replacing an add-on reversing light as the previous one chose
to give up the ghost. We have an add-on
reversing light as the Nissan Patrol only has one regular one on the left hand
side, and that is fairly well covered by the spare wheel on the dual spare
wheel carrier so people behind us can’t see that we are reversing unless they
are to the left of us. Now you have to
be blind not to notice as the new one is brighter than the previous one that we
fitted whilst in Hobart three years ago.
30th July 2013
The weather has changed to cool but sunny so we packed a
lunch and drove through Trentham and on to Daylesford with the intention of
checking out Daylesford, and then return to Trentham for a walk around the
village, plus visit the falls on the way back.
Daylesford turned out to be much bigger than we expected plus Merry was
starting to feel somewhat weary and nauseas, so after a quick look at
Daylesford Lake and a drive back through the town we headed home and had our picnic
lunch there. We will try again another
day. We have already been warned by
Merry’s specialist that it will probably be a year before she is anything like
her former self. With that in mind, we
have decided to return to our home in Geraldton when the tenancy agreement
expires in November. We are basically at
a standstill until we see the specialist again in September when we expect
Merry to be cleared and able to move on.
We will then meander back to WA as
we can’t take on climbs into waterfalls, walk through gorges, do heritage walks
through towns and villages, etc, that take several hours of walking and/or
climbing that we have been accustomed to.
This means we will not have seen half of Victoria and most of New South
Wales (about another 18 months worth of travel, the way we do it). We will then return for 3 or 4 month trips during
the better weather times, on the assumption that Merry’s health returns to
something like it used to be, and that Barry’s health doesn’t deteriorate. It is slightly disappointing not completing
the whole of the country, but it was originally only supposed to be a 2 to 3
year exercise, and we will be at the 5 year stage in September, plus we did
some travelling around WA before we set out on the real trip in September
2008. We started out from Ann and
Ashley’s home near Perth with approximately 50,000 kilometres on the
speedometer and we are currently 3000kms short of its 140,000kms service
(90,000kms) and will be much closer to the 100,000kms by the time we get back
to Geraldton.
31st July 2013
Merry managed to do the hour long walk again this morning
and seems to be better than yesterday so we just might try another picnic day tomorrow
to Trentham and the waterfall if the walk to the falls is as short as Barry
vaguely recalls from the previous visit.
We are led to believe that there is a physical barrier stopping you
going right down to the base, which was only a request at the viewing platform last
time, and was ignored.
