Winter has arrived

We lived in a cloud for awhile.This is a double full rainbow! I wasn't able to get a full picture though. It was too big.

The week of rain and flooding we had at the end of May finally subsided. It welcomed in a very green and flowery winter. Today it was about 65 and very sunny and people were bundled up in their winter hats and coats. Not so bad I think! "Winter" fruits such strawberries, passion fruit, apples, oranges, and avos are currently in season. We are still camping every weekend although I won't bore you with car and camp details. We are working a lot (in school and work) and gearing up for the long plane ride home in one week!

rain rain go away

It has been raining for the past week straight. Every time we think it has cleared, we go outside it rains some more!

don't tread on me

We thought this tire cover was fitting... but it's a little out of place on a British car in Australia.

Happy Birthday Mate

To celebrate the Expat's 26th birthday we headed four hours up the Sunshine Coast to Burrum Coast National Park. I hope that you are not getting tired of seeing pictures of our truck because here are some more. This was probably the best camping that we have had so far because we finally had some decent weather. Sunny and 70 during the day and we had to wear sweatshirts and huddle by the camp fire at night! It is so nice to finally have cooler weather. We picked a campsite on a sand bank over looking the ocean. At night we saw more stars than I have ever seen. We also spotted a wild emu in the forest and a kangaroo with a joey in its pouch. Probably the most exciting thing to happen was getting stuck in a giant mud pit. I thought we would never get out and then once we did, I thought we would never get the mud off. Luckily, we pulled through, and we got out using our new winch, which we tied to a nearby tree. I think the new winch and roo bar paid for itself. I will let the Expat share his rendition of our close encounter with the swamp because he has a much different view of the experience...

Ok, Expat here, and here's how we got the truck stuck. We went for a drive through the national park, and took an old logging road across an inland section. Halfway down the track, there was a creek bed that wasn't flowing, but did have some standing muddy water in it. Someone had thrown some logs across it as a primitive bridge, but the logs had washed out. That should have been my first clue that a lot of water had come through there, but it wasn't. So, we had to find an alternate way across. I picked a safe looking spot and charged right ahead. As soon as we hit the puddle, the mud shifted out of the way, and the whole front of the truck sunk right in, and we bogged down into a very muddy pit. The mud reached the doors on the drivers side (the right side). I thought we'd never get it out, and we briefly discussed having to hike out of the park. Fortunately, I've wisely invested in a lot of recovery gear, so we had the equipment to get the truck loose. To get it out, we had to use a shovel to dig down to the winch, cut an channel out of the mud so the wheels could role out, and winch the truck out using a nearby tree. It took us a while, but it was better than a 10 mile hike to the nearest paved road. By the time we got it out, I was muddier than I've been since I was about 5 years old. Libby told me to be thankful, because most people would pay $200 for a mud bath like that. I was just happy to spend my 26th birthday playing in the mud.

On the way home, we had to hit 2 car washes to get all the mud off. Also, the right front wheel started making an ominous grinding noise that seemed to signal the wheel was about to come off or something. We managed to nurse the truck home, and got it to a repair shop, where we discovered that we had collapsed a wheel bearing onto the stub shaft and the two parts were basically welded together. That's a more technical way of saying that we hit the ground so hard that we smooshed a bunch of stuff in the wheel. I thought that was a sign that we had a good time. In closing, here's a couple of less muddy pictures.

Beach Driving

Birthday Party

Easter Weekend

Easter is great here because it is a four day weekend, which extends to Easter Monday! It seems as though they have many of the same traditions here as they do in the US. One tradition that was a lot different was the chocolate bilbie, which replaced the chocolate bunny. Bilbies are a very cute marsupial found in parts of Australia. Since the bunny is not native to Australia, and is actually regarded as a horribly destructive pest, they make chocolate bilbies instead. The expat bit the head off one, and reported it was just as delicious as a chocolate bunny.

Over the extra long weekend, we went to Sundown National Park, which is on the border of Queensland and NSW. It is about a five hour drive inland from Brisbane. It was a lot cooler there and some of the leaves were even changing colors! That was very exciting for us since we haven't had a fall in a long time. The park was accessible by 4WD only and you have to carry in all your own supplies. Our truck performed beautifully. After entering the park we drove two bumpy hours offroad until we reached our campsite. We camped at a waterhole along the Severn River, which was actually mostly dry so it made for really nice day hikes.

our apartment

Just wanted to share some pictures of our apartment...

CAT Australia's headquarters. The expat is proud of his office with a view.Master Bath

Our bedroom

The kitchen/ living room/ dining room

Money Pit or Strategic Investment?

Hello to Libby's blog readers, it's me, her husband (aka the expat). Libby wanted to write a blog post about our latest acquisition, shown here:

She didn't know what to say beyond "it's big and noisy and white, and seems to require a lot of expensive maintenance." So, she turned it over to me. So, here's the real skinny. It's a 1995 Land Rover Defender 110. It's got a 2.5L turbo diesel engine that makes about 100 horsepower, and full time 4wd with a center locking diff, which means it can take you about anywhere. When we bought it, it had about 180,000 miles on it.

We've also made some additions. After getting stuck in the sand on Fraser Island, we decided a winch would be a useful tool, so we added one. This has given me an endless opportunity to make jokes about winches and wenches, which Libby though was mildly funny the first time, and increasingly annoying thereafter. To hold the winch, we needed a bull bar (known in Australia as a Roo Bar) on the front. I've got some additional stuff planned, but I'm having trouble getting it passed the capital expenditure committee (Libby).

What she doesn't know is that a vintage Land Rover will hold it's value much more readily than your garden variety blue chip stock. Check the Dow if you don't believe me. In fact, we could go out and drive it directly into a tree, and it would still be worth more than our investment portfolio. So, this isn't a waste of money, it's a carefully calculated means of protecting our assets during this troubling time in the economy. And to ensure it maintains its value, I need to keep investing in it. Hence, the high lift suspension, Detroit locker, onboard fridge, etc. etc. etc.

This may seem ridiculous, but it's the same strategy the US government is using on AIG, GM, and other glittering jewels of American Industry. If they can take something that cannot conceivably make a profit and keep pumping money into it, then so can I! If it's good enough for our genius overlords in Washington, then it's good enough for me. If I could only figure some way to get other tax payers to carry their fair share of the car parts, I'd be golden. Perhaps I should run it into the ground, then demand help.

Also, we took the Defender out this weekend for some camping in the Great Sandy National Park. At no time did it break down, catch fire, roll over, or get stuck. So, even though it rained almost the entire time, I deem the weekend a total success. We had a beautiful beach front campsite, and were the only people around for several miles in any direction. Here's a couple of shots: