Bend in the Weather

We all enjoy a good holiday. Getting the time to take one always seems to be the problem for me however. I think I may have just found the answer...

If you're like me you grew up watching The Wonderful World of Disney at 6:30pm every Sunday. Here we marveled at cartoons of Mickey, Goofy and other great Disney characters. (So much so, many the hostnames on my home network are now named after Disney characters! ).

It also introduced us to classic 'childrens' movies like Herbie, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland.

It's probably the dream of every child to visit the magical place of Disneyland or DisneyWorld.

With the help of Google you can now explore DisneyLand without leaving your chair!
Google has produced a 3D interactive representation of Disneyland inside Google Earth.

If you've got Google Earth installed try the following:

1. Once Google Earth loads, search for "Disney World".
2. Click on the golden Disney Mickey Ears - This will load an information window.
3. In the info window click on Show Disney World in 3D.

The 3D world contains over 1,500 3D models and will let you explore right through the park. The models are highly detailed and a sight to behold!

It's nearly as good as being there!
Just think - no more queues for rides, no long-haul flight getting there, and the park is now open 24 hours for you.

Have fun exploring!

How time flies.

Tomorrow (2^nd May) Pauline and I will have been married for 10 years!
It only seems like yesterday that we were two scared kids wondering what the hell we were getting ourselves into.

We can honestly say that it's been a great 10 years. Whilst like every couple we have our ups and downs, we generally have more ups then downs. We've both grown together and stronger as individuals.

This year, is a big year for us. We are building our first house, and potentially may start a family after that. So life moves on, always throwing more challenges and adventures.

To celebrate the milestone, we're heading away for the weekend.
I'm taking a few days off work to extend the stay. We're not heading too far, but enough so that we're out of mobile phone range and the hum of computer power supply fans for a few days.

We've decided to head up to Healesville. For those unaware, it's located North-West of Melbourne in the Yarra Ranges.


View Larger Map

There is tonnes to do there, and we indeed to make good use of our time! We're hoping to get to Healesville Sanctuary (Pauline is an animal loving nut - this is a must stop for us!), The Hedgend Maze, The Yarra Valley Railway (time permitting), as well as visiting a bunch of wineries in the region (Map here) (I wish to stock up the ever diminishing supply of good Australian Red/White wine I have.)

It will be good to get away for a quiet retreat and leave computers, mobiles, television and most of the usual suspects that distract us.

As I've already blogged, I got Pauline an eternity ring to mark the occasion. Pauline returned the favour by surprising me today with my own present!

She came home with a lovely watch. My existing watch had been banged up quite a bit and was in need of a new battery (though it did tell the time correctly twice every day!).

She couldn't wait to give it to me (she was planning on surprising me on the day and had to show me straight away!

It is indeed lovely, it's quite easy to read, balanced beautifully and quite an attractive piece of jewelry. I'm extremely happy with it. (I would of personally picked something like this - she has got my taste down pat!).

It's fantastic, we now both have something lasting to remember the milestone.

So we've packed our bags, getting the dog looked after and heading out early tomorrow. (Friday).
The camera has been thrown in so we will hopefully take some photos of the picturesque country that is the Yarra Valley.
Pauline's selected a lovely apartment for us to stay in, and it's been furnished in a lovely traditional Japanese style. I'm looking forward to staying there, as it looks divine.

I won't be near a computer or Internet access for half the week, so I suspect the Email will still keep rolling in.
For those of you wanting a response, please SMS me (I'm not sure when we'll have coverage), or wait for our return.

Whilst the weather forecast isn't ideal, it is strangely very similar to the weather we had on our wedding day! In any event we have a number of indoor and outdoor activities planned so I'm sure we'll have a blast.

Each year my family do a Kris-Kringle for Christmas.  This saves us all ending up with a bunch of presents we don't want and one present we all desire.  All the names are drawn and everyone knows who is getting for each other.

Individuals can then 'request' the present they want.
We set a limit of $50 on each present, so whilst it won't break any banks, you do end up with a reasonable present.

This works well on my side of the family, as we're all adults with the exception of my cousin Joshua who's still under 10.  For Josh...we all still buy for him.

This year I wanted a reasonable set of headphones to listen to music/videos and anything else making sound from my computer.  The main reason is that I share the office with Pauline, and as you can imagine, it annoys the hell outta her when I've got something cheesey or crazy off YouTube playing.

I elected to get some Sennheiser headphones.     I originally requested the HD201's.. as they were under the allocated $50.
What I didn't realise at the time.... is that they are no longer on the market, and have been replaced by the more expensive HD202s.

They were almost double the price of the ones I originally asked for...  But after listening to 'em...you'll be lucky to prize them from my hands/ears.
These little beasties pack a real punch, and are very comfortable to wear for long ours at a time (not like those annoying iPod ear buds that hurt your ear canal after an hour!)

Even better, it comes with a 3m cable, so it easily plugs into my PC, without having my head flattened against the desk to listen (due to short-chord syndrome found on the iPod ear buds).

The sound range they produce has to be heard to be believed!  Those flakey 160kbps MP3 files now sound like you're sitting in front of the royal orchestra.   The sound is crisp, rich and full.   I dare not stick a CD in for fear the sound depth will blow off my head!
For those that love classic/jazz, the ambience and clariry of the strings is crisp and sharp, whilst those bass-heads will love the chest thumping that the deep bass volumes produce.

These beauties have ensured none of my bad tasting music effects Pauline now.. and saved hours of frustration.. (though they don't solve my tapping my feet however -- which now seems to be the problem!) 

If you're in the need for some decent headphones, you can't look past Sennheiser's range.   They produce headphones for any price range and situation.

So if you need to speak to me, make sure you wave your hands... I probably can't hear you over my headphones!

It's been a week since my last blog entry!

Since that time I've been enjoying the rest. I haven't started looking at present for another role but will commence with that as of tomorrow.
I'm not too concerned, as it's traditionally a quiet month and December was very hectic so it's likely that February will also do well.

The role at Coles-Myer didn't eventuate... though that's not such a bad thing.

What have I been doing in the interim? Well enjoying life... have watched some of the cricket, and much of the tennis (for those that don't know the Australian Tennis Open is on in Melbourne ... so it means we get to watch it in prime-time.

I've also been doing some work on my brother-in-law's notebook to ready it for Internet use (It didn't have any patches and have never stepped near the Internet). Why?! His desktop has died so we ordered him a new one, so his notebook (normally used for tuning his cars) was rushed into commission.

A day and a half later it was right to go! That's what happens when you have numerous updates, service packs and the like to go on a PII-300 running WinXP!

Not much else to report... will be doing some website coding for some new stuff released later this month. More news as it comes along.

This is the last post on our holiday.

I thought we would at least post some pics on what the place looked like that we stayed at!

We stayed at the Quality Resort Rockford in Mildura. Recently refurbished, it's quite modern and very relaxing!



For those considering going to Mildura I would highly recommend the place. We stayed in one of the corporate rooms and were lucky to pick it up for half price by booking through WotIf

I would say I got sunburnt the day we played tennis. As we were out there for a while! Ahh well... the exercise did us well.


Those that know me know that I enjoy my wine. I had let our stocks run down a little so was looking forward to visiting some of the local wineries around Mildura to replenish the stocks.

We took in 3 wineries whilst we were away. Stanley Winery (part of the Hardy Wine Company), Trentham Estate Winery and Lindermans Karadoc Winery. We purchased a mixed dozen at each so we'll have plenty of wine for quite a while now. Each winery has some excellent wines.
If you're interested in what we went with (both white and red) let me know.. I'm happy to give you details.. We even picked up some excellent 'summer reds' that you serve chilled. Very refreshing on a hot summer's day!

To get to the Trentham Winery we passed through the town of GolGol, a small town on the Murray just outside of Mildura. We stopped and took a photo as it was so picturesque.


As we visited Lindermans on the way home we passed through Red Cliffs (just south of Mildura). Red Cliff's claim to fame is that 'Big Lizzie' resides here.



Built in 1914-1915 in Richmond, it was intended to go upto Broken Hill to cart wool from the outback stations. It however could not cross the Murray at the time which was in flood.

In 1920 the Victorian Government hired it to uproot trees and clear some 1500ha of land around what is now Red Cliffs.

After Red Cliffs and Lindemans... it was back to Melbourne via the Calder Freeway. The return of Melbourne highlighted the end of the holiday. We had such a good time we didn't want it to end!

I'll take some shots of all the different wines we brought back and post it up later in the week.

As promised, here are the remainder of the photos from our Paddle-Steamer outing.

The Murray river has a series of Locks along it's path. Originally slated for 30 it contains 15 (The railway system that came through many moons ago killed off river transport!).

The locks allow the water depth levels to remain in place to ensure the Paddle-Steamers can get up and down (without running out of water!). The Lock 11 is the only Australian designed Lock, the rest are US designed.



The Lock works by using gravity to move water from the higher ground to the lower ground. Once both sides have levelled the doors of the lock are opened and the vessel is able to pass through.
It's a simple design but quite ingenious! It fills at around 1 million litres/min so it only takes about 4 minutes to raise some 4 feet. The gates each weigh in at a staggering 18 tonne!

Below is a small animation of the gates opening up.

Hmm.... a day of catching up on sleep.
I also officially blame Anne for the peeling skin now on my cheeks!

Okay... on with more photos!

The same day we did Orange World in the morning, we headed out on the Murray River on a PaddleSteamer for the afternoon.
It was fabulous! We went on the "PS Melbourne" -- Very relaxing, with a nice breeze and a very casual 2 hour cruise taking in the Mildura Weir and Lock 11 (photos on both tomorrow!)

So on with the photos!


So as you can see it was very enjoyable!

We finally arrived home.
We've had a great time away, but there is no place like home... actually there is no place like your own bed to sleep in.
It will be great to get a full nights sleep.. both Pauline and I have struggled to get a decent night of sleep since being away.

Continuing on our picture tour... we visited Orange World on Wednesday. It was quite fascinating and very educational (I'll post in the comments later on some of the stuff we learnt! ... It's late, and I've only arrived home recently - after spending about 9 hours on and off travelling today), so I'll keep this brief!)



That's all for now... more photos/comments tomorrow!

We've been spending a few days now in Mildura and visiting the surrounding areas.

We headed off to Wentworth, to see the infamous gaol that housed Ned Kelly for a period of time.



We also went through Rio Vista House, that was built in 1890 by the Chaffey Brothers. Unfortunately due to the original furniture and paintings inside we were unable to take photos (for fear of damaging them).



Take our word, they were gorgeous and quite priceless!

All in all, we're having a fantastic time!
We just visited Orange World and took a trip on a paddle streamer today, but more on that tomorrow!

For now... time to get back and enjoy the little time we have left up here!

Well the first part of our holiday has concluded!

Pauline and I left Cohuna and Nana behind and are now in Mildura.

The weather has been stinking hot and we've sweltered in 45^oC weather for the past few days.

Today was better, probably around 30-35... with the weather all week expected to be around that.

It's getting late, and I've got a big day scheduled tomorrow so I won't write too much get, just to say here are some happy shots of Nana and Fiona (my cousin) and her hubby and kids!

We had a great time, and are looking forward to getting out and about in Mildura!

More when I have more time!