Lachlan Tours Central Australia

 Lachlan and about 35 of his closest friends braved the rain and freezing temperatures at silly o'clock on a Saturday morning to board a coach bound for Central Australia.

They made it to Coober Pedy and seem to have escaped the rain.

They have now spent time around Uluru.

James in the News

 James has been less than impressed with some of the changes announced in the last federal budget.  So much so that he was photographed and extensively quoted in an article in "The Australian".

Pam's New Unit

 We called in on Pam to see her new unit.  Of course the important consideration was housing her collection of pot plants and she has managed that well.  She is also very close to the main shopping area and the smaller Unit makes things very comfortable for her.

Kervin Cousin Catchup

 There are only four Kervin Cousins remaining so they decided that catchups over lunch were better than meet-ups at funerals.  So we all met at Hotel in Rochester.

We enjoyed a great meal and the staff could not have been more accommodating.

Of course, the support staff had to get in on the act too.

Around Kerang

 While living in Cohuna we had spent very little time in Kerang so it was interesting to look around.  The town seems to be surviving well with plenty of local activity and a relatively prosperous shopping precinct.  There were well maintained gardens and sporting facilities.

We visited Murrabit, a town that hosts the Murrabit Market, it's only claim to fame then on to Wakool (we liked the name).  It was a very neat little town with a corrugated iron Sculpture Park.

For lunch we headed for the Barham Club that I had joined as a life member in 1969.  I was Life Member No 105 and, surprisingly, I was still in the records so I was issued with a new membership card.

North to Kerang

 Heading north we visited Boort, a town that seemed to be about as remote as you can get in Victoria.  It is also a town that has seen more prosperous times but is still an attractive location on the shores of Lake Boort.

On the way through to Kerang we called into Lake Meran.  In the late 1960s and early 70s we had spent many happy hours at the Lake on picnics and water skiing with our boat "Beefa".  During the drought, the lake was dry and grain was harvested on the damper soil that was the bottom of the lake.  We were pleased to see it back as we remembered it although the water level was still low.

Off to Charlton

 Claire had arranged to meet her (remaining) cousins in Rochester so we decided to take a few days prior to have a tour of a few townships.  First stop was Charlton that we had passed through in the van but not looked around.

The town is old and tired with many closed shops, situated on the banks of the Avoca River - a very attractive setting.

The town is dominated by a huge, closed, flour mill.

However it maintains three pubs.  We chose the Cricket Club Hotel for the evening meal.  It was interesting that the publican (born in Charlton) was renovating the pub but had no idea how the name arose.

Thigh Will Be Done

 Cooper injured his thigh at basketball 2 weeks ago but was back at it today.  He was good for most of the game but unfortunately he landed badly in the last few seconds of the game and re-injured the leg.

Astro Images

 Different parts of the sky show very different aspects of the universe.  We just had a couple of clear nights so the telescope had it's first outing for a couple of weeks.  Caldwell 101 or the Pavo Galaxy  is about 24 million light years away with a diameter of about 171,800 light years.

Much closer to home, only about 9000 light years away in our own Milky Way galaxy are the nebulae NGC 3603 (left) and NGC 3576.  These are huge areas of gas and and consequent rapid star formation in the southern Milky Way.

A Tale of Survival

 For the long weekend, James and Angel decided to torture themselves (and a couple of mates) with a 65 km walk around Wilson's Promontory.  James was still a bit stiff from the walk the day after their return.