First Leg

We have taken a practice road trip to Armidale, NSW to have a look at a house that we like the design of. We thought we would also practice using the technology on the way. It has only taken me 3 hours to put the photos of the trip up. We drove through Wollemi National Park and stopped for lunch at a cafe in Sofala, a really old gold mining town. It was quite an interesting spot. Some of the locals are working on restoring some of the old buildings.


We drove from Canberra to Aberdeen, just outside Muswellbrook and stayed the night in a pub. Great value for only $50 a night, share the bathroom. (We are also practicing "frugling" and aspire to our friend Anna Maria's (aka the Shopping Shirpa) excellence at this.)

Red Tape

Today I finally navigated the nightmare of applying for visa's on line. While I am sure the whole world can find the easily identifiable links on the UK and USA sites, I was not among them. In despiration I rang (at $9 and $11 a pop respectively) the specially trained helpers, (specially trained to cope with my snide remarks) and then after plodding through the automated forms, getting half way through and having to find documents that I wasn't warned I would need, I eventually (breathe, relax) managed to make the appointments.

The light of my life, wisely escaped for a nap because he knew that I was at raging, biting, snarling point and would have easily found a way to wipe his nose in any percieved indescretion on his part. (could this be because I havent had my medication for three days?) He even coped with our trip to the British High Commission where my neat hand written application was REJECTED because THEY (do I have a problem with authority wielding power over me?) failed to inform me (personally) that they CHANGED the RULE in DECEMBER when I first filled in the bloody form and NOW I HAVE TO DO IT ONLINE. AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!! Anyway we now have an appointment in Sydney for the Yanks on 25 Feb and one in Canberra for the Poms on 29 Feb. If all goes well we will be off before the end of March.

Getting Started

Al and I have just started our very long long service leave. We have a lot of preparation to do. Some of it of course includes figuring out how to blog, download pictures and work my new ipod. I am becoming exceedingly technilogical in the process.