2017-Oct-05 rolling home again

Left: Enjoying our last days in Bright.

Riding from Porepunkah to Bright is really just to ride through the outskirts of Bright. it's a lovely ride through parks etc, and over a river. We're here quickly enough. Go for a beer and lunch, let the boys go for a splash in the water park. Then they saw a movie, and me and Marie wandered around the shops not buying anything.


That night was a really sensational dinner at the Indian/Italian restaurant. Yep they do both. One chef is Indian, possibly married to the guy who's Italian. The boys had ravioli. We had a couple of Indian ones. All were just perfect in my opinion. 5/5.





Left: day 2 we rode to Wandiligong. Also, it's almost a suburb of Bright. The path rolls though lush parks and trees. Too nice.








Right: the Wandiligong Pub. They ate snags and chicken nuggets. I had the Gado Gado salad. The tofu tasted acrid. At 6pm we ate. By 9pm, I brought mine all back up, plus out the other end as well. We trust they are normally pretty good, but this time it was definitely something wrong with the food, specifically the Tofu/Tempeh. We rang them eventually. Some apologies, and assurances that they have fresh ingredients, so not sure where it went wrong.


Left: dropping in on Cameron, Lib, Ben, Hugh, Rowan, and Angus the cutie.

After getting Marie to drive the hour to Hugh and Libs, I had a lay down, a piece of toast, then finally a proper dinner. That night I was feeling fine again.

We rolled back to Sydney, dropped in on Baka in St John's park. Finally got home Thursday night.

 Relaxing weekend, then back to school.






Right: presentation night for the Rugby League. Dude, Heath, Callas, Leo, Ollie, James, coaches: Andrew and Steve.
front row: Mattie, 1,2, Daniel, 1, Marco.

Awards night Saturday arvo, night. Ollie got most improved back. It was his first season, so plenty of new skills learned.



Left: Lou had a playdate with Zeekie, me, Leila, and Serge, down at Berry Island.

Heading to Myrtyleford

Left: between Everton and Myrtyleford.

At Everton, there was a group of ten. The kitchen panicked a bit. The staff, one lady, said to us to be patient, then she whipped out the stuff pretty fast anyway. The others were from Wollongong.

The scenery around here is incredibly green.


Right: at the Myrt Dirt on our day off in the morning. What a treat!






Left: trailor lady drying clothes on the porch in the caravan park in Myrtyleford.

We met the same family again in the main street, the group of ten.

In the afternoon, Lib, Hugh, Cam, Row, Ben and Angus visited in the caravan park in Myrtyleford.

Right: street tennis






Left: Hughie heard about the Thai here, and made the booking. Was very good!









Right: llama stop










Left: coffee stop riding out of Myrtleford towards Porepunkah. The one day that it rained; Ollie complained, but a stop in the cafe was perfect.

Right: at the berry farm near to Porepunkah. We did a winery stop as well. Once we got there, we saw the same group of ten. Lou couldn't stop giggling. Later he explained it was special chasings with a maximum of kissing. We asked the girl's name, he didn't know. How many girls did he kiss? I don't know he said.

Lazy day Sunday. The boys watched the League grand final in the pub, then continued once we got back to the caravan cabin again. This cabin is cooooollld.

2017-09-27 on the road to Everton

Left: the road near Everton. Seems like with all the downhill happening so fast, I didn't pull out the camera until we'd arrived pretty much in town. It wasn't very far, only 16 kms roughly, and all downhill, so much so, it was necessary to use brakes.




Right: seems like a good introduction that went down well with the boys. No need to peddle on the way to Everton.

In the morning, I drove to the destination, so the car and all our bags would be there. Missed the turnoff two times. Cycled up up up uphill to Beechworth, saw everyone almost as soon as I rolled in. After some debate about lunch, we headed off.

Arriving in town, we all had hamburgers, which were in fact quite delicious. I can recommend the general store at Everton. Well, there's not much else to choose from. We also ate at the Everton hotel, which was not bad, and a beautiful pub.






Left: goosing around with the selfies, note Marie in the background.

 Right: more selfies, Marie joins in the goosing around.


















Left:the Everton caravan park deserves 5 stars. Nothing fancy, just everything in good working order, everything in its place, neat tidy, and quite pretty.

 Right: the Everton bus shelter, apparently. Ten out of ten for decorating efforts.

We just stayed one night in Everton.







Left: lone ranger scouts the Everton hotel.









Right: some excellent photo effort from Louis. A local ant says cheese.

Left: serious shit in the pub with the young pool sharks.

2017-09-24 off to Beechworth VIC

Left: the school holidays for two whole weeks, yay! After leaving Mill's and Fil's, we rolled on until we hit Yass. It was a really nice surprise. This town is quite pretty, in quite good original condition.






Right: beware the meal sizes! This burger is as big as Louis.














Left: after the night at Yass, back on the road in the morning, a stop at Gundagai for baseball. V nice.






Right: catch practice with Lou.







Left: selfie during the lunch break at Holbrook
















Right: the submarine at Holbrook. Plenty of breaks during the drive, and some running around, all good.








Left: arrival in Beechworth VIC, one of the best preserved gold rush towns anywhere. 

Right: 4 bikes from the car, not bad. At the Priory, an old nunnery in Beechworth. A great old interesting place to stay.

We stopped in Beechworth for two nights. The nunnery is a bike friendly business, so we assembled the bikes, went for a roll around town, then locked them in their cage.



Left: the path at Beechworth, heading towards Yackandandah
















Right: the Beechworth maze. During the day around town. Meat pies for lunch, then working it off. We also stopped in at the Honey shop. They're serious bee keepers and honey makers. Bees are important for food production in general, for making fruit and veg. Louis wants to plant more native flowers to help the bees at home.

2017-09-24 at Mill's place

Left: Ollie decided to play cricket. It's his first go at it! This weekend we've got our first game even. He is really enjoying it. He's started bowling like a champ straight off the bat (like what I did there?), and during a practice match played some marvellous shots.














Right: practice in the nets. Some fine play there, really belted them away, superb.







Left: we went on the Murray to the Mountains rail trail for a week during the school holidays. Packing the bikes in was difficult, but very doable. This car is pretty adaptable. We packed up and then went to Fil's.








Right: happy birthday to Milly!

2017-09-15 Weekend away

Went up to Umina for the weekend again.

Left: for starters, everyone came to my work! Level 7 has a Foosball and ping pong table. The boys both had a go of each, then did some races around the area.





Right: Louis, will you get a haircut! Our Lou samples the hot chocolate. We've been working on him to take a haircut.

We went out for dinner at the local pizzeria, Verace, which is just a great pizza place, really authentic delicious Italian style pizzas. Then we came back to my work to kill time until the traffic died down. The boys had a great time. Then we drive up easily at around 8pm.








Left: on the green machine again. Ollie really loves this three wheeler. Taking it the long way around the block is great fun.






Right: in the Bouddi National Park area, walking towards the lookout.







Left: at the lookout, excellent.








Right: At Killcare for lunch and a walk. The art deco lunch place was pretty good.






Left: Buddy the rabbit.













Right: Umina beach on the last day.










Left: Umina beach Sunday (last day)




Right: at Yum Cha for Mum's birthday on the same day.






Left: serious cricket at Louis's class picnic at the end of Sunday. Ollie bowls. Louis is the running batsman.









Right: Ollie bowls to Louis. I had to run too much.