Darwin

First I need to correct on omission from last week.  We were so proud to hear that Charlie Wright recieved the student of the week award for his class last week.  Great work Charlie.  He also travelled to Emerald with brother Henry for the Junior Golf Open and Charlie won the Nett for the 3 Holers.  He was so happy with his awards.  Henry didn't miss out at sport as he got runner up for the Juniors back home at Tieri the next day.  Henry also had a good week at school as he was selected to take part in the 'Gifted and Talented' Program at Tieri State School.  He works hard at his school work and hopefully it will keep him interested in learning.


While on the subject of talented Grandkids, we were also happy to hear that Isobel and Madelaine took part in a running festival in Brisbane where Isobel ran 2 kilometres on her own and recieved an award.  Madelaine finished the course also but was assisted by her father who just happened to be going by in the same direction with a pram at the same time.  Well done Ben who had just finished the half marathon in a really good time before coming to the rescue of his middle daughter.


Violet has also achieved this week in becoming a little more independent by learning to ride her bike without training wheels attached.  She is coping well and Fabs tells me she can now take off by herself.  Look out Em, you won't know where she is soon. Fabs has taken over coaching the Junior golfers in Mudgee and is enjoying it.  Elliot is enjoying having Dad teach and likes his golf just like Dad.

To us.....Well it feels like winter is coming to an end.  There are a lot of caravans on the road and most of them are heading south.  Don’t they look at the weather report – it’s cold down there !!!  Three neighbours who all arrived at the beginning of June within a day or so of us have left this week.  Ted and Linda have headed for Townsville, Richard and Barb left for WA and the Swift’s left for home in Melbourne.  Other neighbours at the back of us have left after a couple of weeks and also headed west.  It turns out they know my cousin Rodney Miles and that brother Bruce has done a lot of welding for them when they lived and worked in Mackay.  Of course the farewells were celebrated in the usual style with a couple of nights sitting outside enjoying a cool ale or wine and swapping emails, phone numbers, blog addresses and trip plans.  We have made some great friends that we will catch up with again one day down the track.

The week started hectically with the end of the Darwin Cup racing carnival drawing to a close with meetings on both last Saturday and Monday.  Both days were busy with a lot of punters flying up from southern states for the long weekend and enjoying the racing on both days.  Saturday had the usual local punters and visitors but Monday was madness with the racetrack full of Carnival goers while the regulars stayed away.  We arrived at the track at 9:15am and were surprised to see the beer and champers already being consumed.  We started at 10am and finished work at 7:45pm with a short 30min break.  It was very busy but enjoyable and we may even do it again sometime.  Lots of favourites went down during the carnival and it wasn’t until the last day that I started taking quinella’s with the 2 shortest priced horses and the 2 longest priced horses in the race. I only had time to put 2 on but both were successful so that was a bit of fun as well.  Carol also backed a couple of horses and also had a win.

At the start 9:15am the drinkers arriving..



From the grandstand across the public tents, the track and the Corp tents



Nice to see the spring flowers out already



In the action trackside with the next runners going out



Carol mostly worked in the top of this Grandstand

There is a major Air Force exercise on at the moment with planes from four nations involved and for the last week or so they have been doing night exercises.  I am glad we are 20 od kilometres south of the airport as the noise of an FA18 taking off is deafening here so I imagine it would be very loud in the van parks right next to the airport.  The noise only lasts a few minutes and it is more interesting than annoying although some locals are whinging about the noise.  The reply seems to be that “that is the sound of peace…”  An FA18 did an aerial display over the beach at the Mindal Markets last night and that was very exciting to watch.  He made several low level runs along the beach rolling the aircraft from side to side and looping around for the next run.  For the last run he went out to sea and came straight in towards the beach from right beside the sun and then pulled back and flew straight up until he disappeared in seconds. 

FA18 at play



Low run past Mindil  Beach

Coming out of the sun at speed

Of course, FA18 or not, the sunset at Mindal Beach is always worth waiting for and last night was impressive as the sky was clear of smoke and there was a beautiful breeze blowing.

Enjoying dinner by the beach with a great view...

I just had to share these sunset shots showing the colour changes over 30 mins,,all natural light....No filters or photoshop used here!!

I am looking forward to my last few days of work at the hardware this week and then we will have a break for a few weeks before heading west.  

P.S. the fish we caught last Friday were beautifully cooked (by Carol) and we ate them last weekend.  Large parrot fish make excellent eating with pure white flesh…yumm.