OMG I’m so behind in blogging I can’t really remember what we did on this trip. So how about I just show you some pictures.
Scott did a good job of planning the whole weekend (other than picking another Airbnb that has no bathroom door). It was a nice relaxing weekend away with delicious meals.
Lots of parties in December!
Started off with an unpictured pizza party at Naomi’s house with the old EH crew. Always nice to hear all the updates that have happened throughout the year. Since I didn’t go to school here in Melbourne I don’t really know that many people in the nuc med community, but now my old coworkers are spread out all over the place and it’s a nice little network for me.
We went to an Italian restaurant for our work Christmas lunch this year. This was my favourite dish, which was actually a special one for me while everyone else had a super duper dairy pasta dish. It was a seafood risotto, very yum. We also had really nice tender steak. Thanks Doctors!
Scott’s birthday was the same day as our pickleball club’s Christmas party. It was super hot, humid, windy with occasional downpours. Not great outdoor pickleball conditions but it was still a pretty fun party. We snuck out when the some of the oldies started getting pretty loose and got sushi for dinner on the way home.
I may have played a few too many games because I think I actually got heat stroke. Why am I so competitive??
Also LOL at how close that house is to the pickleball area!!
We had a party at our house! We made shawarmas and we played crokinole, Camel Up and Wits & Wagers. Ol’ trusty games. It was fun.
We went camping in Gippsland. Scott organised everything, including driving 45 minutes each way to look at this Shipwreck. :P
We stayed at Emu Bight, which had A LOT of bird activity. At any moment you could pick out at least 5 different bird calls. We even got a new lifer, a Red-browed Finch, but it flew away before I could get a picture. We saw quite a few fairy-wrens, Olive-backed Orioles, emus, and Eastern Spinebills, and all the usual suspect birds as well.
Other than the birds, we got a bit bored. The first couple days were too cold to swim, then it got hot but we were far away from the water, and then the flies came out and it started raining off and on. We ended up packing up a night early.
We went to a few more rallies. I feel a real sense of despair about all of it. At least we’ve been able to catch up with some friends at the same time.
Scott made us a gingerbread village to decorate. Gingerbread brings up lots of memories for me, of mom and Jane, Emily, Rosemarie, Natasha and Eric. Nice memories, a little bit sad at the same time. It’s a fun tradition though.
I liked Scott’s reindeer decoration.
Christmas was pretty chill this year. It was a small Christmas year so there weren’t as many children as usual. Plus the Jorna boys are getting pretty old now! We had the usual lunch of chicken and salads. No one seemed to care that my Nanaimo bars were the ugliest batch I’ve ever made!!
Check out this amazing tea towel that Rory gave us. He designs a new one every year. I love it!
Christmas zoom with the fam back home.
Trying on my latest knitting project to see if I wanted to add an extra row of design or not. Of course I do, #longtorso.
I just had a craving for hotpot. This time I picked a broth that wasn’t spicy, after burning my face off last time. Much more enjoyable.
I got a new board game for Christmas from my Kris Kringle. It’s called Welcome To and apparently you can play with 1-99 people. I don’t think it would work very well with more people that can sit around a table though, unless you had like a projector or something. We did play with Rosemarie remotely though which was fun!! Good recommendation from Lesley.
Unpictured stuff:
Last month we decided to take advantage of Scott not working with a budget-friendly trip to the Mallee. We left on Sunday afternoon after pickleball and drove north to Swan Hill.
We stopped at an Ibis Rookery along the way. It had an excellent bird hide. We saw a lot of ibis and cormorants. Like.. A LOT. There were also a lot of mosquitos so we didn’t stay too long.
A cool sunset. I thought it kind of looked like a bird as well.
Big Cod in Swan Hill.
The next morning we got tradie bacon and egg rolls for breakfast and then drove to Goschen, which is just a little bushland reserve recommended to me by one of the Birdlife photographers. We saw a couple new birds: White-browed Woodswallow, and White-winged Triller. And a lot of flies.
Then we continued on to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, which is near Mildura, where we camped for three nights. It is a nice park, desert-y, but with water. It was pretty quiet, with tons of birds and reptiles. And wild goats!
Our campsite was right on Lake Mournpall, which had a lot of jumping fish in it, which entertained us in the evening. We also spent a lot of time walking, birdwatching, reading and knitting.
My DIY Detachable Lego Fly Deterrer actually worked pretty well, except for when I accidentally swatted a brick into my nose. Did I look stupid? Yes. But did it work? Yes.
Warepil Lookout Mallee sunset. Very flat land.
A visiting family.
I think these are called Shingleback Lizards. I called them Road Sausages. Or Turd Lizards. They are so stumpy!!
There was a little scenic nature circuit that you could drive around. We saw this cool Lace Monitor and lots of birds.
One day we did the slightly longer Lake Loop walk, which started off pretty fun because it’s a little bit free-form as long as you find the next sign post.
But I got pretty tired by the end because parts of it were a bit flooded and it was hard to find the next post. And the last hour or so was walking through all this stupid loose branches filled with burrs, on top of sand.
We drove out to the Hattah Outback Roadhouse for ice cream and a shower after that. I couldn’t believe the showers were free! It was very needed and appreciated.
The astro conditions were perfect so we saw some pretty good night sky. Unfortunately the aurora alarm didn’t go off while we were there… we were planning on driving back to the lookout platform if it did. Not sure we’d be able to see anything since we were quite far north anyway though? But there certainly wasn’t any light pollution.
The weather was absolutely beautiful for our whole trip until the last day. We managed to pack up camp before the weather turned, but it was a long dreary drive back to Melbourne.
We broke up the drive by stopping lots of times.
It was a great trip! We were actually supposed to go the week before but the forecast was HORRIFIC so we postponed one week and that worked out perfectly. Scott and I both ended up with covid but thankfully it didn’t come up until the last day of the trip too. We saw so much cool stuff, but no budgerigars or pink cockatoo so now I want to go even deeper into the Outback!
2022 was pretty great. I managed to have two whole months of sister time!
Good things that happened in 2022:
PBs: Snatch 47kg –> 48kg in comp, and 49kg in training. CJ 58kg –> 58kg, but I did 60kg one time in training. Back squat 73×1, Front squat 58×2, Deadlift 80×1, OHP (in Sotts position lol) 34×1.
I didn’t improve much on paper in weightlifting this year. But I think I still did improve. I think I’m due for some bigger PBs in 2023.
Also I didn’t have any major problems with injuries so that is something to be very grateful for.
New board games: Viticulture, Concordia, Wingspan Asia, Mahjong, Kingdomino, Azul Summer Pavilion. We played 31 different board games with 29 different people!! We played A LOT of games in 2022 compared to other years due to spending so much time with Rosemarie.
Books (in rough order of favourite to worst):
Great new recipes:
Favourite bird pics:
2021 Final Thoughts: This year is finishing off pretty nice… the weather is great, we got to have a normal Christmas, and it’s summer fun times all the time. The government has completely changed their stance on covid and now we’re just letting it rip? We’ll see how this goes. I’m just hoping it lasts because we have a few big things planned in 2022 and I REALLY hope they don’t get cancelled.
Nothing got cancelled!
Last years goals: I dunno. Not get covid? (Nope, Scott and I got covid separately, in May and August. Thankfully very mild, and we didn’t have to miss anything important.)
2023 goals: Use my good camera more. Become more athletic. Eat more protein. More knitting. Start volunteering in migrant services.
2022 Final Thoughts: We are so lucky to be able to do all the things we got to do in 2022. I am very grateful for my friends and family, they really enrich our lives. I will be very happy if the next year continues on like last year.
We spent a few days in the Grampians at the beginning of December. We camped at Smiths Mill campground for three nights and it was very relaxing.
We stopped at Cafe Merkama in Ballarat on the way there for lunch. It was great! Love a dairy free meal especially.
Mackenzie Falls.. now with less dead bodies. They’ve blocked it off quite a bit now so you can’t even really touch the water.
I took quite a few long exposure pictures with my ND filter but when I got home and looked at them on my computer I found out that they had really strong reflections from the camera lens. Whoops.
We saw lots of birds. Scott spotted several Scarlet Robins, which we had never seen before. And we saw a lot of types of honeyeaters. I’ve got a bunch of new pictures to add to my bird album on Facebook.
Scott must read really boring books because he falls asleep 5 minutes after he starts reading. Every time.
I entertained myself with a $5 Kmart embroidery kit.
We played games of course. It was not windy at the camp site so we could even play Wingspan Asia!
There was a campground emu. At first we thought it was cool seeing an emu so close, but he turned out to be a bit of a pest. Continuously circling the area looking for snacks.
One time he snuck up behind me and I didn’t notice until his head was right beside my head. Scared me!
The emu also did several big poos right in the middle of our site.
We went to the Balconies lookout at sunset. I thought it would be busy but we were the only ones there! Very beautiful.
Need to learn how to take better sunset pictures…
We did a fun hike up Hollow Mountain. It’s only just over 1km long but it goes straight up! But it’s way more fun than like the 1000 Steps or something because you have to scramble up rocks and do some light bouldering. Some parts felt scary! But I think it’s now in my top 5 favourite hikes (don’t ask me what the other 4 are).
Then it rained the whole last evening, even though the weather report said 0% chance of rain. I failed as a Girl Guide and didn’t make a deadman in the tent that morning and my pillow got wet. Bah. Luckily it was dry out while we packed up the next morning though.
Finished embroidery ready for trimming.