Current Stories
Friday, 5. February 2010
Website Changes - Broken Links05/02/2010 04:13 PM Website Changes = Broken Links
Due to the website growing to an extraordinary 62GB in size and the maximum size of a Lotus Notes Database being 64GB I have had to split the website into multiple sites.
This has caused the majority of links on the website and in Google to be invalid, so over the next few days I will work my way through the internal links but Google and other external websites I have no control over.
The site is now broken into People, Places, Holidays and further down the track will include Xmas and Things.
If you have come via an external website and the link is broken you can change the URL as follows.
If it is a holiday link change the URL from “pics.nsf" to “holidays.nsf”, or for a people link change it to “people.nsf” and finally for places change the URL to “places.nsf” (0) Friday, 15. January 2010
Holiday 2010 in Marlo Vic15/01/2010 11:07 PM 
It is now our third visit to Marlo on the Victorian coast
See the Pictures Here
The caravan will be at Marlo for a little over a month, with us staying for 12 days and then Malcolm and Puk staying for a fortnight before we return again for a few days and to pick the van up.
(0)Saturday, 26. December 2009
2009 Xmas parties26/12/2009 06:38 AM The 2009 Xmas parties....
I think that this year is the first year we haven't actually hosted any of the Xmas parties.
12 December 2009 - The School and Kinder Group Xmas
Everyone had a great day with Karyn and Scott playing host for the Xmas party.
The jumping castle was a winner with the kids having a great time playing in it, which left the adults to relax and eat yummy food.
See the Pictures Here
19 December 2009 - The Lay Family Xmas
The Lay Family Xmas hosted by Cheryl and Leigh.
With everyone bringing a plate and presents kept to a minimum it made for a no stress relaxed evening.
See the Pictures Here
24 December 2009 - The Herman Family Xmas
The Herman Family Xmas at Peter and Anna's house included all the Herman's except Wendy who was still in QLD and Morna's brother Tony from WA came as well.
See the Pictures Here
25 December 2009 - Xmas morning at home
Xmas morning at home with the girls opening there presents.
See the Pictures Here
25 December 2009 - The Arber Family Xmas
The Arber Family Xmas at Gaynor and Peter's new house with all the Arber's including Jamie and Sarah.
See the Pictures Here
(0) Wednesday, 9. December 2009
Landscaping and verandah extension for the spa to be installed.09/12/2009 11:39 PM 
Landscaping for the portable Spa
See the Pictures Here
With a week of mid 30 degrees Cath began questioning the need for air conditioning downstairs, so we headed out to get some information and pricing.
The general consensus was we would need to look at the highest KW unit that single phase power could provide and installed it would be around $5500 plus dollars.
Considering that the air conditioning is for only downstairs and that traditionally there is only 1 to 2 nights a year that upstairs is uncomfortable and the fact that hot days we normally head out to the beach or are away on holiday during summer anyway I didn’t think this was great value for money.
I wondered if a spa might not be a better idea????
Looking on ebay the following day I spotted a spa that had been advertised badly, with poor pictures and had only 4 hours remaining and zero bids on it.
After speaking to Cath we decided we would put on a single bid and if we won it so be it and if we didn’t it wasn't meant to be.
Well… we won it with the one and only bid.
Now the dilemma started, how do we pick it up and where do we put it?
As one thing always seems to leads to another follow my progress as I create the area for the spa, with a day per day progress by clicking the "Read the Full Story"
(Last updated - Friday 18/12/2009)
Monday 16/11/2009
Began the general demolition of the area, trees shrubs, weeds cut down and removed.
Removed the pine round posts and steel mesh running along the length of the garage.
Removed the screen made of pine posts and mesh with Jasmine creeper from the rear garden bed near the lawn.
Began the process of pulling out the retaining wall blocks and pulling up all the brick pavers.
Tuesday 17/11/2009
Still removing and stacking retaining wall blocks and brick pavers, with Cath lending a hand with the stacking of the blocks and pavers before I headed off to work.
(0)Monday, 2. November 2009
Noojee with Penny & Andrew and family.02/11/2009 
Noojee with Penny & Andrew and family.
See the Pictures Here
With another pleasantly warm day and with Wendy down we planned on doing a picnic dinner somewhere and leaving after lunch time. Penny rang to say they were also thinking along the same lines and they were planning on heading out to Emerald Lake. After a chat I suggested Noojee and the Toorongo Falls as a destination which had been to earlier this year.
Hitting the road about 2pm we made our way towards Noojee stopping at Trestle bridge for nibbles and a cuppa.
From here we headed to the falls and the loop walk to the Toorongo falls and onto Amphitheatre Falls, the kids and the dog powered ahead whilst the adults chose a more adult pace.
Upon returning we had a good feed of quiche and caramel slice that Penny had prepared and snags and salad that we brought along, before hitting the road to return home. (0)Sunday, 1. November 2009
Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally01/11/2009 
Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally.
See the Pictures Here
Our second visit to the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally, we were last there in 2006 and I was looking forward to attending again this year.
The Lake Goldsmith Steam Preservation Association is located approx 45mins from Ballarat and located on 38 acre site, it is internationally recognised and the largest in southern hemisphere. It is unique in that it has 48 permanent sheds owned by club members which house their machines.
I wanted to take Dad after attending in 2006 so organized with Malcolm and Puk for Mum to stay there for the day, we agreed to meet at Malcolm’s and then make our way from there.
For the trip up we had Wendy who is down from QLD and then picked Dad up at Malcolm and Puk’s, my nephew Noah was also keen to go along so we had one very full car with 7 of us piled in for the trip to Lake Goldsmith.
Once arriving we headed straight for shed 17 to drop our stuff off and have something to eat or drink. John Herman was involved in the early days and helped build this shed so it made for a staging point for the rest of the day.
We also joined the Herman clan, including John, Morna, Warwick, Fiona and Michael, shortly after lunch, Caitlin and Noah joined Michael for a trip around the grounds whilst the adults made there way to the oval for the grand parade.
After a little while we began to become worried as we hadn’t seen the kids for a while but quickly located them riding on the Charles Burrell traction engine in the parade!
Apparently Michael kept asking different owners until someone finally agreed to let them ride on their engine in the parade!
(check out pictures IMG_6911 to IMG_6921)
(0)Sunday, 18. October 2009
Caravan hinged shelf, stretcher bunk bed, sink lighting and sink splash back. 18/10/2009 09:06 PM 
More caravan work, hinged shelf, stretcher bunk bed and sink splash back.
See the Pictures Here
Continuing on with more updates on the caravan from the last instalment which was where I replaced the lino and installed a sofa bed. Now that the sofa bed was in I wanted to create a table to use when the sofa bed was in the couch position and that could be folded flat when it was in the bed position.
I still had ply left over from when we created the shelves for the caravan and it didn't take long to have something whipped up and a coat of clear coat on it. I found there was a stud running across horizontally along the half partition wall to secure the shelf to and just used a piano style hinge along the length of the shelf.
Where I did run into trouble was trying to find a solution to secure it in the folded out position, my intention was to use the metal hinged style brackets that they use on things like card tables and picnic table legs to hold them in place. I found something similar at Bunnings but when I came to use them found that due to the design they didn't fold flat or worse didn't allow the table to fully extend out.
I messed around modifying them by drilling out the rivets at the hinged points, cutting them down so each half was at equal lengths and riveting them again. This solved the extension and folding flat issue but after finally getting them sorted a new issue arose where they were to weak to reliably hold the shelf out. After 3 hours of mucking around with these supports I gave up and binned them and instead I just used the simple option a wooden support, which is hinged up from the floor.
One of the major projects that I needed to do was to add an extra bed into the van, with Malcolm using the caravan at Xmas he requires an extra berth to sleep his 3 kids. This has posed quite a dilemma for me, I didn't want to create a permanent fixture so it needed to be removable, Malcolm had suggested a stretcher bed type arrangement, as this is what the caravan he used whilst in Denmark had.
I looked at getting a piece of canvas sewn up but the cost was prohibitive, I looked at camp stretcher beds but once again they were too expensive, but as luck should have it Aldi came to the rescue with a stretcher bed for $40 in one of there weekly specials.
Armed with an Aldi stretcher bed I was pleased to find that I could unbolt the centre section to remove the canvas (its actually PVC & polyester) and this also allows the canvas to be put back on if we ever require a camp stretcher.
I needed to figure out the construction, I have probably over engineered it but the thought of it collapsing worried me greatly. As the stretcher poles span from side to side and are unsupported in the middle I needed something that would not deform and possibly pop out of each end. I had 2x pieces of 50x50 box tube left over from when we made the rear bumper, they weight an absolute ton and make it awkward to put the stretcher bed in and out of place but at least I don't need to worry about there strength.
(0)Sunday, 11. October 2009
Yarra State Forest11/10/2009 10:54 AM 
Yarra State Forest - Seven Acre Rock, Starlings Gap and the Ada Tree.
See the Pictures Here
We headed out for a picnic and a bit of a walk to the mountain ash forests of Yarra State Forest. As with most forests managed by DSE dogs are allowed and the last time we were in this area was back in 2007 when Leah was still a puppy.
Upon entering the Park we were faced with a decision to either head in along the standard Forestry road or make our way in via the more adventurous route up and over a steep hill, we took the more adventurous route.
Our first stop was Seven Acre Rock which is a short (1.2kms) easy walk that leads to a granite rock outcrop with views of the Bunyip State Park, Western Port Bay and Port Phillip Bay. This is one of the areas burnt in 2009 bushfires which provided an interesting landscape with the stark white granite rocks against the backdrop of the blackened trees. Megs and Caitlin bounded up the rocks towards the top earning the nicknames “Caitlin Climber” and “Mountaineer Meg”.
After a cuppa and morning tea at the picnic table at Seven Acre Rock we made a move towards the lookout “Spion Kopje”, which we somehow drove straight past so we continued on towards Latrobe River Camping Area to check it out.
We were surprised how many people were camping at Latrobe River considering it was just a normal weekend; we were also surprised to find that they were Land Rover owners who were also members of the AULRO forum.
Time for lunch at Starlings Gap, this is a fantastic grassy clearing in amongst the forest, we cooked snags on the Trangia then headed up for a short walk to the remnants of an old winch and boiler used for logging.
Our final walk was to the Ada Tree, this walk follows the Ada creek and meanders through a Myrtle Beech Rainforest for 3.2kms return. The Ada tree is 300-400 years old and has somehow managed to avoid fires, storms and almost a century of logging in the area.
It is the biggest - as opposed to the tallest - hardwood tree in the world. The General Sherman sequoia of California tops out at 83 metres, but it is slow-growing softwood that may have taken up to 2700 years to reach its current height.
Timber millers have estimated that the Ada Tree, may weigh 1130 tons (enough to build 60 homes) and its root system could extend over more than an acre. In any case, the Ada Tree used to be bigger still, the top of its trunk has been blown away, either by high winds or a lightning strike and the DSE estimate it may have topped 120m before it lost its head.
In a few square Kms around her, even taller trees have been felled, with massive logs left behind just to rot. Old time timber getters working with only crosscut saws wouldn't have ripped down trees this size and left them to rot but with power saws the easiest way to find out whether a tree is sound or rotten is to cut it down, in half an hour a 300-year-old tree is dead.
Once we finished the walk it was getting late and time for afternoon tea with a beer for Cath and I, chocolate biscuits for the girls before we made out way home. (0)
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