It's been awhile since I have done an update so that means something memorable has happened recently. We have had a storm, not just any old storm but one of those ones that gets your attention and will remain with you for years to come.

It started last week (Tuesday) when we were notified that a cyclone was forming up north and would wonder down here over the following days, but not to worry because when it hits land it will become just another big low and we will get some rain.

All good so far, we needed rain badly and Ron had been doing his version of a rain dance for weeks so something had to give lol. Wednesday true to form the cyclone (Oswald) formed and hit the coast and started its slow trip south for the summer.

Wednesday the sky darkened and it started. 100ml overnight





Fantastic, no watering required so ok you can turn it down now the pools full, the tanks are overflowing and dam it there are branches coming down making a mess of the yard.

Thursday, looks like yesterday only the wind is stronger, the rain is heavier and god dam there are more and more branches flying around. Enough already, the pool is really overflowing now, the orchids are going to get fungus and Deb (Nursery) will blame me for tooooo much watering.




Hang on that's a tree outside my bedroom and it's napping !!!!! OMG it's gone over hmmmmmmmmm

150ml today and counting - 250 in total

Friday, still raining, very humid and everything in the house is now damp, oh great here comes the mold and we were doing so well this year. Fans going, towels on floors, furniture in from the deck, cant go anywhere as trees are now falling all over the place, starting to get worried - a news update, the roads are closed there is no way in or out of Agnes, we are cut off. Still raining, still windy, getting very scary.

Saturday morning, hang on that's a very large bloodwood gum in our driveway.





It was still upright when I went to bed, dam not only are the roads under water, but I cant even get the car out to go into town - still raining. It's about this time when Ron decides that it's all over and moved on south of us.

Wrong

my new view, smashed garden, still raining, blowing even harder and then came Saturday night.

Now just so you don't think we are wimps, we don't mind a good storm, lots of Thor and Zeus fighting it out in the heavens, but we do call it quits when things started to get seriously smashed about down here.

Saturday night 12.30am woke to the sound of screaming gales, things crashing, the CRACK, THUD for another tree splitting and collapsing in the yard. At 2am I turned on the aircon in my room to try and muffle the sounds of the gale only to lay in bed watching branches sailing past my windows. My room is 15 ft off the ground. Something is VERY wrong here. Sunday morning the pics tell the story.



Smashed

Bloodwood Avenue South, well what's left of it.

But all things come to an end and so after 1020ml (3 feet) of rain, gales up to 140kph the sun came back out and off we went to start the task of cleaning up.

The management of Sunrise have risen to the occasion and withing 2 days the roads are clear, the debris is stacked awaiting pick up on Friday and most people are back cleaning up their own patch of paradise. During all this to the best of my knowledge no one was injured, no homes damaged, we were very very lucky.

Bundy, Gladstone, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and further south have not been so lucky.

PS It is now Tuesday and the roads are still blocked, the supermarkets are running out of food but everyone is pitching in to help - after all that's what communities do.

Amazing pic of the storm arriving at Bundaberg. Pic from the ABC emergency site.

We have pets

The natives are getting very friendly

TIGER

As you can see Tiger is a Lace monitor with the most extroadinary patterns on his skin. He has taken to us and our left over pork roasts with a passion and can usually be see laying around on a tree within spotting distance of the kitchen LOL. You can see his table manners are quite good and he has even been know to come up on the veranda demanding seconds.

The other day he invited a friend into the bloc to play hmmmmmmmmm not sure we will encourage this behavious LOL

Both these amazing animals are in excess of 6ft and growing, the block is starting to get crowded LOL.

She's out of our life

Today was a very sad day for our household, it was the first time that the reality of parting with Miss Guided really hit home.

David arrived last Saturday to start the hand over and stayed with us here at Sunrise for the first 3 nights while Miss G was cleaned, charged and taken to the park for a full fitout and to show David how she worked. David then stayed in her for the next two nights down at the park.

Today was the fond fairwell and while we wish David and James as many good times as we had it was the sudden realisation that she no longer will be with us and I must admit it was a hard parting. With tears on both sides we said farewell.

In front of a crowd of curious nomads the offical handing over of the keys took place to polite applause, and then she drove out of our lives.........................................

bye bye and travel safely - amen.

Now rumour that we have totally gone into isolation is false, well almost. Since we have been home we have been totally taken up with getting the garden (all 2 acres) back into shape. Unfortunately we are suffereing a chronic lack of rain and this means we are hand watering 600 plus plants which tends to take all day.

That said, the weather has been fantastic and every day we are in the pool either here at home or at one of the beach clubs. The water temperature is rising and at home I think it must be about 30 on the surface but a wee bit cooler lower down.

Now the other day we were walking along China Beach when he spotted this great tree stump that had been washed up on the beach and was obviously a hazard to turtles coming ashore to nest.

Wouldn't it look great in the garden ? he said, Oh well it was his birthday so off we set about planning on how to get it back home. Firstly we can't lift it at all, we struggle to roll it and being about 3 foot in diameter it is bloody awkward. Now I can't give you a blow by blow on the swearing, cursing etc etc that ensued as we struggled with this monster along the beach and then the half kilometre trip up hill to the car park. Needless to say by the time we had reached the ute, we were not talking. Anyway, with the assistance of a friend, a 4 wheel bike, trailor and lots of painful straining it arrived home.

Set back in its natural habitat you would never know it had been on a weeeeeee trip out to sea. Our guess is it is an old bloodwood that has been through a fire and was sawn down in the clean up. Now as far as we know there has not been a fire for many many years and it is very very weathered by the sea so it may have been washed down a river and floating around since the last floods 12 months ago.

A day in Aswan alone

The tour and Ron  headed off to a Nubian village for the day so I decided that I would go check out the locals in their home environment. So complete with my bottle of water, a good hat off I headed.

As usual the first thing to see is the poor old donkey dragging a heavy load down the road surrounded by trucks, cars, trikes and everything that has a horn and no off button LOL.

After walking for about 15 minutes inland (away from the safety of the boat) I came across this sight, goats and sheep being herded somewhere. Now it doesn't take Einstein to work out that there must be a market somewhere close and that these poor animals are about to become someones dinner so on I went in search of the market.

I did eventually find the market but started getting seriously harassed by the locals and couldn't work out whether they were just being over friendly or they were not happy that I was there so there is no pic of the place. The stall holders had all packed up for the day and I think they may have been about to take a nap and then set up for the night. As this happened I started to get pestered by some blokes in cars and horse and cart and the hand gestures were definitely not friendly. I ended up taking pics of them so that if something did happen to me I could toss my camera away and hopefully someone would find it and get the pics off it. Anyway a taxi came along and yelled at me to get back to the boat and that I was in a very dangerous area - "Are you stupid?" was one of his statements, oooops I'm really off the beaten track so I beat a hasty retreat.

On my way home I got to meet some more of the friendlier Egyptians and they are an absolute pleasure to be around. This guy in the fast food stand tried his best to get me to try his goods but the best I could do was make him the man of the moment by taking his pic LOL.

Back on board our boat sailing down the Nile with Faluccias quietly sailing past. We sailed until early evening when we pulled into the Temple of Horus.

Sunset on the Nile is wonderful.

Ooooops a bit late with this entry

Egypt rapid transit system, never breaks down - well rarely, no conductors required, just some hay and water and off you go.

Off to Karnak, but first we stopped in at the only female Pharaoh whose name escapes me but is something like Hatshpsut  and she had great taste in tombs.

She built her tomb on the back side of the valley of the Kings and it now commands a spectacular view across the countryside. There was originally another big temple next to it but over time it collapsed and they are yet to rebuild and restore it like they have with this one.

The carvings in this tomb are wonderful and you can still easily see the colours that were used.

Then it was off to Karnak. I knew this was one of the highlights of the temples but didn't expect anything like this size. The temple complex covers 70 acres and has an entrance that is several kilometers long starting at the Nile.

First stop it the model to try and work out where everything is, it is then you really get any sort of sense of just what you are about to enter.

I apologise for the pics as this place is soooooooo big that it is very difficult to do it justice but hopefully this will give you some idea of things.

Again this temple was built or completed by many different Pharaohs but Ramses finished it with his story and statues dominating everywhere.

You approach through an avenue of Sphinx's and you can see the size when you compare them to the people standing in the center. Unlike Luxor where the avenue of Sphinx goes for several kilometres this avenue is much shorter but once inside the gates the grandeur of the temple overwhelms you with it's massive columns and courtyards etc etc etc

The columns are massive, the detail in the carving is still very clear on all wall surfaces and the paint work while faded gives you some idea of how colourful this would have been.

and finlay the alabaster sphinx which has pride of place in the first courtyard.

more in the next update.

First day sailing

We left Abu Sambel and sailed past the temple which was a wonderful sight in full sun. We cruised past some ruins and eventually stopped at Kasr Ibrim and a Nubian citadel, both had been relocated because of the dam. As you can see from the pic getting to an AGOT (Another grotty old temple) is not as easy as it looks and Ropn is giving Adey a helping hand, well I think he was trying to help, then again he may have been trying to push her off the plank.

It never ceased to amaze me how detailed the temple carvings are, how spectacular the paintings must have been when they were originally done. Colour colour everywhere and in this temple most of the carvings were life size except for Ramases who of course was twice as large - oh what an ego that man had LOL.

At every agot there was a character that stood out from everyone else and the scorpion man got the prize at this stop, of course for a couple of pounds you could take his picture LOL, bribery and corruption is alive and well in Egypt

Sometimes the boys looking after us had just toooooo much time on their hands, but this little array was awaiting us on our return to the boat.

Tomorrow we are off to explore the back streets of Aswan plus Karnak

Cairo day 1

Our first expedition in the city was to the Citadel Mosque which is built on an old fortress, most of Cairo seems to be built on something else LOL. As you approach you go through the city of the dead which is a cemetary but because of the extreme poverty in the city the tombs are used by the living as well as the dead.

The Citadel or "White Mosque" is massive, the first thing you ask yourself is "Why do they call it the White Mosque" when it is obviously a dirty shade of brown like everything else around here. But as it only rains about half an inch a year everything gets covered in dust from the desert and remains that colour until the next rain. To see it clean must be a real treat as it would glow over the city.

The interior of the mosque is magnificent, the painting, lighting and marble all work wonderfully well, but someone needs to do some maintenance to stop any more damage being done by the elements.

From here it was off to our first taste of shopping in Egypt and the compulsory visit to the Cairo Bizarre. This is a daunting place with thousands of vendors, pickpockets, potential killers, beggars and everything else all in one spot.

We were accompanied by a pistol wearing undercover security guard who made sure that we never wandered into alleys, upstairs in shops or became the victim of over zealous vendors and this guy took every opportunity to flash is hip holster to everyone that would look. With him and the many machine guns, tanks etc we felt decidedly UNSAFE LOL but in the end they were there to protect us and they did a great job.

Signs of the revolution downtown are hard to ignore and the locals are proud to show the burnt out remains of the old government and I think this might be left like this for along time as a reminder to those that come to power next - Don't mess with the people.

Good Morning from Zurich, Yes Di, Hans and Roli excelled with the return dinner and we have had to cancel Sunday for all 4 of us.

We arrived back at 7pm right on time as is the Swiss way and was greeted on the airbridge by the police checking all passports to make sure none of those pesky illegals got in. From there it was off to immigration where it looked a bit suspicious when we were here for a couple of weeks, gone for a couple of weeks and back again for a couple of days "Drug Runners" but after explaining that our winter clothes were here and we had just dropped in to say goodbye they let us in LOL.

Hans and Roli had everything ready, rose petals scattered of the tables, sushi, salmon rolls and champagne as starters. Fish in a herb sauce incased in pastry was the entree, main course

was champagne risotto with veal and this was followed by many many  drinks and story telling about Egypt.

Now just to tempt you here are a couple of pics from our last day which of course was the tour highlight, a visit to the pyramids of Giza, the step pyramid of Sakkara and the amazing statue of Ramases 11 at Memphis.

More to come but I will go back to the beginning and do it in an orderly way.

Abu Sambel - WOW

This is the most amazing way to start our trip of Egypt. We arrived here at lunch time and checked into our floating hotel which in the brochure was described as a floating palace with balconies for all rooms, unfortunately because of the lack of visitors here they have had to cancel some of the bigger boats and put everyone onto one or two of the older small boats. The accommodation is a bit old but overall everyone is quite comfortable. 

First stop the temples and they are absolutely breath taking. It's very hard to believe that we are actually here. I have dreamed about standing in front of this temple for so long that it's all unreal. The entrance to the temple for Rameses is only the beginning to a wonderful adventure. The inside of the temple is covered with the most amazing carvings and cartouches.

It didn't take Ron very long to get into the swing of being on the road again and copying some of the local trends. LOL.

The walls inside tell the story of Ramese and his battle with the Hittites and then the first ever peace treating between two nations. It tells of the many major battles that raged for decades and eventually the major battle where the Hittites surrounded Ramese and cut him off from his army and how he valiantly fought from his chariot and is depicted surrounded by hundreds of dead. Unfortunately it is an absolute no no to take pics inside so can only show you the outside.

The second temple was built to honour his favourite wife Nefertari and is the Temple of Hathor. Smaller in size but just a spectacular inside and totally devoted to his love for her.

That night we were treated to the most amazing light and sound show. Here we are in the middle of the desert at night and all of a sudden the story of the temples is projected onto the temples and the entire story including the rescue of the temples from the lake is told.