Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Sisters Cycle in Sweden

After 4 days back in Guyhirn it was time for another holiday from my holiday - or for my parents to have another holiday from the invasion of their home!

This time I went to Sweden for a long weekend with little Bliss.

We flew into Skavsta and spent the first night in Nykoping, a gorgeous little town south of Stockholm, then we headed off to the big smoke on the second day.

We spent the first day in Stockholm exploring on foot around the old town of Gamla Stan, the second day cycling (very adventurous on bikes with no brakes or gears) around Djurgarden and the final day on a boat in the archipelago.


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I loved Sweden - but don't think I'd want to spend any dark winters there!

Girlie holiday in Portugal

The next thing on my schedule was a holiday (yes a holiday from my holiday!) in Portugal with my fantabulous friend Sue - pictured here at the 'end of the world'


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Moving, flying and family parties!

I made it - managed to pack up sell everything from my house and move out on 18th July. I then flew to the UK where my first engagement was Nana's 93rd Birthday party at The Blacksmith's Arms in Elm

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Making Plans

Once again I am making plans to move on.

Though I love my life in Alice, I am ready for a change. As usual I am not sure what that is yet, but I have an idea that I might like to live in Tasmania, and that I might go the long way round to get there.



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There are so many gorgeous spots en route that i may get stuck in for a week, a month, a year... so who knows what could happen.

I have a few months in Alice yet, though I am moving out of my house in the next few weeks, prior to my visit to the UK - I should be at the beach for xmas though.

If anyone fancies joining me on the roadtrip get in touch. (places indicated are merely to get google maps to show that it will be a coastal trip - lots more places not listed to stop off and see on the way)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Dates for UK visit

I am going to be in the UK from 20th July to 29th August

hope to see you

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Beanie Mania



Anyone ever anticipate I'd be a knitter?

It's cool here - honest!

I have just finished knitting 66 beanies for the Alice Springs Beanie Festival

Was hard deciding which one to keep though.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

A trip to Laramba Community

One of the things I do for work is travel out to remote communities to work with teachers. One of my favourites is Laramba. Laramba is about 200km North West of Alice Springs.
Laramba is located on Anmatjerre Country.

The Anmatyerre region covers a large section of central Australia approximately 100 km north of Alice Springs, the major township in Central Australia. Communities located within the region include Nturiya (Old Ti Tree Station), Pmara Jutunta (6 Mile), Willowra, Laramba (Napperby Station) and the rural township of Ti Tree. What is today known as the Anmatyerre region has significant overlap with Warlpiri, Arrernte and Alyawarre language communities. Many people come from two or three different language groups. In 1974 the traditional lands of the Anmatjera people in N.B. Tindale's Aboriginal Tribes of Australia were described as covering an area of 11,200 square miles (29,100 km²). [From wikipedia]

I love the fact that my work gives me the opportunity to drive through some amazing country and work with some amazing people.

The first thing you come across as you head north from Alice on the Stuart Highway is the Tropic of Capricorn marker. This is located at latitude 23 -442028 and longitude 133-833111. After going north on the highway for about 120km you come to the turn off into the community.





This is a typical central Australian road.

You know you are getting close to the community when the termite mounds start wearing clothes!

You can see the whole community in this photograph. the whitish diagonal line running from N to SW is a river (dry) and the thick red diagonal line in the middle is the airstrip.

You may notice several spellings of Anmatyerr throughout this post - this is because there was no written language until white fella linguists came along, and they just don't seem to agree on the spelling too often. My best phonetics as to how you might go about pronouncing such a word is amudgera- linguists may disagree with that too!