Fridge Magnets from The Art of Kathy Shell.
 I have packed the electric grills and kettle, changing over to the caravan gas system and we will free camp most of the way home now and as I have told my blog job providers that I am going into a block out period of no work, for 8 days, I will not bother using the generator or booking powered sites as we have solar power for lights and gas for our stove and hot water, fully self contained and ready to travel to home base. I will be taking a one week holiday from blogging. I will hitch the caravan to the car and point the car for home base camp in northern Vic, in the morning and I will be home very early August unless we break the tour part way there, if we find a place we want to stay for a few days. With the rain depression over Queensland, we will probably drive on through it. I have rung both my daughters to let them know I will be home for the family’s birthdays and I hope we can all get together as a family to celebrate Reg’s 70th birthday on the 25th August. I have also rung my next door neighbour to check the summer home is ready and arrange for those keeping an eye on it for us to know we are on our way. So with no power from electricity or generator, what will I do? Lol, I plan to read novels in the evening and listen to audio novels as I drive,take lots of photos, and dictate blogs in advance, into a new microphone recorder system. I will make the most of the winter arrival home, enjoy the wattle flowering season and the early spring blossoms. J. I will still have lots to share through my blogs.  Reg and I made a couple of interesting stops as we drove from Goulburn Valley through to Gippsland. I saw a part of the Warburton Trail, and I would love to walk that, some time I pulled over near a nursery at Woori Yallock partly due to the fact that it had a large enough pull over area for a car and caravan, was the ‘Country Gardeners Nursery’ on Warburton Highway, Woori Yallock. The lovely colour harmonies and displays made an interesting walk. They had a herb section with Fennel and Ginger and other ingredients that are in colonoxy and other herbal therapies. This blog is more a visual feast of plant groupings and some humorous garden signs I saw in what was a pleasant break in a long day’s drive than about anything. I never feel I need any reason to stop and enjoy flowering and fragrant herbal plants. This nursery is open 7 days a week. Melways map ref 287 B9       Boronia Peak, our conquest tomorrow. 03/23/2010
 Reg and I put indigo into the Stawell kennels again today so we could spend all day in the Grampians National Park. We plan to do the same again tomorrow. We are thinking about doing the Boronia Peak, climb/walk. This is a steep medium difficult climb walk to a lookout. Reg and I have done this walk before when we were much younger. It will be another mini milestone as i recall the rather scary for me, steep winding narrow rock scramble to the top. To do this walk, Follow the track from the car park across Fyans Creek footbridge and begin the steady climb though tall Messmate forest and native pines, along the Western slope of the Mt William range. A scramble up the rocky summit rewards you with superb views towards Lake Fyans in the east and over the Fyans Valley. I remember that the views were spectacular. Once again i will be packing our nuts for lunch and taking plenty of water with us and heading out early before the day gets hot, to do this strenuous walk. If you’re interested, take a look at my artslim blog for images of me climbing Hollow Mountain and Mt Zero. With a 1,200 calorie work out like that and sticking to portion controlled healthy eating I am not needing phentermine reviews, I am right on target to keep on losing my goal weight loss of 3 kilos every four week, which on average I am achieving and intend to maintain until I am at goal weight. I should mention that I am only focusing on weight loss, because i have a trainer who understands my need to maintain and develop muscle and bone density and she encourages healthy eating, I do not do 'diets', or weight loss at any cost. That reminds me to head to bed now for a great night sleep and be ready for another big day and to remember to take my calcium before bed. Hope your achieving your goals too. :-). Wishing you all the best xxx.              Just showing some of the frridge magnets, featuring landscape art works I have done in Victoria. These can be ordered from this web site of purchased from me, on location. I am also wanting to share, that I am running a competition to say thank you to my Kathy Shell, face book fans. You can join my Kathy Shell, fan page and get updates, on weight management,lifestyle, travel, art and enter to win unique art related competitions. Invite your friends to join the Kathy Shell fan page, as the more fans it gets the more unique, prizes I will offer.            I have had two lovely days of bush walking in the Grampians in Victoria and while the official wild flower season is from winter to summer with springtime being the peak time, even now, in early autumn I am seeing a lot of wildflowers and an amazing amount of regeneration following the devastating bush fires in this area, in 2006.  The Grampians region is one of Australia’s richest and most diverse flora areas, It is home to more than one third of the State’s flora with over 100o varieties of wildflowers, some exclusive to this area. The photos are of a few that I saw today and they include the Grampians pink heath, and some everlastings and a Correa.  Here is a photo of an area on the slopes of Mt William, where I hope to go this week. This photo was taken, three weeks after the bush fires showing even the rocks split by the heat of the hot burn. An area eestimated to be roughly 50% of the entire Grampians National Park, essentially the entire eastern half, including a large area of mixed bush land and farmland on the flats around the eastern and north-eastern part of the ranges was burnt out.  The greatest joy is to see how well the forests are regenerating after the destruction in 2006. Photos below were taken, today, on my walk in the Wonderland range, through an area, previously burnt out by fire.          Public Safety. 03/14/2010
 Me ~ Happily protected by the safety railing at lookouts and appreciative that there is public safety protection in place The Lookout, for the cautious, like me. The Jaws of Death, for the Barrier, Jumpers. Reg and I both used to teach, occupational, health and safety. I also, had the fun of having a hyperactive child and a friend on face book tonight reminded me, of one of her adventures where at the age of eight she climbed on to the top of the protective wall of a bridge and proceeded to walk, along the top edge, of it. Because of this, I have a keen interest in public safety issues.  Today, when I went to view the balconies lookout, I saw a ‘idiot’, climb over the guard rail and walk out on to the rock formation. called the jaws of death, to show off, for a photo shoot. I took a quick photo to illustrate the danger my point about public safety, but it left me shuddering. We are all capable of slipping, we don’t plan these things, at least let’s not position ourselves a thousand meters high when we do slip. These actions, those of children experimenting and those of adults showing off are the sorts of behaviours that public safety officials have to try to foresee and strive to prevent accidents occurring. Health and Safety is now taught at university level, and people with the qualifications of public safety degrees,will always find interesting employment as long as some people just seem to need to be protected from themselves. Lewis University in the US, is an accredited, non-profit university, that offers, online degrees in Master of Science in Public Safety Administration they have International, students, on campus, and many Australian organisations involved in public safety, like our Country fire Authority for instance, do exchange education with Australians studying in the Us and some Us fire fighters studying in Australia. In this way, all countries can stay aware of the best safety information available   Brumbies of the Snowy River, fridge magnet from the award winning oil painting by Kathy Shell. As part of the Park Champions project, a group of eight volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) with assistance from Parks Victoria staff based in Bendoc performed valuable erosion control works on the Silver-mine walking track from the 22nd to the 26th of February. The 18 kilometre Silver-mine walking track departs from McKillops Bridge and traverses some of the spectacular country beside the Snowy River at the northern end of the Snowy River National Park in this remote part of East Gippsland. I love East Gippsland and have explored it, extensively on trips without the caravan in tow.. I would have done so again this trip; if it was not that, many of the roads are unsuitable for caravans. We travelled on some roads that were almost, too narrow, as it was. Reg in the passenger seat, was thinking I would be side swiping the trees with our caravan extension mirrors, on his side and needing to put our, low cost car insurance to use and I was feeling, like I was driving down the centre of the road and dreading meeting any oncoming traffic. Therefore, we had to give many of the mountain areas of East Gippsland a miss and will visit them again one day, without the caravan in tow. David Butterworth, Parks Victoria ranger based in Bendoc said, “The steepness of the terrain and the sandy soil make this area susceptible to erosion and with recent heavy rain the track suffered damage.” “With the help of the volunteers many new steps have been installed in the easily eroded sections of the track. These steps will help to retain the track surface while diverting water away from the path,” he continued. There was an old pedestrian footbridge which was badly damaged and likely to become unusable in the future. The CVA volunteers have replaced the bridge with a rock fill and retaining wall which will be less prone to damage and more in keeping with the standard of construction for the track. “The volunteers were also able to spend some time repairing sections of revegetation fencing around the McKillops Bridge day visitor area,” David added. “The team of volunteers were highly motivated and energetic and were able to achieve a great deal in the short time that they were in the area.” Parks Victoria thanks the whole team for their efforts and looks forward to further opportunities to work in partnership with Conservation Volunteers Australia.  Snowy River, brumbies, fridge magnet from the art of Kathy Shell Reg and I have driven south from Tarra Valley, to Yarram then travelled north to Maffra where we are spending a few days visiting his sister and her husband. Reg and I are both enjoying the catch up time, chatting with his sister. Because I am resolved to eat healthy and portion controlled, I am eating some of the meals with the family and preparing some of my own meals off to the side, then eating them with the others. I am also keeping up with my writing and using the internet to catch up. I have found the internet here in Maffra, painfully slow in the afternoons and evenings. I know it is not my laptop memory that is the problem as I have heaps of computer memory in reserve. It must just be too heavy use for the Telstra wireless internet system to handle properly during peak hours in the country areas I am visiting, so I will be trying to do heaps, on line, early in the morning, while internet access is more available. We were lucky last night, the hailstorm that hit Melbourne was expected, out this way, thankfully, it did not hit us as we are living in the caravan out in the open, it would have damaged the car and van those hail stones were up to 20 to 100 millimetres across. A Shocking storm, so glad we only got the rain here at Maffra. Beach Fishing. 02/27/2010
 Please do everything you can to assist my friend, Mel, raise her $2,000. goal for the Worlds Greatest Shae harity Event. Here is Mel's message.  Melonie Knight:: Amount Raised: $50.00 [2 % of goal] Fundraising Goal: $2,000.00 ' Mel's Message 'I'm taking part in the Leukaemia Foundations Worlds Greatest Shave 2010. Please sponsor me! The funds we raise will help the Leukaemia Foundation to provide practical care and support to patients and families living with leukaemias, lymphomas, myeloma and related blood disorders.' http://my.imisfriendraising.com.au/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=315701&langPref=en-CA | As of Sept 2010, 'Just Me 'n You'.
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