Wildlife Watch

Kylie & I had some unexpected guests at work today. They were actually from a group of 6 released onto Owen Springs last week and have found their way back to the houses. Luckily the dogs were more puzzled at their appearance rather than thinking it was time for lunch!

Weddings, parties, anything

Stacey
Kylie
Phil, Kylie, Nath, Mum, Nathan, Stacey, Nan, Phil & Jo
Kylie, Grandpa, Aunty Margaret, Uncle Ivan, Aunty Molly, Stacey
Kylie & her niece Chelsea

Stacey & Nathan got married on Saturday, it all went well and Stacey looked amazing in her dress. It was great to catch up with the family during the week, and especially good to see some people from WA that Phil hadn't met before. We are now in Albury catching up with Mum and Dad until the end of the week, when we return to Alice Springs. Talk soon.

Mighty Movember

Recently I used the wafer thin excuse to grow a mo because it is Movember. Some friends and I thought we would look cool (as proven by the pic below...) but I really didn't like the Mo anyway, so I shaved it off pretty quickly. We are currently in Bendigo for Kylie's sister Stacy and her fiance (better half - he said) Nathan, for their wedding and the christening of their second child Chelsea. We are back in Alice at the start of December, ready for the heat of summer. Talk to you all soon, love Phil & Kylie

Home from Europe

Well, we survived our trip, although not sure how we survived the 150km/hour taxi ride to the airport from Rome asthe driver was talking on 2 phones at once, writing notes in his diary, and changing lanes more often than Italy changes its governments! As Obelix would say, "these Italian's are crazy". We are really glad to be home again to the dust of Owen Springs, and we had a great time throughout the holiday. Plus I get the added bonus of being home in time for the AFL grandfinal, go Cats! See you all soon, Phil and Kylie.

Photos (top to bottom): Mum, myself and Dad in the Cotswolds

Villers Bretonneux Cemetry, the Somme

Paris, Eiffel Tower

Arc de Triumph

Kylie on the Eiffel Tower

Vienna

Street scene, Florence

Cable car, Switzerland

Typical view of Switzerland

Lifestles of the rich and famous in Capri, Italy

France, Switzerland and Italy

Hi all, it has been a while between posts so we thought it was time to say hello. We have had a great time in Paris and the Somme, with Kylie disgracing international relations between Australia and France by picking up a speeding fine within 5 minutes of driving! I think I may have told her it was 100, but it was only 90,oh well.... Anyway, we then moved on to Switzerland where we spent a week with mum and dad and alison eating as many toblerones as physically possible. We were in a great chalet, and the views of the green fields, ice capped mountains and bell ringing cows was like a scene out of a movie. Now we are in Italy where everyone drives like a maniac who really wants to die, the gelato is awesome, and we have eaten a years worth of pizza already in the first 2 days. We are writing this from Venice (not Vienna as I called it today) and head off for Florence, Rome and the Amalfi coast for the next week and a bit. We will be home soon, so we will catch up with you all then. See you later (or Ciao as the Ities call it!!). Love Phil and Kylie. P.S. Sorry, no photos this post, we will put some up on our return.

We thought we should update the blog since we have been on holidays now for a week or so. We have had a great time so far, hired a European buzz box and drove all around the English countryside. We stayed at York, the Yorkshire Dales, the Great Lakes, the Peak District, and the Cotswolds. We have done plenty of walks, some kayaking, a bike ride (our legs still hurt!), boating, as well as fitting in a ale or two in between. Our favourite spot so far is the Yorkshire Dales - so lush and green, as well as peaceful, and the Cotswolds was also very beautiful. We are off to France tomorrow to visit Paris and the Somme Valley, Kylie is getting excited about the WW1 battefield tours we are going to do there. We will try to update you all as we go along. Best wishes, Phil and Kylie.

Helmsley Castle

Rievaulx Abbey

Yorkshire Dales

Trees

We're here!!

Well after a LONGGGG plane trip we finally made it to 'overseas'... more specifically England. We've seen so much already and even went on a tour of the Queens House - Buckingham Palace State Rooms (the Queen's on hol's up North).

Have to make this a quick message, but g'day to everyone back home :) We're having a ball and we're about to go pick up our hire car and head up towards Scotland for some walking, cups of tea and a pub meal or ten.

P.S. The weather is very English... eg. rainy, bleak and the exact opposite to Alice (perfect!)

Dave stayed with us for 5 days last week. We went out camping, took a trip to Finke Gorge and the West Mac's NP, played golf, table tennis and the equally important, Playstation games. Dave cooked his first ever damper, and we had an awesome roast in the camp oven too. We went out shooting (but found nothing alive except the odd tin can), so I'm sure Dave, you are a bit unimpressed that the week after you left I managed to get 2 camels that had strayed onto the park, sorry about that.... Anyway, it was a good time, but as usual, went too quickly. We are now only 3 weeks from heading off on our trip, so we are getting a little bit more excited about it as you could guess. Talk to you all soon, Phil & Kylie.

The Tale of the Plumber's Crack

Having experienced some trouble draining the office sink lately, I decided to have a bit of a dig to investigate. Thinking it might be just some dirt, I was pretty impressed to pull out the offending couple of metres of tree roots that had found their way in through a cracked join. Not bad I reckon! No wonder the Gum tree at our office is so huge, it has been feeding off years worth of spent coffee grains, expired milk containers and dishwashing liquid - yum. As the famous plumber Kenny would probably say, 'Here's another case of a tree with a two inch branch trying to fit into a 1 inch hole', or something to that effect....

My new niece, Chelsea

This is a photo of my brand new niece, Chelsea (a girl, yay!!) It's a bit of a shame that I won't get to meet her until the end of November, but I guess that's the price you pay for living in Alice Springs.

Welcome home Rach & Lyndon

Our sign

Dave's tank

Kylie and I are very excited and pleased that our good friends Rachel and Lyndon have moved back to the Alice. We were so excited that we thought we would advertise the fact to anyone driving up and sown the Stuart HWY last Sunday afternoon. I'm sure that's not illegal right?? Anyway, it's great to have them back after living it up in the land of the latte set, metro-sexual guys in pinks shirts and absurd hair cuts, the great suburban sprawl and the traffic jams of Melbourne. Dave and Michelle (my brother and his wife for those that don't know) are coming to stay with us in late July. Should be great. Hopefully Dave can bring his tank down - would do a good job of feral animal control I think.... or visitor management.

"All the colours of the 'bow man"

This was the view that greeted me driving back into the ranger station on Wednesday. Good enough for a photo I thought. It's Kylies birthday in a few weeks time - I'm hoping she likes what I have got her, I seem to be good at getting her things that she has never hinted at before, which isn't always a good thing. I'm sure it's just a male thing, otherwise I have no excuse. Anyway, post your messages of happy birthday to Kylie below. She will be turning 27 on the 24th of this month. Sometimes I can feel the generation gap between us (well, 1 and a half years anyway), she had never even heard any of Bruce Springsteen's back catalogue from the mid 70's until she met me - can you believe it??

And now for something completely different

Yes, we keep posting photos of our dogs on our blog because we have nothing of note that is happening in our lives at present. Actually, we are waiting for some photos from Kylie's mums trip here over Easter, and then we will have something to show you all!! We have been visiting some key spots in the West Mac's lately to get some photos that will be going on a newly designed sign project for the Larapinta Trail. The trail is a 220km walking track over some pretty rugged ground, and the new signs will be placed at the end of every section of the trail (12 sections in all). Hopefully they will look ok. Below is a pic in Hugh Gorge, but it probably isn't going on a sign. All is going well up here for us both at the moment. We are looking forward to the trip to Europe - see to the right & above for our countdown clock! Talk to you all soon hopefully. Phil & Kylie.

It's Raining Cats & Dogs (well, mainly dogs)

I just got back from Finke Gorge National Park, after we were washed out due to some heavy rain. It wasn't all bad however, as you can see from the pics below, with waterfalls everywhere and the odd bit of flooded road for our driving entertainment (yes, that is a road, not the Finke River!). Our newest family member Lucy also seems to enjoy the muddy conditions.

Kylie's Mum will be here for Easter which we are both looking forward to. Hopefully the rain will have gone away by then Sue (it is only 21 degrees today!).

See you all down the road, Phil & Kylie.

Above & below: Wet waterfalls

Above: Wet dog

Below: Wet road

Say hello to Lucy

Well, we had an unexpected guest arrive on our door step last week, who we have named Lucy. She is Harry's new best friend (we had talked about getting him a mate for a while), and they seem to be getting along pretty well. My first reaction was to get the .22, but she was in really good nic, so we both went soft and have decided to keep her on (for a trial period of 10 to 15 years!). We also went to Ellery on the weekend - pretty hot, but always a good view. Not much else has been happening that I can think of right now, so we will catch you all later!

Anyone for flies?

Well, summer is in full swing here in the Centre. 10 trillion flies during the day, maybe a billion mozzies at night, and hot temps mean only one thing - I start complaining and mention to Kylie every half hour that I can't wait for winter again. Ahh, listening to the footy on the radio while reading the sports pages - Melbourne Age of course!, hot coffee in front of the heater watching TV (usually more footy), and camping out under the stars with a roaring fire. Anyone else keen?? You may be able to tell that we don't have much news at the moment. We are both thinking about our trip overseas now that we have got some money back from the insurance company, as well as having renters in our house. How soon until August??? Below is an 'abstract' photo of Kylie that she doesn't know I'm putting on the blog. All I did was blur the picture except for her face, and crop the edges pretty severely. I like it, but I might be the only one!

Our Backyard

Here are some shots of Owen Springs.

Latest Happenings

It looks like we finally have some tenants for our house! They will move in early next week, but Kylie and I will only breath easy once they are actually in the house. We will put some pics of the re-tiling next time we update the blog. We both went to Boggy Hole in Finke Gorge N.P last week, really beautiful place. We also picked up our 'new' car (if 60 odd thousand kilometres on the clock is considered new). We can't wait to get some good use out of it camping on roads the Commodore couldn't handle. Kylie took a promotional photo of it near Wallaby Gap, so here it is!

Central Netted Dragon @ Owen Springs

Finke Gorge N.P

Our new car

Q) Could our house troubles get worse? A) Yes, actually

Well, our bathroom leak has finally been fixed, only after the water has destroyed our hallway carpet, most of the bathroom tiles, the paint in the study, as well as horrifying potential tennants! Luckily our insurance will cover the carpet, re-painting, damage done by the plumbers and some re-tiling. We are also getting new tiles in the toilet and laundry, new hallway carpet, plus a split-system a.c. in the bedroom - if it's not rented out with all that, we give up! Anyway, apart from that, all is good. Kylie and I went out on Section 2 of the Lara Trail to get some pics for the new trailheads recently. It was nice to get out for a walk in the bush to take our minds off things. Below is Arenge Bluff, and some of the Spinifex back-lit by the late arvo sunshine. Talk to you all later.