Shoe Challenge 8

One dress saved, one pair of shoes saved.  A very poor week.  In my defence, I have been in Horsham in regional Victoria for a few days.  You only wear jeans and boots in Horsham when it’s nearly winter.

Leona Edmiston dress; Joanne Mercer knot-front wedges (already saved); Target cardigan (already saved)
Worn to: work

Katies 3/4 trousers; Phillipo Rafael suede knee high boots
Worn to: work

In case you’re wondering, this is what Horsham looks like.

Advertisement

Travelling with Tracey: Wodonga

If you’re my friend on FaceBook, last week you would have seen me whingeing about having to travel to Wodonga for work.  Wodonga is a town in north-east Victoria, which straddles the border with New South Wales and is half of the twin cities of Albury-Wodonga.  It’s a nice enough place but during winter, it’s damn cold.  As is evidenced by the fact that on Thursday last week it was only 8C, and went down to -1C overnight, then struggled back up to 7C on the Friday.

Here you can see the area where bushfires raged through two years ago. Those lines on the hill are trees that have been burnt and subsequently lined up for removal.

And here are some lovely cows. I am obsessed with cows. They make me laugh.

And in this area, the creek you can’t really see running through the middle of this paddock was one of many that was flooded earlier this year! These poor people can’t catch a break.

If you ever come to visit me in Melbourne I will not force you to visit Wodonga. There are nicer places in the state to see.

Before and After

To demonstrate the effect of both drought and floods on our landscape, here are a couple of before and after shots.  The first photo is a shot of the Wimmera River in a town called Jeparit, in north west Victoria, taken on 30 May 2008.  Followed by a photo of exactly the same spot, taken on 8 February 2011.

The trees are still dead, but they’ll probably come back in a few months.  I plan to go back in Spring and see how they’re doing.

Next is a shot of Four Mile Beach, a popular camping and swimming spot on the shores of Lake Hindmarsh, which is Victoria’s largest fresh water lake.  Again, the first photo was taken on 30 May 2008, and shows the lake as completely dry.  The second photo was taken on 8 February 2011, and shows the effects of three months of flooding rain in the region.

Amazing stuff.

Animalia 2

Continuing on from my visit to the zoo last week… here are the baby elephants.  Seriously cute!

Baby Mali, who is nine months old.

And the new baby boy, born just 10 days ago, who is positively adorable.

And dad Bong Su, who is not overly impressed with all the attention the new baby is getting.

Plenty more photos to come!

Today’s photo

From the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park in north-west Victoria.  River red gums feeling better after some environmental watering and a big drink.

The fun side of my job

I get to do stuff like drive around and take photos.  Like this one.

Okay so it took me nearly three hours to find a silo to take a picture of, and at one stage I was worried I was going to have to drive 400km to find one, but hey, it’s better than being in the office, right?

Catch up

Oh dear, has it really been that long since I said anything?  How very slack of me.  Obviously nothing exciting has happened.  For the second part of last week I was in Mildura for work.  Mildura is in the far north west corner of Victoria.  It’s a big grape and citrus growing region.  Which is amazing considering how much water they don’t have.

But they have been doing some environmental watering to restore water to an area known as the Hattah Lakes.  These lakes have significant numbers of iconic River Red Gum trees, which have been severely stressed by the drought.  They need to be periodically flooded or they die.  There has been no water in the Hattah Lakes since 1996, and the Red Gums are in big trouble.

The pumps sends 120 megalitres an hour to the lakes.

And water is flowing in Chalka Creek for the first time in many many years.

I also saw this bird. No idea what it is but he seemed to pose and want me to take his photo, so I obliged.

Yesterday I spent a girls’ day out with some friends.  We visited the day spa at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne, where I had a wonderful citrus body treatment and a facial, and we followed it up with High Tea at the hotel’s restaurant, Radii.  Can you think of a better way to spend a Saturday?

Cows

I love cows.  I have always loved cows.  So when I saw these guys whilst out on a work trip last week, I had to get a photo.

They even obliged by mostly looking at me.

Head II

So remember that headache I mentioned on Sunday? Turns out it was the precursor to a headcold, which I’ve been suffering since Monday. Having a cold and working in a large climate controlled office building is not a good combination. I’ve been going to work each day at the usual time (arriving before 8am) and then having to leave by 2pm because my head is so clogged up I can hardly see.

Today I’m actually working from home. Which is so much nicer than having to drag my butt into the office. I’m sitting here in my trackies and I haven’t even brushed my hair! Couldn’t do that if I had to go to work. Also: the phone hardly rings. I get so much more done this way. Don’t worry, I’ll be back tomorrow. I have a meeting with eight visitors from around the state so I can hardly do that from home.

Tuesday night we had a big dinner for work. I work for a statutory authority and they are all appointed for three year terms. The three years ends in three weeks so we had a big farewell dinner, with 32 people. It was very nice and the people at Zio’s looked after us very well, as they always do. I was ready to collapse by 10pm (courtesy of the above mentioned head cold) but the stragglers stayed on til past 1am.

Thank god tomorrow is Friday. That means the weekend is close!

Um…

I don’t have anything interesting to say today. I should have spent all day at work laying out the design for our annual report but instead I wasted the entire day doing nothing. I am not interested in doing anything except going on my holiday!

Today

Work…busy…GAH!

Work gets in the way sometimes

I’ve just spent two days in Wodonga. Not the most exciting place on the planet. And damn cold at night. Last night it got down to -2 deg. Ugh. I did go on a nice tour of the region though: here are some photos.

This one is a winery near Beechworth called Amulet Wines:

These are some cows that posed nicely under a tree for me:

This is some revegetation work being done on the banks of the Ovens River:

And this is a walnut farm in the region:
The tour was quite good and we saw some interesting stuff. We had dinner with the North East CMA Board Wednesday night, then had our Council meeting today. I’m fairly tired now, my mob are demanding and a regional trip is always hard work. Ah well, it is Friday tomorrow.

P.S. these photos were not taken with my new super camera. I used the work one for that. It’s a Panasonic T50 (I think).

All the best intentions

I did, I had the best intentions about blogging more often. Unfortunately I spent three days in Gippsland this week without my computer which made it a bit difficult. Ah well, maybe next week I can keep that promise.

In my last post I promised to show some photos of what a drought looks like in a first world country. Here’s the first photo: This is the Wimmera River in Western Victoria. A few years ago there was water in it. Now there’s none and the people of the region wonder if there will ever be water in the river again.

This is Lake Hindmarsh, in the same region. 22,000 acres of water. Well, it used to be. Now it’s 22,000 acres of dry lake bed.

This is another shot of the Wimmera River, further upstream. Still not a lot of water.

All those people who live in Melbourne and complain about our strict water restrictions should take a visit to one of these regions for a reality check.

51

Wow! This is my 51st post. I missed my 50th anniversary! Ah well. It was a good one too, all about my lovely handbag and its amazing tardis-like innards.

So today I was in Mildura for work. We flew up this morning – I left the house at 6.50am, which is obscene, whichever way you look at it – and got home at 7pm. Is it any bloody wonder I am tired? Wednesday I will be travelling to Horsham for two days, then next week is the Gippsland triple. I can’t wait til this is over.

It’s my sister’s birthday next week. A few weeks ago she told me she wanted some perfume. Good, I can deal with that. Last week she rang me and said she’d found a handbag she wanted instead and would that be okay? Yes, good, buy it and I will reimburse. Sunday she rang me to say she didn’t like that handbag after all and would think about what she wants instead. ARGH!!

The boy is asleep on the couch. Such entertaining company sometimes. But I still love him.

Another day, another town

Today I was in Bendigo for work. So far this month I have been to Horsham, Hamilton, South Morang and Ballarat. I still have Mildura, Leongatha, Traralgon and Bairnsdale to go. Is it any wonder I’m tired? Oh and I have another two days in Horsham next week with my real job. Okay, you might not think that any of them are that far away, given they’re all in Victoria but all that driving combined with 5-hour workshops in each location is exhausting!!

This weekend it poured with rain which was excellent but meant that the black cat and I didn’t even stick our noses out the door all day Saturday. The boy went off to work and we stayed in, out of the cold. Sunday I had lunch with a couple of friends at Mirka at Tolarno’s, which was very nice but certainly not worth all the raving I have heard about the place.

Can you believe we still haven’t heard when Mr Dad’s surgery is going to be? Talk about frustrating.