Starting to feel like home.....finally

One guest bedroom is looking more inviting..........anyone need a bed?  Great simple second-hand bed frame.  I love the retro tea trolley I found at Griffith Vinnie's recently.  The 'Gone Sailing' cushion I found locally and it's a shout out to Surfer Boy who is in the Navy.

Our dining room has a big old teak boardroom table that seats 8, found on Gumtree in Wagga.  We have 8 old teak Chiswell chairs from a Gumtree seller in Albury that need recovering, that will happen!

Lots of old thrifted pottery has been found, loving my retro 'RED' toaster and jug.

Thrifted watercolour found in Moruya, re-framed.

We slept on a mattress on the floor for quite a few months so this second-hand bed frame has made Dear Husband very happy, he was sick of grovelling around at floor level.  He is fairly tall!  I do enjoy sitting up in bed blogging too especially on cold winter mornings.

A great retro Parker corner table found on Gumtree in Batemans Bay.

A great little spot to sit and read and blog!  A favourite of mine!  The vintage Tessa leather lounger came as a bonus with the Tessa teak and leather lounge suite I found in Melbourne second-hand and had sent up to Griffith.  Vintage sheepskins and a mohair Onkaparinga travel rug all found at charity stores.

Main bathroom is so sunny and warm.

This is where I blog most of the time, right in the heart of our new home.  It has taken 6 months for me to start feeling at home here.  We didn't bring very much with us from our coast home so making our home homely has been a challenge for me that I'm starting to win.  

I noticed one of Australia's most clickable women bloggers Chantelle Ellem of FatMumSlim fame has asked bloggers to show her with a photo 'whereiblog' on twitter this week and that is how this post started.  Darling Daughter has also asked me a few times have I taken any photos inside our new house and I had to tell her "no", it wasn't ready to be captured in pixels just yet.  I hope this post makes her happy, she can see where we live now, one day she might even visit!  

It's the little things that are the hardest sometime!

 

 

 

 

You know the hardest thing about moving has been finding a hairdresser!  Seriously!  This town is weighed down by hair and beauty salons, how to choose???  My first hairdresser was found by simply lapping the main street and when I found a hair salon with a car park out the front I parked and walked in and met the owner Renee and made an appointment.  Simple!  It worked she was a great hair cutter and colourist but sadly she has sold her business and now works in her parents Italian restaurant, she's great there too but I miss her. 

 

Anyway what to do?  A little bird told me that I should go and visit Kristen and that's what I did, first cut yesterday and it's great.  Mightn't look as wonderful as it did yesterday when Kristen coiffed it beautifully, mostly because I've been slack today and didn't even get the blow dryer out, this is my sun dried look which was really easy, just hang out lots of washing in the sun and this is what you get.  I've never been very precious or interested in doing my hair, I just need a good cutter who can give me an easy no maintenance style.  Next visit I'll test Kristen's colouring abilities, more and more greys are creeping in and I like them disguised as much as possible!  

Back to Cocoparra National Park

After loving our day at Cocoparra National Park last weekend we decided to head back out there again, this time we took some good friends with us.  We decided to conquer Mt. Brogden, documented as a "2 hour hard walk'' in the brochure.  

We made it to the first lookout!

Fabulous rocks, I'm a bit of a rock freak, just love them.

We made it to the trig station at the top and Dear Husband had to climb atop the dry packed rock cairn.

Our good friends preparing for the descent. tighten the shoelaces!

Very proud of her mountain climbing effort!

Our reward, an authentic wood fired BBQ lunch in the wilderness.

How civilised is this?  A tablecloth and a great sparkling wine served in yellow plastic tumblers!  All class and no style!  A great day out and a wonderful winter time activity.  After a few drinks we've discussed a few more outing ideas and it's my job to find a good map!  I can do that!

Gone bush today at Cocoparra National Park

Almost flouro moss caught my eye.

Something has walked this path before us.

A very zoomed and cropped photo to try and see what bird was filling the bush with a wonderful tune.  Still don't know what it is.  Any ideas?

A bird dropped this gum blossom down on us from a great height.

 

Peeping out from it's hiding spot this little wallaby was very inquisitive.

The waterfall was dry but we'll be going back after some rainfall to check it out.  The rocks are just   so beautiful and the lichen was everywhere.  Slippery too!  I found out the hard way!

The cliffs were just pure rock.  This big flat rock would make a great spot for a family photo, must keep that in mind if the kids every visit.

 

 

On top of the highest hill were a stack of towers for radio, television, telephone, mobile phones and aviation support, what a great work place, fabulous views and apparently it even gets a bit of snow very occasionally.

I wasn't tempted but the view would have been spectacular!

A view to the south west, no more hills until you get to South Australia.

Cocoparra National Park is almost at our doorstep so we thought today being a perfect sunny winters day it would be a good opportunity to get out and start exploring it.  Dear Husband had camped within the park when he was a boy Scout but other than that we know nothing about this great recreational area.  We started with Woolshed Flat campground and walked a fire trail just exploring the bush for quite a few kilometers.  Next we parked at The Pines and walked up to the Woolshed Flat Falls which didn't have a drop of water flowing anywhere.  On our way home we explored Mt. Bingar by car right up the towers and satellite dishes as the top.  There are numerous interesting walks so we'll visit the park again on another sunny day and do a longer walk.

Griffith Sikh Games 2013

 

Under the granite cliffs of Scenic Hill in Griffith every June long weekend the Indian Sikh community run their two day games event.  We saw the television advertising and it said everyone is welcome so we decided to walk to the oval with Ruby and have a look at this local event.  Sure to be a great place to take photos, I had to ask Dear Husband to be the photographer with his iPhone and these are a few of the best ones.  I asked him to take lots of closeups of sarees, turbans, food............basically anything really colourful and interesting.

We weren't sure what sure what this display was all about, many of the men were photographed with guns.

Under the shade of gum trees a sea of sarees and turbans.

So many colours of turbans and they varied quite a lot in how neatly they were wound.

Lots of sports; volleyball, soccer, races for kids, tug-of-war and amazingly the ladies are allowed to play musical chairs! 

Sarees are so beautiful but not too sure how warm they are in an Australian winter. Update - many thanks to Aman (second comment on this post), he has taken his time to provide some great cultural information about Sikh's.  It seems I got a the name of the women's out fit quite wrong, they are wearing Punjabi suits rather than Sarees which are only worn by Hindu's.  I have much to learn it seems.  I wish I had met him at the games, I would have loved to have learned more from a Sikh who seems so willing to share his culture.    

So much colour.

It seems that they were all quite worried about our chocolate spotted girl.

Not sure what this is called but it was a very testosterone fueled show of power to wrestle the opponents to the ground.  Update - I've found out via the local paper that the game is called Kabaddi.

Dear Husband attended on his own yesterday with Ruby and then we all headed over again today as we could hear the commentary clearly from home and it was on our way to our big hill walk anyway. Not sure we were very welcome, we only saw two other white Australians and not a single person spoke to us.

I am the photographer in this family for very obvious reasons!  I found these two shots among the couple of dozen photos he took.  The iPhone is a waste in his hands, he can't even see the screen without his glasses! 

It's raining............really heavy!

Having moved from the coast where the average rainfall is around 38" (960mm) per year to inland Australia 500km from the the coast to a place where the average annual rainfall is only 16" (400mm) you can understand why I have taken photos of the first proper rain since I moved here.  I had to relocate my new little potted garden to our outdoor kitchen bench or I'm sure they would have floated away.  I did find one little pottery mug today which was 50 cents and has the makers name Possum on the bottom.  I wonder who possum is?  When the rain stops I'm going to have to go out and empty some water from the pool so the filter and skimmer can do it's stuff.  Perfect weather for knitting indoors this afternoon.  Ruby and the old puss think so too!