Saturday, November 11, 2006

trick or treat!

halloween came by not so long ago, and while it's not really a big thing here in oz, as compared to the US, we at alphageek HQ do so enjoy any opportunity to dress up, so we got cracking on our costumes (happy coincidental visitors from interstate were told to bring it, or be unwelcome on our couch; they brought it)

kudos for the extra preparation by bloody claire...


...and kat, kat, the pumpkin king (who was immensely frustrated at the party when she realised she'd forgotten to bring her straw)







feeling rather proud, we then drove to the party, hoping that claire's bloody appearance would catch the eye of any passing police. 'twas not to be. we did get attention from several pedestrians as well as small children in adjacent cars at some traffic lights "...but halloween's on tuesday," protested the children (this was a saturday) "oh, we just wanted to get ready early" replied jess, which is probably a better answer than my "boozing up isn't so good mid-week" explanation

there were some gorgeous outfits at the party (though i secretly thought: pah! hired costumes! where's the fun in that?!), which you can see on claire's blog.

i also got to carve my first pumpkin -very exciting!- and was gloatful to win a box of choccies for my efforts (my jack-o-lantern is the one on the left)



Saturday, November 04, 2006

i come from the salt water people

those of you who frequent miss claire's blogosphere will already know that we had a FANTASTIC trip to Fraser Island a couple o weekends ago, but if you'd had enough of the photos and reminiscing, well TOO BAD, cos i want to write about it too :)

while the long weekend itself was just lovely, the 'getting there' part was rather fraught... and i'm not talking about the getting up at 4am on saturday morn to drive from Coolum to Rainbow Beach (the ferry "stop"), oh no! -i mean the driving up to Coolum friday night, not filling up the petrol tank first, realising there were a lot less petrol stations adjacent to the Bruce Hwy than we had thought (ie, none by the time we looked), becoming frantic, making random panicked turnoffs at 9:30pm in search of petrol while mentally planning what to wear as it was cold outside, in the dark, and wondering how fast we could run while carrying a jerrycan of petrol, and getting lost in the backstreets of some weird industrial complex in Kunda Park (or wherever we were)...
...before finally making it to a blessed BP, telling our tale of woe to the attendant in a rush of relief, and then looking even more like stupid girls by admitting we hadn't brought a street directory, and could he please give us directions to Elly Street?

but we made it in the end, and didn't break down somewhere in the bush, in the dark, all alone until John Jarratt came to our aid. and that's what's important.

but how about Fraser?

BEAAUUTIFUL!!!



gorgeous sunny hot weather every day we were there, sparkling blue seas, a convivial group with which to share the fun, food, and digging out of bogged 4WDs...
...swimming every day, lying on the beach gazing at the stars every night = BLISS.

...well.
i have a good half dozen MORE photos i want to post, but the bastard lying blogger page won't let me do it. or rather it says: done! picture added. but nothing appears. lies. i hate it. so until i can get someone with more technical nous than me to help, you'll just have to make do. that was claire at indian heads. gah! i can't enjoy the serenity - i'm too cranky now!

(several days and ubertechnogeek intervention later)
oh bless hashi! he is my HERO. welcome mozilla firefox to my laptop (finally) and hooray, for now my photos upload. yay!

accommodation generously provided by mine host ken



driving through the gorgeous scenery



getting bogged in the gorgeous scenery
("sugarbabe" is not OUR car, by the way... no, it belongs to a couple of german tourists we were giving a hand [but not more underwear] to)



my favourite part of the island, the westide, with its mangroves, white sand and clear blue water... stunning



my other favourite spot ;-) elii creek. a clear cold creek you wade up, then slowly float back down, while gazing at the foliage and sky overhead and getting a freezy headache. i love swimming in freshwater!



so what did we think of the weekend on fraser?
FANTASTIC!!!