Whats Happening?!

Posted on February 26, 2019 by kathousekelli70

Plenty apparently! We had a great club match with The Gamblers weekend before last. It was hot, sweaty but still fun unlike our Winter Range cowboy’s and cowgirl’s who were competing for the US National Championship this week. They endured thunderstorms, hail, rain and freezing temperatures from snow falls in surrounding hill areas.

Suffice to say that despite us really wanting to be there for it, perhaps it was just as well. We couldn’t be happier for all those who finished well and survived this year. Congratulations to you all, and to Holy Terror and Cody James for taking top mens and ladies overall!!

I’ve finally got into a ‘normal’ routine. Don’t laugh, y’all know I’m not normal. Back into exercise, sewing and finding a purpose. Have been assisting The Gamblers with a new website and the upcoming match. Jack’s been reloading and building our outdoor table in between coughing up a lung this week. I finished a corset and am set for some more!!

Our gear is almost here from Oklahoma, which means treasures await with my machines!!! Its in port and just waiting for it to get out of quarantine.

Cyclone Oma appears to have been and gone, leaving some awesome waves for surfers but destruction of the beaches. Winds were high but all in all, we got bugger all rain out of it and she seemed to pass on without a care.

View from the Mermaid Beach Surf Life Saving Club last Thursday.

Bottom pic is a panorama view of Surfers Paradise around to Coolangatta from the centre of Mermaid Beach.

Speaking of last Thursday, landed my self a little job outside the house! Yep, first shift tomorrow and raring to go.

Anyhooo, its time to write up the list of things to do tomorrow and head for some shut eye.

Hope you have had a great week too!

Kat xo

Heading North

Posted on February 11, 2019 by kathousekelli70

From Newcastle to Gold Coast in a day, means around an 8 hour plus trip. Unlike days of old, it’s now mostly double highway, bypassing the coastlines and beach town views.

What would you find along the coast should you go the old route?

Newcastle

Beautiful beaches like Nobbys, Merewether and more.

Bogey Hole is a convict-built ocean bath. Also known as Commandants Baths, the sandstone/conglomerate rock was constructed in about 1820 intended for the personal use of Lieutenant-Colonel James Thomas Morriset.

Fort Scratchley today is a historic site and popular for watchers of whales migrating. Now a museum, it was built in 1882 to defend the city against a possible Russian attack. (Hmmm first time I’ve ever read about that!) The Fort never fired it’s guns in anger however, until 1942 during a Japanese submarine attack.

Seal Rocks

Further North you can find other popular surf spots such as Seal Rocks and Treachery. I frequented that area in another life.

Seal Rocks was originally named for its fur seal colonies that have not inhabited the area for many, many years, apparently they are being seen again in the Port Stephens area.

Popular for some awesome surf breaks, Seal Rocks and Treachery are very much a surfers paradise and still remains very uncommercialised.

Forster-Tuncurry

The twin towns on the coast about 20-25mins East of Mum and Dads at Taree.

Tuncurry is the smaller of the two towns and began around 1875. Tuncurry means ‘plenty of fish’, originally a timber milling area it is a beautiful sleepy little fishing town.

Forster being the larger town of the area, boasts beautiful beaches and surfing spots. It is a very popular Summer holiday spot being only 4 hrs North of Sydney.

Best fish and chips are found in coastal towns where it’s coming in fresh daily! No trip to Forster happens without fish and chips heavily salted and wrapped in paper! Yum!

Port Macquarie

First visited by Europeans in 1818 when John Oxley made it to the coast from his interior explorations.

It became a secondary crime penal settlement for convicts in 1821.

In 1823, the first sugar cane to be grown in Australia started here. Now that is interesting, as a kid, I only ever knew far north NSW and Queensland as the sugar cane country! Well there you go, learn something new ever day!

Anyway, lots of history there and gorgeous beaches also.

Up into further North NSW, the only remaining old section of Pacific Highway still goes through Coffs Harbour. Really don’t think there is anywhere for them to bypass this section but who’d want to miss the Big Banana attraction!?!😂😂

Coffs Harbour

Home to Big Banana, banana plantations (being superseded by blueberries), sugar cane regions, beaches and porpoise pool.

Was named after John Korff when he sought shelter from a storm in 1847, later accidentally changed to Coffs by an administrative error by a surveyor in 1861.

Many resorts and marinas here, very big tourist area.

Further there is Grafton, Byron Bay, Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads before crossing into the sunshine state.

Soooo much coastline to explore and then from Coolangatta up is beach after beach after beach!

Get some sand and surf into ya!

Kat xo

P.S. with Drive thru and a couple quick stops it took us just on 9hours.

Sunday Sightseeing

Posted on February 9, 2019 by kathousekelli70

As we left Mean Mongrel Matt, Sassy Belle and Broken Spur to enjoy the rest of their weekend, Jack and I took a Left out of town and headed for the hills.

Well, hills being the Blue Mountains area; Lithgow, Katoomba, Laura, Wentworth Falls, Glenbrook, then down into the Sydney greater region heading North then to Newcastle.

The Blue Mountains

Aptly named for its haze, a mixture of fine drops of eucalyptus oil (given off from the Eucalyptus trees) dust particles, water vapor and that little thing called light waves cause this beautiful blue hue to the mountains.

The Blue Mountains were inhabited by aboriginal tribes when the First Fleet landed. First Governor of NSW, Arthur Phillip had seen these tremendous ranges from a ridge at Castle Hill some 40-60miles East of them. He had named them Camarthen Hills and thought them to be worthy of government stock.

In 1799 it was the place Gidley King established a town for political prisoners from Ireland and Scotland.

The name was first documented in Captain John Hunters account of Phillip’s expedition up the Hawkes yet River in 1789.

There is a whole other story about who passed over them first and when and the explorers who are actually noted for gaining passage through here but I’m not going into that today.

Suffice to say at its highest point at Mount Werong is 1215m/3986ft above sea level and it’s lowest point on the Nepean River at just 20m/66ft.

It is home to such beauties as;

The Three Sisters

A quick stop at Echo Point to get our own snaps at The Three Sisters.

Coffee with a view.

Jenolan Caves

And Wentworth Falls

Poets, artists, sculptors and lovers of nature have frequented the Blue Mountains region for years. One of the most notable and one of my favourites – Norman Lindsay.

http://www.normanlindsay.com.au/

So as we continued to wind through the eucalypts, past car shows, reminiscing about visits to the caves, galleries and sights; we eventually came out on the flat plains into Penrith, heading towards the outskirts of Sydney and onto Newcastle.

spectacular, spectacular!

Kat xo

Bathurst, NSW

Posted on February 8, 2019 by kathousekelli70

Not Barth-hirst it’s pronounced Bath-urst, think bat add the ‘h’ and urst on the end.

Bathurst, the next stop on the road is the oldest inland settlement in Australia and has around 35,000 people living in it.

Bathurst was established in 1814 and was site of the first gold discovery and where the first gold rush occurred in Australia.

In the early years of settlement, Bathurst was a base for explorers headed inland.

In 1823, flecks of gold were found in Fish River and later ‘payable’ gold was found in 1851 at Ophir and Hill End.

Here’s some trivia for you on the gold mining front!! Hill End’s claim to fame is the Holtermann Specimen (correctly the Beyers Holtermann Specimen) found on 20th of October 1871, it is the largest single mass of gold ever discovered in the world and still retains that record today.

Bernhardt Holtermann and the gold Specimen.

BUT! We are driving and almost anybody knows (especially in motor racing) that Bathurst is home to Mount Panorama, hosting the Bathurst 1000 and Bathurst 12 Hour motor races!

The track is 4 miles/ 6.213km in length, is technically a street circuit and is actually a public road.

Historically the circuit saw motorcycles and open wheel car races but times have changed, safety restrictions tighter and now only closed-bodied cars can be raced on the track.

In 1992, Jack was a driver in the Under 2litre Sports Sedans and has raced on this very track!! (I’ll post a picture of his car later)

So of course – as one does – and now we have a manual car – he had to drive the track, ride the curbing, touch the wall (I exaggerate here), and give a running commentary on gear change, speed and who overtook him where! 😂😂🏎🏆

Mount Panorama offers a great experience and spectacular view, and maybe just the occasional wallaby sitting in the paddock.

On to Mean Mongrel Matt and Sassy’s for a visit.

Start your engines, open the throttle and let ‘er rip!!

Kat xo

Flying Visits

Posted on February 8, 2019 by kathousekelli70

It’s usually the way isn’t it, you make a plan to get a few things finalised and then you get a phone call that could change life’s plans and you aren’t there to take advantage of it.

Could have been a great role and hopefully still in the running for it come Monday.

……or sometimes things work out for better options ahead. 😉😉

Wednesday we lit out early (not as early as we thought, forgot about time change!😂) and headed down the coast.

We stopped in at Emerald and Paddlewheel’s to see how they were and then on to Dad and Mum’s for the night.

Catch ups with my brother, nieces, Fiona and of course a couple games of Scrabble with Mum never goes astray!

Onward to Canberra for paperwork and visits; stayed with Trooper for a couple of nights, dinner with Trail Rider and Wendy, lunch with my Rori boy and down to the poo farm to cause a bit of trouble. 😊

Saturday on our way through to Bathurst we take the road through Boorowa and Cowra.

Usually we are coming through here in the Spring where it was meadows of golden glow, field after field filled with flowering canola. The fields are bare and dry, a little bit of green in some places see the sheep surviving well.

Boorowa is a small farming in South West, New South Wales (NSW). There are only about 1200 or so people living here.

The first unofficial residents (1821) in Boorowa were two Irishmen, Rodger Corcoran and Ned Ryan, who were ex convicts having received their ‘ticket of leave’ or pardon from the Governor.

The first Land grant came to Thomas Icely in 1829 and by 1837 a mill was operating along with an inn and some houses on the future town site of Boorowa. The village was established at its present location in 1843.

As usual in those days, there was much lawlessness, mayhem, boundary disputes that led to livestock theft, arson and murder.

Bushrangers often took advantage of the remoteness of the town as they roamed the mountainous wild lands. They would make raids in the town and on stations.

With later large land parcels sold to ‘ticket of leave’ men, the area also went through a short boom of gold, copper and iron extraction. One copper mine continuing operation up until 1900.

Now the little town continues its sheep and cattle stations in quietness. No longer subject to bushrangers and outlaws, this is pure farm country.

We continue through to Cowra, in the Central West of NSW. Population approx 10,100.

The township of ‘Coura Rocks’ had its beginnings (European settlement) in 1844. 1847 the township site was called Cowra and it proclaimed a village in 1849.

Hmmm sometimes history makes me wonder, why is a village different from a township? If it was surveyed in 1817, technically did it not exist from back then? The mind boggles.

Miners heading to gold fields made their way through here and over the next 50 years expanded rather rapidly.

1857 first school

1870 first bridge built over the Lachlan River
1880’s Gold was discovered at Mount McDonald
1886 the railhead from Sydney reached the town
1888 local government was granted
1901 the first telephone exchange was established

During World War II, Cowra was the site of a POW Camp for mostly Japanese and Italian detainees – captured military personnel.

In 1944 the infamous Cowra breakout occurred. Some 545 Japanese attempted the mass breakout. Four Australian guards and 231 Japanese died during the recapture of the POW’s with another 108 wounded.

Still to this day Cowra’s Japanese gardens have those laid to rest in their with other memorials to those who served in Darwin and World War 1.

Photo by John O’Neill

Made a quick stop at Cowboy Guns and Gear and had lunch with Wondering Hans.

On to Bathurst!

Yours in travels

Kat xo

Shooting with The Gamblers

Posted on February 5, 2019 by kathousekelli70

Saturday passed with a down range kind of day! After a busy few weeks assessing and establishing we are almost there!

The weather was rather warm but nothing that a good ole icy pole can’t fix. Ooo brain freeze!

We had a great group of 17 turn out despite the heat.

Six stages with The Gamblers, saw Jack on top!! Woo hoo! Go man.

Things are starting to look good for The Duel Downunder!

Club Match Feb 2nd 2019

Hope you had a good one no matter where you are!

Kat xo

House Moving

Posted on January 21, 2019 by kathousekelli70

So here we sit in our awesome red chairs, pondering tomorrow’s moving of stuff, hanging of pictures and shelves to be fixing.

The house sit came to an end on Saturday as we said goodbye to Joe and began the next phase of the adventure.

So it has been an industrious and busy unpack, culling some things and freaking out over electrical appliances not working. Thanks Google, we fixed the tv!! Oh and a new cable helped also! 😂😂

We have stripped the auction chairs and re-oiled them and gave them new feet. We now just need a table to work with them.

I’ve given a large pot and umbrella stand (previous target plate and mannequin stand!) a revamp in Satin Lagoon, a new South Western feel with the terra-cotta.

We have created a gallery wall and hung the hat racks in the spare bedroom which is almost tidy enough for a bed now.

We’ve installed a bin drawer, glass/grocery shelves and put together a shelf cabinet for the wardrobe and more. I am the flat-pack queen! Might get a job doing this!

Jack’s organised the shed, put together the BBQ or grill, mounted a tv on the wall and drilled and screwed where things needed to go. It has certainly made it interesting with a number of walls being concrete.

We have done a shoot or two and I neglected to put up the one from couple of weeks ago. Had a blast!

Had a day out with the girls to Eumundi Markets through last week. Sensational day!

Hope you’ve been busy and productive!

Stay chilled and carry on!

Kat xo

Looking For Work!

Posted on January 8, 2019 by kathousekelli70

In the hustle and bustle of moving and re-establishing, waiting for my machines, fabrics and more, I’ve been scouring the job sites and many agencies with no such luck so far.

They all want experience in this that and the other but I have so much to give and could do them and more!

Here’s my job request ad! Maybe this will spark some interest!

I need some work, I’ll do anything,

All you need do, is give me a ring.

I just need a chance,

Here I thank you in advance.

Tomorrow is not a given

So for 4 years I’ve been livin’.

Nows my chance to prove to you

Hire me! Won’t be sorry if you do!

Anywhere along the Gold Coast

As far up as the Sunshine Coast,

I’ll show up with a smile

Give you more than a mile.

My work dedication

Proven history is sayin’

A qualified ceramics teacher,

Cake decorating had a feature,

Then ActewAgl for collections by phone,

This is what brought me into my own.

Team player, individual, met KPI,

System development, gave it a try

Then Supervisor and Manager Acting,

I soon left Credit for a better thing.

Operations was next, liaising with all,

Contractors, staff, had an absolute ball.

Inductions, moved furniture, set up IT,

Reporting, planning, I loved it you see!

A diploma was given for advancement in skill,

Then a Cert IV, still going with will.

I moved into Safety and down to the dam,

The Cotter was growing and so was my plan.

I gained confidence and approval from all these tough blokes,

I assisted, cared and laughed with their jokes.

Front end loaders and moxies I wish I had driven,

But confined spaces, tower cranes with them I was smitten.

Down to the poo farm for the next role,

Not afraid to get dirty I would go down that hole.

You see an all rounder willing to learn,

Challenge me as I’ve energy to burn.

So here now again I must request,

Let me show you how I do my best.

If you read this all the way to the end,

Just give me a call or email me friend.

I’m willing to train and do a lot more,

Just give me a job I’ll be grateful for.

Got to get creative these days!!

Have a good one and make each day count!

Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2018 by kathousekelli70

Jack, myself and Clancy got settled into an evening of drinks, music, swimming, snacks and dinner.

Joe (the house sit pup) was doing laps around the yard and waiting patiently for his snacks and dinner.

As the mozzie coil burns, the candle glows and the sound of some bit too close for comfort cane toads make their bullfrog noises, Jack and I would like to wish all our family near and far, cowboys, cowgirls and friends a very Happy New Year to you all across the world! May your year be full of good intentions, goals to be achieved and much much more.

love and hugs for a happy and prosperous New Year!

Jack and Kat xoxo

Aus Update

Posted on December 21, 2018 by kathousekelli70

Its been a crazy week since we landed back here!

Rustled up the keys to our unit and had Jack freaking out over space and where we are going to fit everything. Ahhhh, but someone has already worked out many, many space saving ideas – Pinterest is my best friend! All will be fine.

We had a fun weekend with The Gamblers last weekend for their Christmas and Club Championship shoot. Thanks surely go to Dug Deeper and Trixie for hosting us the couple of nights. Cracker enjoyed the midnight feasts and breakfast desserts! or maybe that was me!

Jack and I didn’t shoot but once again, spotted, kept score etc and enjoyed everyone’s company. Jack was slightly jet-lagged this time taking himself home early on the Saturday evening while I hung out with the rest until the end. Great time!

Congratulations to Chuck Wagon and Clancy for being Overall Club Champions, Trixie and Lucky Luke for Most Improved and to everyone who placed in their category.

From here we headed back up North to Chuck and Pearl’s where we spent the next few days before the house sit. I reacquainted myself with the gym and it was so nice to be doing it with my bestie, laughing, hurting, having coffee after, pool when we got back home, Margarita’s in the afternoon. What more could two girls want, really!

For those of you that may have met Cracker or not, he has been having many adventurous travels – thinking he might be taken by aliens. Had to explain to him, he is the alien in a foreign country, they aren’t coming to take him, so no foil hats required. He has soothed doggies, tormented elves and has been watching auctions for me. So somewhat helpful despite the redneck character.