To Cape Otway and back again
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Home sweet home! Back to our surprisingly warm and welcoming abode. Amazing what a few days of camping will do to your feelings about solid walls and warm showers! Holidays started on Friday after 9 long weeks of semester so thought i'd take a a break and get out of the city to recharge... This time after the bushfires in our usual choice of Wilson's Prom, we headed westwards to Cape Otway, via the Royal Melbourne Show. The Show was good, though despite it's moniker as the 'Greatest Show Ever', i was rather disappointed! For those not from Melbourne, the Royal Show is a sort-of carnival cross rural expo. There's dog shows, livestock displays, rural produce sales, fairground rides, games, motorcross displays, woodchopping competions (much cooler than it sounds) and showbags. Thing is this year they seem to have fallen more on the side of carnival then rural expo. Tons of fairground rides and games (at extortionate prices) and showbag sales at every corner. Still weather was good and got to indulge in my vet stuff at the cattle ring and dog shows. Apparently there was also a 'Rocketman' but i missed him. Bugger.
Anyways left the show early and headed to Apollo Bay to meet with Lisa and Stribley who were having their own more civilised getaway in a apartment in Apollo Bay. Dinner was great and it was a struggle to drag ourselves away from good company, wine and a logfire to go and set up camp in the rain! And what a drama that was. Yours truly showing phenomenal map reading skills had set the aptly named 'Shelly Beach' as our first campsite. Except that there's no camping at Shelly beach... Bear in mind that it's currently 10pm and raining. So we headed for the nearest actual campsite only to find we'd be charged $22 dollars for one night at an unpowered site! Not a chance. So shh... don't tell anyone... back to Shelly Beach for a slightly illegal camp! New tent (thanks parents!) coped very well with the quick set-up in the rain though!
The plan (despite the initial set-back, which will no longer be spoken of) was to do a section of the newly updated Great Ocean Walk which runs for 90 kms (or will run) from Apollo bay to the 12 Apostles (a highly over-rated Victorian tourist attraction). We were due to cover about 20km of it over a couple of days. So day one of the Great Ocean Walk: Shelly Beach to Blanket Bay, 14kms away. Except, after our breakfast on the beach, we didn't see the ocean till we reached Blanket bay five hours later. Yup, the first leg of the Great Ocean walk not only didn't involve ocean but was tedious beyond belief. Picture the scene: Take one towering eucalypt forest. Cut a a bloody great swathe of forest down to create a 10 m wide corridor. Add vehicle tracks. Allow grass and weeds to grow in space. Liberally sprinkle deep patches of mud. Provide the occasional gentle incline upward and downward. Repeat for three hours worth of walking. Admittedly the solitude meant plenty of time for philosphical thought (How long have we been walking? If a tree falls in this forest will this walk become more interesting?) and hell, it was better than the city, but give me Wilson's Prom anyday! To cut this short, we got to Blanket Bay and met with Kirsten and Dru who had trekked from the opposite direction, set up camp and spent a nice evening on the beach, playing cards, and stargazing.
Hot chocolate by starlight out in the bush is an experience i highly recommendLazy start on day 2 and a short 1 hour walk to Parker Estuary [above: © copyright 2003 slugu@yahoo.com] for lunch (i said lazy start!) with an interesting river crossing at high tide and then back to K&D's car for a lift back to ours still parked at Shelly Beach. Finally a bit of beach combing and rock pooling as the tide receeded making a nice finale to a relaxing few days away. And Louie didn't complain once! Even if she did steal my sleeping bag.
Now back in Melbourne, i really should get on with some work!
"Enjoy exploring the infinite abyss"
Monday, September 12, 2005
Finally sat down and watched 'Garden State'. Good movie. One of those thinkers, but it's obvious that that's very much what the director intended.
It's funny how the lives of people you know dont exist can make you look and think about your own life. But i guess that's kinda what imagination is.
The week lasts forever and is gone in the blink of an eye
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Though i may be jinxing myself here, i am so nearly free. In 10 hours and 21 minutes i will be free of Equine rotation, otherwise known affectionately as 'Hell Week' (as well as other mildly less polite terms). As we're on call 24hrs for seven days, I currently live in fear of the sound of my phone ringing. A life ouside of vet has ceased to exist. And six hours of uninterrupted sleep is an luxury. And to cap it all off, horses havn't been doing too well in the Equine centre this week though not through any fault of the centre. We just seem to have caught an unlucky week for horses in Melbourne. Last night ended with a post-mortem of a poor filly that despite our best efforts just couldn't pull through. 6 days of suffering for naught. Current tally now stands at 6 in six days, including a three week premature, emergency c-section foal, which really didn't have a chance though we kept it going for seven long hours. It's been a sad, tiring week. And now i've got two case reports to write for Friday, on top of all the stuff i havn't done cos i havn't left the equine centre.
And as Kirsten so helpfully pointed out the other day we only have 4 more weeks of semester. Which means exams are far too close for comfort!
On the plus side i think i've realised that life as an equine vet is not for me.
Real Estate and Rain: Take two
After my plug for Google Earth in the last post i actually decided to get my own copy rather than relying on my esteemed housemate's version. And lo and behold - high res pictures of our house! Obviously using the word "terrorist" has focused the beam on us. Uh-oh. Still now you can even see my car :-) And the roof still leaks.