We're COUNTING the days until we go away. Our big adventure is only FOUR working days away – we are leaving home next Sunday (August 5) and arriving home over the October long weekend. The itinerary is likely to change as we may like to stay in some places for longer. We’ll keep you posted via the blog. The only commitments we have are dinner at Stefano’s (a destination restaurant) in Mildura on the long weekend on our way back and meeting up and maybe staying with our friends Ann and David in Darwin. We also hope to catch up with Chris, the ABS NT Regional Director – our plans to arrive there are worked around when they are in town.
We’re busily finalising preparations for the 8 weeks away. We’ve actually stayed home the last two weekends so that we can get organised. This brings our average number of weekends at home (without visitors) for the last 2 months up to 50%. A bonus was we managed to stay at home over the long weekend which was really relaxing. We had our ‘new’ neighbours, Mike and Jenny, in for afternoon drinks. I felt embarrassed that it had taken us 18 months to invite them in as we really like them.
We have even more gadgets to take with us this time. John has brought himself a new (red) laptop [ed: red ones go faster - John]. He has set it up so that we can access the Internet and developed a blog so that family and friends with Internet access will be able to see what we are up to on our trip.
We’ve been poring over the Lonely Planet NT Guide and various other brochures and books – it all looks good. I’ve been to Darwin but only for work . I went on a short day trip to Litchfield and Fogg Dam and visited the markets and watched the superb sunset on Mindil beach. John has been to the Alice on a trip with his mum Blossom.
We’re aiming to head up through Nyngan, Charleville, Longreach, Cloncurry, Borroloola, Katherine Gorge, Kakadu and Litchfield before reaching Darwin. We have the Bungle Bungles in WA in the plan (a late 6 day addition) but we’ll see how we go for time. It's looking very much like we won't get there. Then we’re keen to head to Victoria River, the Devils’ Marbles, Alice Springs and, of course spend a few days on the Larapinta Trail. Then we’re off to Kings Canyon, Uluru and home via Woomera, Port Augusta, Renmark and Mildura. Most of the time in the National Parks we’ll be walking, camping and getting up early in the morning to take advantage of the light for our photography.
We’ve both been travelling a bit for work. John is back in Melbourne this week, from Tuesday to late Thursday. He is promoting the family relationships website and speaking at a Conference. I have just returned from a 2 day work offsite in Wollongong and a one day meeting in Sydney with the ABS Regional Directors from around Australia. The offsite was my first with the Senior Executive Service staff of the ABS. It was all a bit daunting, especially with our new Australian Statistician, but I survived and made some contributions. We talked about what the ABS might look like in 15 years which was very interesting. There are a lot of challenges for us...
FIVE days and we're in heaven.
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