Day Six Hundred and Eighty Seven

Saturday

Found myself in office this morning helping the IT guy form Sydney fit our new server in the rack, then found my self installing the new switch box as well.

Came home at lunchtime and we spent the afternoon doing some final wedding stuff.

In the evening we headed to the The London Club for some Tapas which was nice.

It's cooled off a bit here in Brisbane which is nice. Finally sleeping under a cover!

Day Six Hundred and Eighty SIx

Friday

Got up early to finish of visa statement, hoped the police certificate I need would have arrived but it didn't. Kate met me at lunch and we headed to Chermside to take up the services of the voluntary JP there. This was great as we got all our visa paperwork signed off for nothing.

Back to work via Kennards storage so I could pick up hte keys for storage unit we'll be using for TW kit. That place will become a big part of my life for next 2 months!

Watched some wedding on telly in the evening and then left Kate watching the Swans until 1.30am as I went to bed.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty Five

Not much to report, a day at work, yet more visa paperwork fun in the evening. Short and sweet blog.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty Four

Wednesday

A busy day at work, followed by an evening doing visa paperwork for my permanent visa. Spoke to folks as well.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty Three

Tuesday

Another bank holiday in lieu of Anzac Day falling yesterday. Went into work until 3ish, lots to do and don't like having to go in during a bank holiday, still I have a very understanding wife.The 5 weeks off later in year will be pay back.

A wet day in Brisbane this afternoon so our plans of going for a walk went south.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty Two

Monday

Went into work early, 8.30 despite it being a bank holiday. Came home at about 1'o'clock.

In the afternoon we did some work on my second stage of my visa, hopefully I'll get my permanent visa in due course, although there is a 6-8 month backlog on processing them apparently.

Not much else to report.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty One

Sunday

Easter Sunday - happy Easter again.

We decided to go shopping in the city, small problem everything is shut on Easter Sunday...so we had lunch in Waggamama. Swung buy the office on the way home to pick up measuring wheel and headed to event finish to measure site. Place was packed with people having picnics and bbq's who probably thought we were mad, ah well.

This evening skyped Hazel, my folks and then had call with Carol in Sydney.

Day Six Hundred and Eighty

Kate and I hit the road and headed north (126km) to Coolum for the day. Was an easy drive up and we had a cheap lunch followed by lots of walking and hanging out at the beach. We had the pleasure of watching the turtles coming up to surface just off the rocks for half an hour or so, great to see wildlife being just that wild. Some pics of the day below.

We then headed home and watched 'Saving Grace' one of the many movies kindly given to us by Neil and Suzanne.


Dont jump!

Looking south down Australias East Coast

Looking north up Australias East Coast

Kate took this great shot.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Nine

Good Friday

Happy Easter Readers

I went into work this morning, a nice peaceful office meant I got a lot done. I then headed to the airport and picked up Kate.

Heard my first road casualty update on the radio this morning for Easter. the aussies have this peculiar thing of giving the holiday death toll statistics at every opportunity. The rationale according to Kate is that more people are on the roads over the holiday periods, hence more crashes so by quoting death toll figures people will slow down.

All very odd....

After collecting Kate we spent the afternoon at home, decided to not get takeaway as everyone hikes up the prices on public holidays to cover the double pay rate for staff....

Off to bed now

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Eight

Thursday

Another good day at work, had a meeting with Queensland Police Service this morning which went well. Event starts 8 weeks tomorrow.

Came home and went shopping.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Seven

Wednesday

Better weather in Brisbane today, another hectic day at work, The event is really rolling on towards us fast now and the office is a hive of activity.

Went out for dinner with the people form work, some who were up from Melbourne. Just had a cheap Vietnamese meal in the valley.

Came home and again just watched telly and had a good Skype call to folks, then crashed.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Six

Tuesday

A busy day at work, got into the office by 8 o'clock and finished at about pm. Walked home in the rain and did not very much in the evening. Very quiet here without Kate.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Five

Monday

Woke up tired, ah good old Monday morning!

Walked to work in the rain, as Peter Kay would say, fine rain that soaks you through so not very pleasant. Three of us jumped in a cab and headed into the city to do the final of our 3 Q&A sessions, it went well with about 20 people there.

Spent afternoon pushing on with things, was very noisy and lots of distractions in office though so struggled to get on with stuff.

Walked home in the rain again, went to coles and bought stuff and had a quiet night at home.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Four

Sunday

A nice day of brunch with Caroline in Newtown which was nice and then relaxing in the afternoon. Soon enough it was time to leave Kate in Sydney as she drove me to the airport and I flew back to Brisbane. She'll be back here on Friday thankfully.

Did get bumped into Premium Economy on the way back up here, I think it's Karma paying off for my suffering the family from hell on way down Friday.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Three

Saturday

We got up and headed over to meet the wedding photographer. We started the process of deciding which pictures to put in the final wedding album. We started with her version which had 60 sides, poured over the proof book with over 900 photos and then changed some pictures for others. We then had top try and bring down our page count. We tried to cull as much as we could but got to a point where it would compromise the album to remove any more.

We are happy with final version which as 44 sides and should be delivered in 6 weeks or so.

In the evening Carol cooked a lovely roast beef dinner, we were supposed to have Yorkshire puddings but these got missed in the cooking process, really didn't matter as I know the thought was there and the dinner was superb anyway.

I fell asleep on sofa as the rest of the family watched the Sydney Swans.

Oh yeah and had a good run in with a hoaxer on the phone trying to get us to install dodgy software on Bills computer, was good sport harassing them back.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy Two

Friday

Had a good meeting this morning with DERM, all went well with lots of good planning/contingency discussions. Back into the office at lunchtime and then got on with a few more bits and pieces.

Drove to the airport, had some dinner and then flew to Sydney. Got stuck next to family from hell and stupidly offered to move seats and got cramped in by window by large people with babies.

Finally landed and met Kate, was great to see here, we headed to Willoughby, had a cuppa and then crashed.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy One

Thursday

Awake early again and was in work by 7.45am. Got a lot done especially 60 percent of my master maps (used in event as critical safety tool).

Home for some dinner and off to bed. Off to Sydney tomorrow after work.

Day Six Hundred and Seventy

Into work by 7.50am, was good to get lots done in the peace and quiet, stayed there until about 7.30 so a long day. Came home via the chippie, had a Skype call with folks and off to bed.

Here is my latest literary masterpiece

http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/2011/04/13/the-essentials-of-training/

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Nine

Tuesday

Walked to work with Kate today and said our goodbyes and she headed off to the airport.

Another busy day at work followed by our second open Q& A session in the office. thankfully 7 people showed up this time so more of a success.

You can see some of my handy art work here

http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/brisbane/trail_b/hitting-the-trail-btr/

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Eight

Monday

Spent the morning driving up to the event start at Mt Glorious to do some measurements. At lunchtime back to the office with a busy afternoon.

This was my office for the morning

http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/3055991

Helped Kate pack this evening as she heads off to Sydney for few days.

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Seven

Sunday

We went shopping to Chermside this morning, spent some of the gift vouchers we were given as wedding gifts and bought some new cushions for the sofa.

Came home after some lunch at the shopping centre, spoke to Kates folks, went for a walk, had some dinner, Skyped the folks and watched telly in evening.

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Six

666 the day of the devil hey...

Woke up and went into work this morning, we held an open morning for walkers to give them info as our printed materials are delayed. We had the grand total of one person arrive. Not surprising we only advertised it on Thursday night. Next one is Tuesday after work.

Came home and Kate and I went out for lunch at James St Bistro, then to the market shop there which was nice.

An afternoon at home with a nice walk along river.

Skyped Sydney and Adelaide in afternoon.

This video is cool and shows the floods of Brissie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKpCQB9OgS4

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Five

Spent the mornign at work and then took the afternoon off.

Kate and I had a good afternoon visiting this exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery/Museum of Contemporary Art

http://qag.qld.gov.au/about_us

The exhibition was about 21st Century design

http://qag.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/21st_Century

Was good fun, got to play with Lego and there's a cool swimming pool exhibit too.

Skyped folks in evening.

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Four

Woke up early and headed into work a bit earlier. Decided to take tomorrow afternoon off after all the hours in Melbourne so wanted to get a few things done. Walked past all the building sites that seem to be popping up on my route to work.

Day seemed to be dominated by meetings and ended up leaving at 6.30 in the end.

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Three

Walked to work and spent day cracking on, we start the event 10 weeks on Friday. a picked me up, I cooked Risotto for dinner. Spoke to Kate's folks on the phone and watched TV for rest of evening.

Day Six Hundred and Sixty Two

Tuesday

A busy day in the office with meetings etc, as an event we are almost at $100K in fundraising. Our cool website is here

http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/brisbane/

and something I wrote the other day

http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/2011/03/29/trail-news-and-training-tales/

Day Six Hundred and Sixty One

Monday

Rolled into work at 10.30am, spent the day catching up with emails etc. Came home and had a nice dinner and crashed out at 10pm again. A very quiet blog post compared to last few.

Day 618 has been updated!

Day Six Hundred and Sixty

Sunday

Up at 5.15am (how many early starts) and into Control at 6am to start the pack up. Thankfully the last team finished just after 3am so everyone was already packing up. spent next 4 hours loading vans and trucks and then I was on the road back to Melbourne.

After a near miss with a tram (bloody Melbourne) had everything unloaded, plus a lot of stuff identified for sending to Brisbane and after a quick trip back to office we were on our way to airport.

Flew to Brisbane at 4pm and landed and met Kate not long after 6.20. Was great to see her.

Had quiet night at home, a brief Skype and wished my wonderful mother a happy mothers day. Crashed and went to bed at 10pm.

Day Six Hundred and Fifty Nine

Saturday

Up and out of bed at 3.15am. In control centre by 4am to do my allocated shift as Logistics Controller. Basically this involves being on the ed of the phone awaiting calls from any event sites if they need help/supplies. Biggest issues were lack of paper cups and peanut butter. No major crisis's thankfully.

Finished up there at midday, spent some time at Finish and then went and bumped out the water stop at the 65km point on the trail. Back to the control and then headed to my accommodation at 4pm, via the fish and chip takeaway and crashed into bed at about 8pm.

Day Six Hundred and Fifty Eight

Friday

And so TW Melbourne got underway, however before that I was out on the road by 6.25am and off to ensure Checkpoint 2 was up and running. It was very dark and cold when we arrived to relieve a very pleased to see us security guard. He had had to chase off kangaroos during the night, not a happy chap.

Fired up the generator for power and light and to get the urn on for a cuppa. Soon enough the corporate volunteers started to arrive and we got them up and running. We waited around until first few teams had passed through after 10am and then headed to our next build.


We arrived at Checkpoint 6 and started the bump in there. This is at a primary school and the lovely little children were not backwards in coming forwards and investigating what we were up to, some were even picking up kit and walking away with it, oh what fun.

Did lots of stuff including marking out where cars need to get in/out of site and plumbing in water stations, cabling check in/out desks etc.

Once everything was set to go we headed to the finish to help out with any jobs there.

Went out for dinne rin Warburton with afew of the team here

http://www.wildthymecafe.communityguide.com.au/

Finally headed off to what I thought was bed number 3 only to find that due to a mess up in scheduling I was not to stay there. After some frantic calls/driving around to get signal I finally found my lower bunk bed in a room with four other staff. They preceded to snore all night too...

Day Six Hundred and Fifty Seven

Thursday

Up before daylight at 5 and drove out towards trial and picked up my colleague at 6.10am. We then drove further out form Melbourne to the site of Checkpoint 3 on the Melbourne trail. met the contractors/suppliers on site and I led the build of that site for the next 6 hours.

All went well and I even managed to see my first red back spider which was sitting just underneath one of the delivery trucks. I now know what they look like.

At about 2pm it was on the road again and off to build Checkpoint 1, it seems ll the contractors were early (unheard of usually) and were waiting for me who had the key to the site, seems the bin contractors didn't bother and threw their 20 bins over the 10ft high gate so we had to transport them ourselves the last 3/4km into the park.

The contractors did their thing and we did all the Oxfam bump in an hour or so later and got away from there at about 6pm.

Headed to my second bed of the event here

http://www.gleninn.com/

Nice website, not so nice rooms but not too bad.

Went for dinner at this place

http://www.thevillagegreen.com.au/

Just imagine tacky Vegas meets Blackpool and half your expectations and you then have the Village Green in mind...

Day Six Hundred and Fifty Six

Wednesday

Up at 6am and Kate drove me to the airport. Met the rest of the team and was on a plane by 8am on our way to Membourne for the Victorian TW event. we arrived into a nice and sunny Melbourne airport and took a taxi into town.

The rest of the day was spent helping out around their office doing final preparations, packing etc. Learnt a few lessons about things not to do on our event and some things I should do.

Had some food during the evening briefing, then after a quick trip to pub headed back to Hotel for tomorrows early start.

Day Six Hundred and Fifty Five

Tuesday

Happy Birthday Me, 35 today!

Thank you for all the lovely messages and cards.

Got up early and headed out to the Brisbane Forest Park for work. Spent the day in a 4wd Ambulance showing the QAS our trail and planning exit routes and what vehicles they need for the event.

All went well until we got a 4wd stuck in the creek, broke the winch and needed rescuing. All turned out well in the end. After a quick trip back to the office with very wet boots, came home and had lots of nice calls and Skypes with family. Kate and I then went out for dinner around the corner.

We went here

http://www.aqualinea.net/menus.html

Was very nice but we both ate far too much rich food and couldn't wait to get home and undo the bulging jeans.