Woodcraft Before School

For Tallarook PS, Peter brought a load of wooden boat kits to possibly use at recess, but it turned out that the early kids had something to do indoors on a very frosty morning before school. These were a group of kids (20ish) who are always early because they are the first drop by the bus service. It's a long day for them. The numbers were just right and resolved the numbers problem at recess time. It seems that woodcraft before school is a goer for the winter months at least.

Mine Craft Creeper

After a lot of requests from kids at school, Peter finally got to making Creeper kits. The prototype turned out better than he had thought it would and the designing/planning before that stage went smoothly. The kids will be very happy at the next Woodcraft Club.

Humble workshop

Cutting Edge Stage Design

Peter thinks the moving/flowing graphics behind the Polish contestant in the Eurovision semifinal was simply breathtaking. It gave a perfect oriental feel with tree in blossom and larger than life drapes flowing in the wind. The computers and projectors behind the effect must truly be cutting edge. There were 17 contestants and each had different projected stage graphics. All pretty amazing.

Eurovision has an 'all seeing eye' watching over the show

Tallarook Morning

Peter finds this school most attractive in the early morning sunlight. These three pictures were taken in close succession, showing how fast the wind brought in the gray clouds and misty rain. The gray clouds are only just in view in the picture above. Soon these three pictures were snapped, the sun's rays were smothered for the rest of the day. Fine days were due but not on this day. The mountain backdrop adds to the fresh look of this great country school now over 140 years old.

Cloud Action

There is something special about clouds, especially when there is a lot of them rolling past with a lot of wind pushing them forward, creatively reforming them into new dramatic shapes. We share this weather imagery in a matrix of 15 snaps, hopefully capturing the sky's grandeur.

Games to play

On one of our nights we played Paper Chase. Adrian won handsomely with Julie coming in second. We were trounced in a board game that we know well. So did Adrian. He has one of the 49 copies ever made. This game will one day have a new life. Rule details continue to be tested. We later played Ticket To Ride - Europe, another good game.

breakfast the next day

Adrian's method of charging camera batteries

Happy Mother's Day

with the rain

Autumn in Barooga

We stopped in Barooga just over the border into New South Wales. The Autumn colours were the nicest we had seen. Barooga's main street was awash with reds and yellows. Very nice. The locals must have thought we were a little eccentric.

Something of a Sunrise

Adrian and Peter got up to catch the sunrise over Lake Mulwala but the cloud cover did not allow any real magic to happen. Be that as it may there was still something of a sunrise trying to break through which made the early rising worth it.

Lake Mulwala

We stayed with Adrian and Julie in a resort unit on the shore of Lake Mulwala just over the border in New South Wales. We witnessed a lot of fairly wild weather coming across. The unit was situated in a little inlet with a narrow entrance that allowed a middle ground separate from the distant end of the lake. This made for many interesting pictures from the convenience of our balcony. And the bird life was very friendly and cooperative.

Murray River

We got to the Murray River last Saturday and took a flat bottomed paddle boat road. With us was Adrian and Julie, old friends from Brisbane. The paddle boat has been recently constructed and works further up the Murray near Cobram on the Victorian side of the border. We went up stream taking an hour and back to the pontoon at obviously a quicker time of half an hour. It was a great trip as the pictures below try to show.

slow erosion: these trees hold on for years

these homes for fish aren't removed from the river

a chance koala sighting

a dangerous undercut for unaware swimmers

We struck up a good conversation with Jay the skipper