Hello ... << MORE >>

Last weekend we walked (some more) and discovered a new Great North Walk 'walkers' register'.  Now this one isn't even on the Great North Walk -- its on a spur -- the one form Millfield up to the Hunter Wine Region at Pokolbin.  Want to know more about how to 'sign in' on this SECRET register -- go to our latest EveryTrail lsiting of GNW tracks -- at -- www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/discussion  ... << MORE >>

One year ago I said me and my friends had BEGUN the Aussie 'Great North Walk'.  well we've finished it now!  This bushwalk  (http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com) connects New South Wales’ two largest cities from the obelisk in Australia’s first planned town square to the wharf from which its oldest home-built steamship still sails in over 250 kilometres of history, mystery and fascination. The trail only just turned 21 in 2009 although some paths are many tens of thousands of years old; it has been completed in 66 hours and is walked over decades; its story impinges on diverse faiths passing Australia’s largest provincial Anglican cathedral while the walk’s highest peak – Mt Warrawolong (641 m) – is the site of Aboriginal ceremonies; be amazed to walk right beside examples of the oldest rock engravings in the world and modern street art; cross dramatic and beautiful waterways by means as diverse as the world’s widest steel-arch bridge to its oldest operating river postman’s boat; be puzzled by en route mysteries including more than a dozen murders, disappearances and inexplicable deaths; wind past the southern hemisphere’s largest salt-water swimming pool,  the park dedicated to our longest-lived cartoon character, the site of the first coal mine and see where the first Brooklyn Railway Bridge (1890) was erected on the deepest pier then plumbed (49.4 m).  I do hope you'll forgive me if I say walking it was DAM hard!

I've just heard of a new novel called The Great North Walk Companion: in celebration of the 21^st birthday of the Great North Walk, this ramblers’ novel recounts a family mystery as the identity of Billie’s walking ‘companion’ is revealed.  Readers walking this track for the first time and those recapturing an earlier encounter will enjoy this literary, historical and environmental treasure hunt along Australia’s most accessible wilderness trail. More about the mysterious “Companion” can be found at  http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/companion  

No
Ancestral Home to Visit Any Longer

About a
year ago I got worried about my homeland – Antarctica. In March 2008 a big chunk of what my
great- great- grandparents called home broke off – this was the beginning of
the end for the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The Wilkins ice
shelf covers an area of about 5,282 square miles and satellite images taken at
the end of February 2008 revealed that its rapid (on ice-sheet timescales)
disintegration began after an iceberg the size of the Isle of Man broke away
from its western edge. Last ...<< MORE >>

Happy Xmas

I got SO MUCH stuff!!  I am a very lucky bird and have clearly been VERY VERY GOOD this year…. There’s no need to have a bath next year judging by the niceness of stuff I’ve got this year …. no need to remind me (not a nag of course) next December .

I am really is DELIGHTED with my new hat (see pic ) – my best friend says I look like a poinsettia – well she looks like a dandelion I say !

 

I am taking my new blue bag (very clever of you) on holiday tomorrow – we have to start at 7am – ugh!

I also got a new train set – a bad (evil actually !) penguin book – who knows why … a rubber ducky :_) the world’s smallest kite, popcorn, dress ups and new scarf (like Dumbledore’s) – and specs like his too! – for reading.  And a Dr who DVD and loads of chocolate too – yum!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas – we did :_))

Peng Guin

Let’s face it, the holiday season can be a time of joy and happiness, however it can also be one of the most stressful times of the year. Below are some tips for surviving the holiday season….

                   1. Be realistic. There are going to be queues; there are going to be traffic delays – don't let yourself become stressed or angry. Leave a little earlier; shop later in the day. Take public transport (where available).

                   2. Plan your day – Don’t try to do too much on a given day. See 1 above.

                   3. Drink plenty (of water!).

                   4. Incorporate relaxation time in your day. It's the holiday season – relax and have some fun. Read a book, paint, meditate

                   5. Moderation – this goes for alcohol and food. Alternate alcoholic drinks with water or soft drink; watch you portion sizes; eat more veggies & fruits.

                   6. Keep active – incorporate exercise into your day.

                   7. Rest – Aim for at least 8 hours of sleep a night.

                   8. Stay COOL!  (All birds need low temperatures)

                   9.  Above all, have fun.

Here’s what one blogger said of Aussie Prime Minister’s ‘cut’ of 5% today,” This is a shameful act of political and moral bastardry!
 
We needed to have 20% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 and 60% reduction by 2050.

This is the start of the planet losing whole different ecosystems - as the higher latitudes become temperate and the deserts expand into previously temperate higher latitudes.

 A visit to a zoo in 200 years time representing the animals of the world will have about 3 exhibits.



Exhibit 1 - the most common animal in the world, The Camel.


Exhibit 2 - a stuffed, extinct polar bear


Exhibit 3 - a stuffed, extinct penguin.



All because the people we elected to look after our interests are too interested in the finer things of public life and are more afraid of losing them than doing the right thing for generations to come.
 
With so much energy falling onto our country every single day from the sun it is shameful that our society has timidly clung to digging up rocks and burning them rather than embrace the opportunity of planning our energy future from the ground up - using cleaner, saner and renewable energy technologies.
 Future generations will condemn us.”

I REALLY agree! Especially about the stuffed Penguin!

The Australian Government has further betrayed its voters (who elected Rudd on a ‘join up to Kyoto’ banner) by further increasing the amount of free permits allocated to those industries (the really BIG polluters!)  described as trade exposed because they face international competition and cannot pass the cost of a trading scheme onto consumers.

One threshold for eligibility has also been lowered, meaning more companies will be covered by the assistance.

The amount of free permits available to those industries - such as aluminium, cement, lime and silicone production - has been increased to 25 per cent, compared to 20 per cent flagged in the green paper.

That amount would rise to 35 per cent once agriculture is included in the scheme, which is not expected until at least 2015.

Well maybe I’ll be extinct – but at least there will still be plenty of camels!

PG

Have you got an Advent calendar this year?  

I have quite a few – I keep them from year to year but usually get a new one each year too… so I have rather a lot now.  This year’s is a wooden train – it has three carriages each containing little drawers – my friends have stuffed these with treats—one for each day of Advent!

My favourite are the oldest ones – these are European – well I think originally German – in design.  They tend to show old fashioned ‘snow scenes’ in middle Europe villages.  They are ‘classic’ (or so I thought until very recently) in that they do NOT have sweeties or chocolates just a door for each date form 1-24 December.  These doors open onto a picture that makes sense in to big scene but also offers another step towards Christmas or rather Christmas Eve.  I must admit that I thought chocolates in Advent calendars were very recent inventions (of some confectionary manufacturer) but a little research suggests that I was wrong. 

The origin of the Advent calendar can be traced back to the 19th century. The earliest seem to be from the protestant areas of Germany.  They were based around chalk lines for every day in December until Christmas Eve made in religious families. The first known had-crafted Advent calendar was made in the year 1851.  Other early styles were the Advent clock or the Advent candle - a candle for each of the 24 days until Christmas, like today’s Advent wreath in some churches.   In 1902 a Christian bookshop in Hamburg published a Christmas Clock. . In 1904 an Advent Calendar was inserted in the newspaper "Neues Tagblatt Stuttgart" as a gift for their readers.  Another competing claim to be ‘the first printed Advent Calendar’, although without windows to open, published in 1908. This Calendar was named "Christmas-Calendar" or "Munich Christmas-Calendar". Esther Gajek says that the first printed specimen with opening doors or windows was made in 1908 by a Swabian parishioner, Gerhard Lang (born 1881 in Maulbronn, Germany -died in 1974).  Mr Lang recalled that that when he was a child his mother made him an Advent calendar with 24 "Wibbele" (little candies) that were stuck onto cardboard backing.

At the beginning of the 20th Gerhard Lang produced the first Advent Calendars with little doors to open and Advent calendar as we know it today started a triumphal way around the globe. Before the Second World War terminated the success of this German tradition and Lang had to close his, he had produced about 30 different designs.  After World War II many companies began printing and selling Advent and Christmas calendars. Advent Calendars filled with small chocolates were available in 1958.

If you want the fun of the countdown to Christmas Eve without the expense of a purchase or without the trashy chocolate taste that some cheap calendars now deliver try these alternatives. Make your own Advent calendar by downloading ‘pdf’ files to print out:

http://www.janbrett.com/christmas_treasury_advent_calendar.htm

There is one to sew for yourself or friends.  This one has pockets to put small toys or candies in to sew:

http://www.sewing.org/html/advent_calendar.html

Or – easiest of all try “Around the world Advent” quiz from Kent junior school—go to

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/calendar

Happy Advent

Peng Guin

I often book events and especially special treats when traveling on the web.  Mostly this works out well – but occasionally it is a disaster.  I am working on a theory to use so I can figure out which ones are good value and what they claim to be and which are REAL LEMONS!  The basic idea would be – do the buildings look as if you have ot hold them up by hand?

Our worst this year was at the Alhambra in Spain, or in our case not at the Alhambra. We had chosen a 4 star from the web and selected one described as “just beside the Alhambra Palace grounds”. We had arrived in mid afternoon and, noting the group of large hotels nearby, had gone directly into tourist mode. It was after 6 p.m. when we decided to check in – then we discovered that our hotel was about 15 km away on the other side of Granada. It took us 8 phone calls to get alternative rooms and a long letter follow-up to recoup the prepaid booking costs. In case you’re wondering why we cared the reason is that to get into the Alhambra you have to queue from 6 a.m. so you really need to be close at hand.

Then there was our Turkish but not so delight.  Our BIG mistake here was to end up with a company with luggage tags promising ‘no hassle’– of course we should have known this was a trap!  Our Turkish trip degenerated into cheap minibus travel with 3 backpackers and a couple from northern England who were touring Europe on less than 20 Alterian dollars a day. This was quite a shock as we’d booked (and paid for) a 4-5 star tour. This descent into student travel arose from the globalization and subcontracting of delivery. We had booked with Chatours, who subcontracted to Global in Europe, which, in turn, used a company called, amusingly, Hassle Free. In the end by a very firm telephone call to Australia from a horrible motorway service station produced a return call from Athens and a minute later a very apologetic one from Istanbul. To give the Turks their due, we were rebooked into a super ‘resort’; the clapped out minibus magically transformed into a stretch limo with deep leather seats; and the hopeless girl surprised by our desire to get to Pergamon in time to visit was transformed into skilful guides whose ‘personal friends’ offered us fresh home-baked Turkish bread and carpet-emporia tours.

Of course, you expect weird food abroad but surely Greece is famed for ‘food of the gods’.  Not so our Greek experience  - oddest this year. Bought as apparently ‘nice nougat’ in one of the very many Greek sweetie shops we visited, this turned out to be two large (6 cm diameter) communion wafers (honestly!) sandwiched together with pink and white goo (really!). As it was Trinity Sunday when we sampled this, it seemed somehow appropriate but we didn’t eat it all.