Visiting the building site

Cathy has been part of the commissioning team for the new Special Care Nursery at Casey Hospital. The building is due to be handed over in about 10 days time and appears to more on schedule than the Delhi Commonwealth Games village!
It was a builders' day off so most of the paediatricians and some of our other staff were able to dress up in safety gear and tour the site. It was a perfect photo opportunity!
The official opening is scheduled for Cathy's birthday - just a few weeks away.

Home Sweet Home

I made it home safely late on Tuesday night. Managed to get my washing done, film processed, etc. You can see me actually in control of the Microlight over Willie Creek near Broome (see Microlight Sunset Flight). Holidays are fun but getting home is awesome!!!

Cathy Goes Business, David Drives

Whilst Cathy had wine and biccies at 35,000ft and was picked up by the "Jone's Limo Company", David has been driving home. Just one more day.....

Saturday 4th September - Arriving in Alice

David didn't really want Cathy to fly home from Alice, so he attempted to get us stranded. Unfortunately, the last 200km are downhill so we rolled into Alice Springs with the tanks on empty.

The aftermath of the heavy rains was a chance to see the Todd River flowing.

After a relaxed afternoon at the Crowne Plaza, we had a fun evening with Linley and Chris. It was years since we'd seen them at a family reunion in Tassie and now they have more kids and pets!

PS. Don't mention the football.

Friday 3rd September

Up with the sun, all 52 of us clamoured aboard the Troopy -then began the extermination – 5 to Cathy, 1 to David (the driver) and many mosquitoes shepherded out the windows! Our last 172km of dirt road passed all too quickly and we hit the highway with a tailwind to push us south.

It was a day of highs and lows. Cathy got news that a couple of little patients had passed away. We had planned to stop at the Devils Marbles for the night but with the change to stormy weather pushed on to Ti Tree and got a motel room for the night.

Thursday 2nd September - Revisiting beautiful places

Not far from Jasper Gorge, one of our other favourite places from the 2006 trip was the Joe’s Creek walk in Gregory NP. It was wonderful to revisit it – slightly later in the season, so there were less flowers for Cathy to take photos of. Instead, she took photos of David.
All our pre-cooked meals were gone, so we enjoyed tucking in to a good pub meal at Top Springs complete with the important greens - vegetables and VB in glass stubbies.

Wednesday 1st September

We followed the little pink dotted line – the unspoken worry was that it would lead to a locked gate. We missed VRD by a mere 20 km. We were delighted to find our favourite campsite at Jasper Gorge was available. Armed with a new solar shower and supply of water from the gorge, we set up camp and relaxed in the shade – catching up on last Sunday’s newspaper. It was hot and still at bedtime and the fridge was struggling, so we did the right thing and ran the car for 10 minutes – sitting ourselves in the air-conditioned cab! I don’t think it got much below 30 all night.