A long time since I’ve been in blog world. Our whole family has experienced great relief since we made the decision to pull Aidan out of school and take up the direction of homeschooling as the alternative for our son’s education. The weeks leading up to this decision were acutely stressful for Mitch & myself, Aidan included. The school wasn’t able to manage things well. My maternal instincts were screaming out loud within the second week of school, but i’m glad that bulk of the nausea I endured throughout it all is greatly over for now.
We opted to schedule a break for much needed rest & relaxation over at the Werriberri Lodge in the Megalong Valley, which is about a 20 minute drive from our place. According to the documentation at the lodge, Werriberri was the name of the last Aboriginal chief of a tribe that was located in this area.
This place is known as our ‘home away from home’. We even had the same cabin as last time, No.4. The Smith’s have conglomerated at this place for weddings, funerals in the past. After this adventure - for ‘everything else’ as well, so I couldn’t help but have that Weddings/Funerals & Everything movie run through my head every now at then during out stay there.
As usual with any getaway, I always have to do a toilet review first for Newtown Mums (because this kind of information is very important to them).
This toilet, was impressively sealed for our protection. From what? Boogie Monsters? I still don’t know.
A very b-grade performance on the presentation of the toilet paper, which didn’t come with a neat triangle fold and it was also going ‘under’ instead of over. I wasn’t too disappointed by this at all, because it is budget accommodation after all – but it would have been very problematic if I faced something like this in an expensive 5 star hotel.
The most unusual presentation of the mini-shampoos I’ve ever come across to date, but the bottles were very nicely branded.
I’ve always loved the design of these cabins because it’s a very efficient use of space which can accommodate 6 people with one double bed in the master bedroom,
and 4 bunk beds in the other bedroom.
It gets very cold in this area at night, Mitch turns into an axeman by the shed to help gather the firewood.
Aidan gets busy riding his bike called “Huffy” in the name of exercise amidst oodles of fresh air to get the cheeks all red & rosy. Lots of great bike-riding tracks in this area. I can’t believe it’s been a whole decade since i rode my first-ever 2-wheeled bike off the edge of a small cliff in the more daring drik-bike tracks of this area.
I get distracted by the local flower.
Aidan starts multi-tasking with Huffy by helping to carry the firewood back to the cabin.
Most of our time indoors was spent playing with the open fireplace and telling stories.
Too busy relaxing to take any photos of the delicious home-cooked meals I enjoyed making away-from-home, but that is a left-over plate of chicken schnitzel on the coffee table! For breakfast, we enjoyed grilled bacon with eggs, char-grilled cherry tomatos & home-made pancakes.
Landscape shot from the base of the Megalong Valley – there’s obviously many wonderful look-outs from the cliff tops that looks down into this area. Very fortunate to have lovely weather during our stay.
Father & son go in search for the horses, which made me think of Mrs.Lifecruiser’s childhood!
Saying hello to the local donkey. It was wonderful to see Aidan so happy & peaceful, glowing from the inside.
He was glowing even more when he finally got to ride the horse who’s name was “Hound”.
Going “solo” – it was amazing to see him so happy. He had another turn riding the horse known as “Coin” the next day. We’re hoping to make horse riding lessons as regular feature in Aidan’s life – something for him to master in an area which his parents are completely clueless.
Ah yes, the final dishwashing detergent review. A classic 1-2 star, predictably – very heavily “diluted” with water, so you need to use even more in order to clean the dishes up!
Looking forward to doing this sometime next month to “get away” again. Will be sure to go on a bush walk to check out the waterfall/creek for the next round and i’ll get more snappy with the camera when it comes to the food!
I seriously hope that this photo isn’t as as risque as some of Mrs.Lifecruiser’s delightful tongue-in-cheek treats, but i am in the mood to put on a good show!
So! Can anyone guess which country this piece of handiwork was inspired from on the cyber cruise? Here is an extreme close-up so that you can take a better look at it! *lol*
Ah well. I guess i’ll keep it a secret until i finish working on my next piece. This cruise has certainly taken things to a whole new level for me over here, that’s for sure! ;D
Busy week. It’s been hard to gain the headspace to post.
My husband was away at the Ironfest Festival with Oz Whistles last weekend, so this left me the pleasure of enjoying my son for the weekend. We finally dared to attempt walking into “town”. We’re not conveniently located so close to town like the former place which was a 10minute walk, so this was quite an adventure with an estimated 45minutes of strolling ahead of us for just one way!
Stopping off at the first turn at the end of our street, to peer out at the mountains, with my son asking if there are any snakes in there.
The first major hill around the corner from where we live - the steepest i’ve encountered in this region so far, which i also refer to as the stairmaster 2000 because it feels like i’m on an exercise machine with each step.
Getting close to town and the streets are a sea of leaves. They won’t last that long with the leaf blowing machines to “clean” it all up soon…*sighs*
Just a mere 3000 steps into town, and it did take roughly 45minutes to get there. My son thought that this walk was insane, that we would never get home before dark and that we were going to die! =D The chemist was closed, the bread shop was closed, and the supermarket hardly had any items to sell as it will be closing down to make way for the construction of some kind of plaza. At least the essentials like milk & bread were still available!
Ah well, there’s always the Christmas Cottage to warm up the spirits. Can always dream of an Australian “white & snowy mountain” Christmas by walking into this shop all the time. This is the perfect shop if your family celebrates the tradition of getting a new special ornament for the tree each year.
It’s never been easy to catch the real beauty of autumn here. Mostly because the trees that make me go “oooh” tend to spring into my life whilst driving. The period of fire is fairly brief, but i managed to capture a few special moments before the beginning of it’s end for this year.
The famous “whale hedge” of our former neighbour’s garden. You can see it’s eyes & teeth emerge when the garden reaches the heights of amazing colours during spring.
The cockatoos were squawking like crazy and i’m surprised to have managed to capture a poor shot of one in midflight. They always come across as a very crazy kind of bird to me and i don’t miss them spitting the pine tree nuts on the top of our roof at the old place in the early hours of the mornings. *lol* My dream would be to capture a black cockatoo with my camera tho. I think they’re rare compared to the white one but i have seen a couple recently which was still really exciting to spot even tho i had no camera on me at the time.
Walking or driving past this street always takes my breath away - a nice big chunk of the blue mountains in yer face without needing to go on a bushwalk.
I finally knab myself a good shot of the red hot poker flower. Another tough plant to photograph due to the impossibility of stopping the car just for the sake of taking a picture. Possibly the slowest blooming i’ve spotted, as most of the ones saw their height of fire colours during the summer. This one is still fairly “green” so i look forward to watching it’s journey. I believe it’s classed as a weed here.
I did manage to spot a native bottle brush nevertheless! =D
..and despite the insanity of this long walk, my son did enjoy how his shadow was turning him into a giant. He patiently looks forward to the day of being so much taller than me. It’s quite likely that he’s going to become a 6ft’er with basketball sized shoes.
Our final descent back down the stairmaster 2000 hill with the Blue Mountains national park going “boom” at the end of it. We hanged a left, arriving at home safely, and still alive!
April 23, 2007 at 9:03 am
· Filed under cyber cruise
Founds some old photos, so i thought it was worth my while to finally take you cruisers on a surprise side day tour of the Leura Cascades Bushwalk with pictures to go ooh & ahh at for immediate rest & relaxation via your own computer monitors. I was unable to score good shots of the actual Blue Mountains scenery with my former Leura Tour due to the poor weather a few weeks ago, so here are the good ones on a nice & sunny day, which are bound to bring a smile onto your face - especially if you enjoy the relaxing sound of trickling water that can have the capacity to make you want to pee at times too! ;D
The walk itself is fairly easy going with well built pathways in some sections and doesn’t require strenous prowesses in the fitness department to get there.
When you’re a local - you know where the shortcuts are so this walk only took about 10-15minutes to get to the cascades. *teehee* I was never affraid of heights until i became pregnant, so this part of the walk is not toooooo bad if sudden cliff dives freak you out. I still freaked out whenever my son tried to run several metres ahead of us during this walk, of course. You can see him a few metres ahead of us already in this picture! 555
My son was very intrigued by what we think was a blue tongued lizzard, so he took this shot himself with the cheap little Kodak digicam i got for him a few years ago. They really do have blue tongues!
This is a fairly typical view of the Blue Mountains during bushwalks. You usually journey through densely covered bush and then these really big windows arrive, revealing amazing views starting to open up when you reach various sections of the tracks.
This was one of the more scarier ones as it’s a cliff-edge featuring as a lookout point, so it did raise my heartbeat up by a few notches. At least you have the safety of viewing it from a computer monitor with this one. *lol*
Views like these are also the reason why it’s not a good idea to ever go bushwalking on your own too. I remember seeing a helicopter hovering around were i live on the day of moving in, a dead man was found last weekend. Mysterious & dramatic deaths in this region in the local paper are common and at times, have been very eyebrow raising. My husband’s brother died from falling off a ledge. Just a small 4m drop. He could’ve survived it if he weren’t impaled by a tree stump… Nope - not a good idea to go venturing out into the bush alone over here, but i can understand why people still do it as many lookouts can be a very powerful means for rest, meditation & reflection - a great way to “get away from it all”. I’d still never venture out alone myself! No way jose!
…and this is why sports like abseiling & rock-climbing are so popular in this region. If your lucky, you can catch a human spiderman trying to climb the rockfaces but you’re more likely to spot this along the non-touristy trails. If you’re a thrill seeker who enjoys the extreme sports involving heights, Katoomba isn’t short of businesses that can cater to your needs, skydiving & bungee jumping included. The less adventurous tourists can always enjoy the safety of the world’s steepest railway or fly through the sky via cable car.
Verging back into the dense bushland again, the beginning of the Leura Cascades arrive and then you’re pretty much walking down the side of perhaps one of the most easiest waterfall walks i’ve ever encountered to date. No leeches present here, but maybe we were just lucky! Always a good idea to bring a bit of salt or a cigarette lighter with you, just in case! =D
It’s a very easying going & very enjoyable walk from this point onwards.
…until you get to the very bottom of it. Strong spiritual vibes down here, especially where the rockface turns into a quasi-cave. It has the sensation of being enveloped in a giant warm & loving hug by nature. Then again - you can still be prone to acute paranoia if you allow your mind to imagine that the giant rockface could fall on top of you in any minute. I think that’s probably why it feels like a massive hug - the amount of rock living above the shelter is just fookin’ HUGE! The sensation of chi in this space is very dynamic because of it.
The pool of water collecting down here would’ve been my ideal childbirthing spot, although there’s no way in hell that such a thing would ever be allowed to take place within a national park in this era. Perhaps i should’ve gone bushwalking on the brink of giving birth over here anyway! *lol* I seriously wish that i had!
When i arrived at this spot, it made me wonder if many aboriginal women thousands of years before me had water-birthed in this spot, coz it really had that strong spiritual vibe about it. Not much help if you need an emergency caesrean due to an undiagnosed breech at the very last minute after a 30hr labour, but i get the feeling that my former aboriginal elders & sisters would’ve been a shitload more experienced with handling such a thing compared to the midwives from hell that i faced at the cold & sterile KGV hospital in Sydney that had beds covered in plastic sheets! =D Then again, maybe childbirth was naturally meant to be very traumatic for me anyway! It would’ve helped considerably to have nature hug me so grandly during what was the most horrible & terrifying experience in my life. Makes me wonder what the screaming would’ve sounded like with all the echo surrounding me! =D
This was the part of the walk where I arrived at; “I can no longer go any further because it is far too scary to go beyond this point!”
I did manage to take a very deep breath and peer over the edge in order to knab a better shot nevertheless. Hoo, it was a long way down, but i’ve survived much worse over here! *lol* I’m sure that daring feat over the edge is what made me want to go straight back home, but it was worth it. As for now, it’s time to get off my bum and go take a good long pee. *lol*
March 31, 2007 at 3:06 am
· Filed under cyber cruise
Australia is a big country so it’s too hard to cover the lot, let alone the Blue Mountains which is the region where i live, so G’day & welcome to Oz to start off with!
No - that’s not the official flag of Australia, just my own one to enjoy for now. Just as the changing of our flag has been in question (as we’re not as advanced as our fellow Canadians scoring their very own one within 98 years), so has our national anthem. If you would like to view snapshots of what our land is like, the following video clips are done to songs which for some of us - tend to stir feelings of emerging patriotism. They’ll provide insights on our history, you’ll see aspects of the Aboriginal culture & also be introduced some Australian coloquialisms(jargon) with explanations of what some of our strange (but cool) use of words mean.
I Am Australian by The Seekers - you’ll see what i mean about the flag debate in this clip! (ships included) I Come From The Land Down Under by Men At Work Djäpana - by Aboriginal band Yothu Yindi. Djäpana means “sunset dreaming”, so you’ll see delightful moments of the sunsets and how spiritual the connection to the Australian sun is over here.
Waltzing Matilda - you’ll learn about our interesting use of colloquial jargon here. I Still Call Australia Home - by Peter Allan. Pretty much the song i think of when a long flight from Singapore makes touchdown at Sydney airport. You’ll often here people cheering on such flights because they’re arriving “home”.
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My parents migrated from Turkey, but I was born here so that makes me a 1st generation Aussie. My mother’s side rooted with the Georgians, and i suspect that both sides of my family probably rooted with the Vikings at some point too. It could explain why my body prefers the cooler climate, why i am so tall (but of “average” height in Amsterdam) and why there’s quite a number of blue eyed blondes in my family, although i’m a brunette myself.
The following clips are songs that stir patriotic feelings towards my heritage and penchant for songs of war.
The Georgian State Dance Company - you’ll notice how there’s a sound very similar to the Aboriginal didgeredoo at the beginning of this clip. Ceddin Dedden - A Hard Rock version of a Turkish Military song that always gets my blood hot as a bloody Turk. (ships included)
Bathory - A Swedish Viking Metal band i’ve always enjoyed! (ships included)
Back to The Blue Mountains!
Leura (The Garden Village, coz like - the houses here have beautiful gardens every-bloody-where) - stands 985m above sea level, so we’re often “living in the clouds” and experience incredibly beautiful fogs, a lot! There’s trees every-bloody-where and the air smells devine on most days.
An unconventional non-tourist shot of the storms brewing in the neighbouring suburb Katoomba two days ago… this is not a classic Blue Mountains photo because it’s bloody raining, so you don’t see the classic bluey-green & orange colours. If you do want to go see a bog standard tourist shot of something like The Three Sisters during more favourable weather conditions, you can visit:
This is a fantastic site where you can do a virtual tour of the whole of Australia with great photography, and it will help you gain barings as to where i’m located. To find Leura - zero in on NSW and then you’ll see a link to the Blue Mountains, which will show you where my town Leura is located within the region, amongst other neighbouring suburbs and tourist sites. Near Katoomba, you’ll see “The Three Sisters” - so go there if you want to see the bog standard tourist shot of those three famous ladies chilling out on the mountain side.
Let’s go on a journey which will give you a very brief glimpse of the businesses that live in Leura, which is not only home to a lot of artisans, but more importantly - some very bloody good musicians. Introducing you to my husband’s business in Leura known as Oz Whistles.
Welcome to Oz Whistles!
…and now for the man behind all of those whistles - my husband Mitch, standing on our front verandah during a foggy day in Leura, holding the prototype of his first hand-crafted whistle.
Mitch claims that we have the largest range of whistles in the Southern Hemisphere, so this is one reason why we have….
More whistles than you can poke a stick at!
…but this is the real reason why we have more whistles than you can poke a stick at! Introducing the actual Stick, who has been living as a member of our house for the last year!
I was struggling to find a way to make all of the whistles appearing on the website to scale, and was using a ruler when i first started. One day, I couldn’t find my ruler and my husband, Mitch - found Stick lying next to the whistles during a photoshoot. He pretty much tossed Stick over to me and said,
“Here! Just use this thing!!!”
…so I did!
We’ve had so many adventures with Stick helping us out at Oz Whistles that he’s now become a celebrity!
Here’s a shot of Ian Stewart playing with Stick at the Gundagai Folk Festival last year.
Stick is so popular, that even the “Haggis” Whistles started to worship him as soon as they arrived!
Stick on location at the Oz Whistles headquarters!
These are the Goons that Stick had to hire because we had a pretty scary incident occur after the Irish FaeDÓG whistles arrived.
Stick got quite a fright by them. My husband had a very hard time in trying to reassure Stick that the shop was not infested with dawgs and that he wasn’t in any danger of being “fetched”!
Yes, we’re crazy - but we’re proud of it and you haven’t even seen the worst of it either! Mitch has been working like a dawg the last few weeks with the production of his own whistles, that have been catching the eyes, fingers & tongues of many professional musicians that have come in contact with them lately.
One of them happened to be a very famous Irish piper known as Paddy Keenan. He not only bought a Reviol but he also wanted to knab one of Mitch’s very own Oz Whistles too as the tuning was very impressive. As Paddy was touring to Sydney for his next performance, we had to organise my sister in law to babysit our son and drive up to Sydney to deliver it in person - so this means that we’re now going to the frigging pub to start partying!
Why go over a mountain when you can just cut through it!
Wow - you can almost see the smog of Sydney on the horizon from here!
Appraoching a major intersection of some seriously heaving going arterial roads known as motorways. This means we’re getting very close to Sydney. The evening is shortly arriving and so is the crescent moon, which is what my first name - Ayça, means in Turkish.
…and finally, here we are at the pub!
A beautiful pub it is too, so here is some more eye-candy!
Let’s eat out al fresco over in the bistro then shall we?
No food on the tables yet, so while we get on with our ordering - somebody’s going to have to gather the drinks.
Guaranteed Guiness in your face everywhere in this pub, so here - have some on the house c/o Oz Whistles!
I had to opt for the orange and vodka tho…. =P
Some more eye candy - two sexy Aussie Shiela’s, Megan & Avril - visiting from Newcastle. The show’s about to start soon, so lets go and watch Paddy go psycho on the Irish pipes.
…and watch him play on the Reviol low whistle he got off Mitch!
…and then watch Mitch’s own hand-crafted whistle get a really goot tooting too!
Time for a bit of multiculturalism while a New Zealand woman introduces her own traditional instruments into the ensemble for the grand finale!
After the encore, Paddy finally starts making his way off the stage, with the irony of the “Ireland’s Own” sign lurking in the background.
A final parting shot of Paddy with Mitch…
…it’s well past 12:30am so we must get skidaddling back home to Leura and not forget to pick our son up from my sister in law’s house on the way!
DAY 2 - Back in Leura!
Back in Leura, after a very long & exhausting day. We deserve a good pamper, so lets go shopping for some more delicious eye candy to bring further warmth, comfort & rest to the soul by taking a short walk to the street known as “The Mall”.
Where should we stop off at first? Oh! I know! Let’s get some devine antique souvernirs over at Leura Interiors located at number 153!
How can we say no to a little ship with a tiny little Australian flag on it for our wonderful Captain?! Anywayz, I need to shut my mouth right up now, so let’s leave the pictures to do all the talking for a while!
Are your muscles feeling really sore & tired? Mine are! So lets go to that super funky & amazing candle shop known as Moontree living at number 157 to grab ourselves from lovely smelling things we can put into the bath or warm up the house a little bit more with beautiful things!
Inviting everyone around to my house for the evening to wind down with coffee & fine dessert. Although the house i am currently living in is beautiful - i’ll take you to my other virtual house that lives over at number 144 at the mall in that other really beautiful shop known as Inner Space. You know… that dream house after my life finally acquired the disposable funds to afford it all.
*yawns*
It’s way past my bedtime folks (erm…1:54am atm!), so i wish you all a great night with sweet dreams and hope you’ve enjoyed your stay in Leura.
Before i do go and rush upstairs to turn on my electric blanket - I’m leaving a “rope jumping” postcard from the Blue Mountains for Sanni - because it might make her sore bum from that really scary cliff dive in the Dominican Republic feel considerably better.
*brrrrrr* *rubs hands together* It’s a chilly night! As you can see, i’m really tired and need to go to bed now.
With love & G’night,
aka R’acquel
P.S - you see that green jumper i’m wearing? That jumper, was in part, responsible for starting Oz Whistles - but it’s too much of another long & very crazy story, so I’ll be indulging it another time in my anti-procrastination series!
To all cruisers on the deck! Stay tuned for the port of Leura arriving at your doorstep on 31st March!
There’s nothing quite like a deadline to get things done hey?! I’ve been busy taking photographs, confronting my fear of approaching strangers during the process (as i don’t like being an “intimidating” photographer and perfer the introverted route where people can hardly see me)!
I have yet to confront my fear of being alone in the night with photography too - so i’m looking forward to the challenge!
Ok - this evening’s storm report - as many of you know that i’m such a junkie for monitoring the weather here! A sneak peak of the Blue Mountains by offering a view from Katoomba on the Scenic World route. As usual - the camera never does it justice and it’s much better to view it yourself. Can you believe that one of the lookouts was called “Landslide”!!! I’d like to confirm that the Australian drought has definitely broken, as it’s been raining *almost* every day this month but just take my words that preliminary climate change is on the way in Australia, for now. Rainfall is without exception - much higher compared to last year for this month. It could be a red herring, but i think the rains are seriously coming now. One can only hope (and then complain about it raining too much) soon!
I was rather scared driving up this road, because i was on the edge of some seriously steep f’king cliffs and I’ve acquired a pretty bad fear of heights ever since my son was born. I never used to be scared of heights before, EVER! These days - it can give me serious panic attacks where i go dizzy and need to time-out to get my heart rate OK on a bushwalk here!
To catch up on the International Cyber Cruise that’s taking the world by storm on the www - I leave you with the following links:
As promised - completion of the initial design for my son’s Easter Hat Parade at school next week. I didn’t think i could make it this far today, so cheers to the Crazy Hat Parade deadline that helped me to progress this far! It’s not very crazy yet, but you can probably feel the spirit of the mad-hatter living within it already! Stay tuned for next week when the crazy hat is completed!
For crazy thinking mums who have a bloody sense of humour!
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Designer, mum to 1 6yo boy. Enjoy sustainable design, fashion, ergonomics, geography, architecture and weather chasing - although the category cloud underneath does a good job of capturing what i enjoy writing about the most.
Location: LEURA NSW, Australia
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