the underneaths of things

Here she is in all her outback glory, the "new" car, a 2001 Toyota RAV4 Edge. Not what we planned but going OK now that
I changed the drive belt with Phil's help! We left Melbourne and Gill's family 2 days ago, and stayed with Gill's old schoolfriend Lou near Blighty in country NSW. Now we are in a motel in Dubbo, well on our way to Queensland (we are about 900km into the 3500km we have to drive in total).

Try the baby version. 1am - bing - wide awake, requires playing with...for 2 1/2 hours! Then, up every hour or so for cuddles, feeds, play... basically, Cormac thinks daytime starts at 1am. Not much fun! So, if you are on SKYPE any time in the next few days at 1-3am AEST, see if I am online!

Some pics in the new album to the right. There will be more snapshot-type ones and people shots soon, once I have processed them, and downloaded from my phone and Gill's camera too - so Nevin, don't worry, there will be some of Gill!!! If you would like to see higher res shots some of them have made it onto www.dreapadoir.com , my photography site, and as always, you can purchase a print or high res file by sending me a message. If you are special, and I am generous, I may even just give you one for nowt!!!

Went for a ride along the Yarra today - Gill with Chariot in tow on the bike paths, and me on the mountain bike on a series of parallel singletracks. Tonight, we are doing Course family catch up, minus uncle Phil who perhaps has swine flu, and so I will miss the first Lions Test. I hope the Lions ROAR!

The homeless ones are home, from home! Back in Melbourne after a great but hectic and challenging trip to Ireland, France and Italy. We (especially Cormac) will miss Mum/Grannie and Dad/Granda, plus the rest of the family. Will miss friends too, (especially Dave who is a long suffering if slightly deaf host) and wee borreens, and all seasons in a day, and soda bread, and Irish brekkie, and Mum's cooking, and my mountains, and GREENNESS...

Our Tassie home is in other hands for now, so we will buy a car and head North to Queensland in the next week or two to find a temporary home for 6 months...

So we literally went where the wind blew us. The gusting 110km/h headwinds turned us off the trek out to Connemara and Mayo, but we turned inland, and used the southwesterlies to help us across the midlands instead. By backroads, we rode from Ennis through the Burren, including a loop from Doolin around Black Head, then from Galway, we went via Monivea, Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, Shannonbridge, Clonmacnoise, Mullingar, Fore, Kells, Carlanstown, Blackrock and Dundalk, Ravensdale, the Cooley Peninsula, the Carlingford mountains, Newry, Warrenponit, Rostrevor and finally through the Mournes to home. About 400 miles of riding all up. Mixed weather, from freezing rain and tailwinds to blazing sunshine with a headwind, we had it all!!!

Holed up in Galway to sit out the wet, which is really nice actually! Weather forecast not too bad next few days, so will spin out through Connemara we think! A few pics from the trip so far in the album to the right...