Masthead Island 2009

The planning for a revisit to Masthead Island took many twists and turns but in the end the team had a glorious 10 day holiday on this fantastic little tropical island on the Great Barrier Reef.
The first big hiccup was when Clem had a bout of intestinal trouble and had to bow out. A huge disappointment for Clem. But the other crew were equally sad. We had the two old boys, Clem and Frank lined up for regular story telling each night with round of muscat and Franks home made wine to keep the jaws lubricated but it was not to be. Wayne had also lined up some great bush songs and old australian sheering songsfor us to sing with his guitar accompanying. So we headed north staying over at Emily and Steves place on the Gold Coast. We were thoroughly spoilt here as these guys put on a great feast and a good home brew, thanks guys. Dropped into the bigfellas place (Flob) to say hi to the family. We traded a couple of kilos of prime eye fillet for a coral trout.

So, finally at Gladstone, shopped packed, fed and loaded waiting for a 3am departure. The sail over was uneventful for the first part. I slept on the deck and was happy drifting in and out of sleep until I found out I was getting the matress and sleeping bag wet. Well, as soon as I stood up I got extremely dizzy, seasick and felt terrible. Itried to find a better spot upstairs with some air but eneded up passing out on the stairs. It was the most horrifying, bizare experience. I was basically sick as a dog for the next 3 hours until hitting the beach at Masthead and spent the next 5 hours recovering wollowing in my own misery. I was still really crook for the next few days and had very painful ribs and chest muscles (from vomiting). Never again. I put it down mainly to my blocked sinuses but would have benefitted from some drugs!!!
Anyway back to the fun stuff. The fishing, snorkelling, skin diving, spear fishing went on each day and a routine soon developed. My regular routine was to rise at sunrise, walk around the island, back to camp and into the water to swim out to the edge of the reef and back. This was a 400 to 500m round trip assisted by flippers and a couple of stops to catch my breath. Once ashore,a quick fresh water rinse off, then brekkie, coffee and a shave to look respectable. (Actually the shave was so my goggles wouldn't leak). Then settle back for a book read or even a mid morning snooze before heading out on the boat to spear fish. The end of the day always started with happy hour. Watching the sun set, couple of beers, some nibblies and a chat about the days events or wandering what everyone else in the world was doing.
Then I cooked up a storm with the main ingredient being Coral Trout of course, a nice red then port/muscat and coffee before bed for a read.





Have to go again and keep getting more and more experience catching fish but hoping to go to the island and other islands regularly.

Scone ride to Medowie

Went on a ride to Mum and Dons place in Medowie with the cycle buddies. This ride is becoming more and more popular as Mum cooks up a big batch of fresh scones with jam and cream using the old age secret recipe past down through the generations. We charged all riders $5 and put this towards our Sydney to the Gong MS fundrasing ride. Donate if you like by going to http://register.gongride.org.au/?Dibbo

The ride was a lot of fun. We started at Lee Wharf in town and caught the ferry to Stockton, rode to Medowie, ate lots of scones (I think I had 4??!!!) and rode home via Raymond Terrace. A little misshap with one of the riders (ate too many scones and fell off his bike) but a great spring day.

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Update from Newie

Thought it was time to fill you in on latest happenings. Not a lot really, just a bit of bike riding, a lot of house hunting and a trip to Mudgee.


We went on a ride to Morpeth and back which is 70km. Morpeth is a really old world type town with antique shops and nick nac shops like you would expect at a touristy type place. Stopped for coffee and headed home into a headwind which was not a lot of fun. Saturday morning rides at 7:30 continue through winter and its good to get back into town to thaw out the toes and have coffee. Went to Mudgee with the Kombi crew for bike riding and wine tasting. Good fun. Did a side trip on the way back taking the alternate route. We ended up in the middle of nowhere in a national park. Had a lookout with some good views of the country side.
The pic of the plate of food is a food experiment with a pork tenderloin. We cooked a lot of these on the BBQ in Canada so I dug up some recipes and put this little number together. Yum.

School goes on. At the moment I am relieving as Principal for a couple of weeks. We have some Japanese exchange students so I am getting real friendly with them in the hope that I can tone up my Japanese. Oh, did we tell you that we are planning a trip to Japan to go skiing next January? Yeh baby, bring it on. Even though our savings tin for this holiday was stolen we are still going. Jenny and I are taking Japanese language lessons for the next 10 weeks on a Thursday night! Very difficult, but interesting. We hope to plan the trip ourselves rather than go via a travel agent. Also, we could stay with or get guidance from Kotara High School's sister school (Ube High School) who I am getting in touch with. Hajimemashite Chris des, yoroshiku onegai shimasu!!!!

Meeting the Mac Macs

Jenny and I finally met the Canadian couple who we did an exchange with in 2006. Jan and Ken as expected are lovelly people and were great company. We spoke fondly of our exchange and planned a get together with all 8 involved in the exchange, Jenny and I, Wayne and Kathy, Ken and Jan and Marg and Bill. Hopefully we will get together in Fiji or some other exotic destination.

First visit to Em n Steve's Qld joint

We ventured up to Southport to visit Em and Steve before they left for Nepal and thankfully left rainy Newcastle behind and had great weather on our visit. Turned up without the complete list of requirements. Got the sleeping bags, camera, walking stick but forgot the pics of our Nepal trip. Darn!! Any way Jenny and I did some early morning bike rides, did a bit of exploring including a hike with Em and Steve up Mount Warning (practice for Nepal) and watched Steve, Em and Hayden play beach vollyball. Went out to a greek seafood restaurant and had BBQ at home the last night with oysters and prawns. Yum, thanks Steve.

The Graduation of Emily Jayne Dibben

Emily's grad started off with a trip to Sydney to pick Em n Steve up from the airport at 9:30 pm followed by a drive down to Wagga arriving at about 3:00pm. Kez said she'd be awake working on assignments but, alas, no welcoming party. So Emily woke her up with a pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. Had a good trip down playing old songs from the road trip compilations that Em did the covers for then on waking up in Kezza's Nappy house we had breakfast and headed to town for coffee and a shop while Kez went to class. Excitment mounted as 2:30 approached. Em got into her cap and gown, hired her colours and then got the death by photo treatment from all and sundry. Into the grad hall for a very long ceremony and finally Em's turn. Check out the video footage.
Lots of hugs and kisses then I headed back to Newcastle around 5:30 arriving home through rain and trucks around 12:30. Very tired now writing this blog Thursday night. You look great Emily. CONGRATULATIONS!

PS: Checked out Kezza's place, pretty cool, she now has a herb garden with Herbert the gnome to look over the 'erbs.

The Big Kahoona Hits Corrarong

Chapter 2 of the big kombi escape. I couldn't write about our Kombi trip without mentioning the trip to the good ol' Currarong Bowlin' Club. The Kombi Kampers dressed up in their 70's gear for the big night out. There was Momma Smurf and CB Mike, Chuck and his Berry, The Chief, Rocket Retro Rob, Chesthairtransplantbrian, and The Big Kahoona and entourage. We gave the locals something to talk about until Santa comes. Everyone in the club got a buzz out of our arrival AND departure with Sue the boss of the joint that night announcing that "Elvis was leaving the building" over the PA which received a standing ovation from the crowd. It must have had something to do with the "Court of King Caractacus". Either that or the sideburns. Anyhow we piled into the courtesy bus for the long trip home via atrip around town to see the kangaroos thanks to tour guide Sue (same sue from behind the bar). As we pulled up outside our digs which was 200m from the Bowling Club the old girl behind Rod was said to say "You could 'of walked ya pooftas!" Check out the pics.

Kombi Camping

After being harassed repeatedly for a very long time (I think since coming back from Canada and not finishing my Canada blog) by my two darling children (who are now grown up responsible ladies now) I have finally started a blog mainly for Emily and Kerri to keep up with their really hip, out there, go gettum dad. So here is the first installment.
A 4 day trip to the south coast in a 1970 VW Kombi Van. Our friends from Newcastle who we bike ride with got together and planned this trip. It was a bit of a retro thing so we had a couple of planning BBQ get togethers to organise the theme of the trip and work out who was bringing what. We planned to travel Wednesday afternoon to Sydney to pick up the Kombis then head down the south coast to stay on the beach for a few days. You can work out from the Photos how we went.