Two-up day

Due to the aforementioned "Mad-hatter's Party", Jenny and I were not able to attend the dawn service. In leiu of this, we paid homage to those diggers by partaking in a few beers at All Barn Nun in O'Connor and placing a few wagers in two-up.

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During our interlude from the ring, we watched Mixy playing goalie for the ANU rats in Lyneham. Mix placed his body on the line again and saved his team from yielding a couple of points.

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Stuey, pictured with Amy, and Roberts were in great spirits having both attended the dawn service earlier and made a tidy pile of gold playing two-up.

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Mad-hatters at Moncrieff

Scotty maintains the dynasty at Moncrieff Street and hosted a Mad Hatter's party last night.

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Gattica and Annie joined us on the Autumnal Belgian-style Ale.

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A blaze of an astounding proportion was stoked.

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Elene could partake of the punch freely as she was wearing protection.

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Beanies didn't make the grade, so Ben applies the bumble-bee and poses with Lauren and Hodgo.

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Fireworks guy went all-out on this head-gear and Evan presents him with a massive gourd (not shown) in front of the lamp-post from Narnia.

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Stu brings something back

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Stuey dances at Jo and Pete's wedding reception at The Quarry in Cowra, March 2009.

Jo marries Pete in Cowra

Jo Apthorpe married Peter Brown at the Cowra Catholic Church on Saturday, 21st of March. Paula poses with the newly-married couple on the steps of the church.

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Shortly after the ceremony, guests were whisked to the Quarry for the reception.

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Andy and Shaun join me in celebrating the happy couple before that start their honeymoon in Africa.

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The bridal bouquet is captured by a surprising character.

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The dancefloor knocks it up another notch.

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Stuey and Ange amaze even Terry Lovitt (or not).

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Hash House Harrier Cycle Pub-Crawl

Gattica hooked us up with the Belconnen Hash House Harrier group for a bicycle pub-crawl that covered 12 venues from Zeirholtz in Fyshwick through to O'Malley's in Civic. Here, I pull in to our third stop.

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Jen and Kirsty pose at the Kingston Hotel. We hadn't seen any rain yet, but we were about to. Incidentally, women on bicycles are serious traffic hazards. A car ran up the back of another while watching girls ride by!

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Our most up-market stop was at the Belgian Beer Cafe.

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Our group passed close by parliament house in our approach to the Commonwealth bridge.

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Our eleventh stop saw us at Mooseheads and still going kind-of strong.

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Jenny obliged this hen and Phil's curiosity was piqued. I also made a donation to the hen's party collection.

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In typical Mooseheads style, the dancing was... flamboyant! We took pints at our last stop and wobbled our way home. Gatt, however, kept rocking out and I haven't seen him since!*

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*He did update his blog, though.

Yass Races 2009

Marchmont racecourse held the 108th annual Yass race meeting. Jenny and I made the short trip over with a few friends for the rather warm day. Thankfully, we were situated in a shady spot just up from the finish-line. Most races started out-of-view behind a hill in the middle of the field so that it was quite a surprise to have the steeds come 'round the corner and find out how your wager was faring.

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Tracey and I made our big win on the fourth race, the Ravensworth Cup, having backed a six-year-old charcoal gelding named Scutt.

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Here, the girls take it easy under the dappled light at our party-site.

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Amazingly, Jen captured the moment that this champagne cork rocketed from the bottle.

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Rimsy, having looked to make up some lost ground, settles for watching Megoz Lass come home in forth place.

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Tarago ride

On seven bikes, that's 22 cylinders and a total displacement of 3.4L, Jen and I joined a bunch of mates for a ride out to the "Loaded Dog" hotel in Tarago on Sunday afternoon.

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Steve couldn't come. Here's a video of him whipping his dead horse Ukranian tractor.

Hottest beach trip

On Friday afternoon, our party trawled Wasp Head. The heat we had experienced in Canberra prior to our departure had vanished by the time we reached South Durras.

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After camping at the Honeysuckle Beach Campground in the Murramarang National Park beside a very well-built campfire, we ventured down to the beach.

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We played a variation of beach football: just tackle whoever is holding the ball. Injuries were rife. Ash smacked my jaw, Glynn compressed his neck in an awkward tackle on Roberts, and we were all seriously abraded by the sand. Some body-surfing was to be had, too.

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Amy takes one from on-high while Ash watches in admiration.

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Following lunch at the South Durras cafe, we returned to the water in order to hunt.

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Ash and Glynn joined me in launching from the eastern tip of Wasp Head. I wasn't able to convince the lads to join me on a short sprint over to Wasp Island. (Though with inflatable boats, the temptation would have been irresistible).

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Jen poses at Wasp Head Beach. There's the football to the left where we played our second round of beach football. To the right a successful fisherman fillets his trevally. Subsequently, we all roared home to Canberra again in the sweltering heat.

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Focus trip

Pending the final adjustments on Steve's ZZR25o, it was necessary for us to take the Focus on our trip on the Australia Day long weekend. We camped at Honeysuckle Beach in Murramarang National Park with half of Canberra. Our first action was to take the boats into the surf. Tragically, Glynn's boat and Steve's inflatable dolphin incurred punctures. Next, we established a vigorous campfire in a vain attempt to ward of nicotine-addicted possums.

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Spearfishing netted us less fish than we had hoped for and we made our way back to Braidwood for a beer at the Braidwood Hotel. Patches wasn't about this time. Here, we decided to head south to the Wyanbene Caves off the Krawarree Road near Gundillion.

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Perhaps there are other entrances to the Wyanbene Caves? According to the sign at the entrance we used, you can take it most of the sites in the first 100 metres. However, the tunnels we explored petered out after a much shorter distance.

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To rinse off after our brief caving expedition, we entered the Wyanbene Creek. The water was cool and clear, with only a gentle current. (Perfect for leeches, though this didn't concern us at the time).

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In contrast to the packed campsite on the coast, we had Wyanbene entirely to ourselves. With it being rather cool in the mountains, I was relieved to have my swag handy. Surprisingly, one character was content to simply sleep in the open!

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Jen and I returned to the Wyanbene Caves campground on Friday. It was about 15 degrees C. cooler up in the mountains, compared to Canberra.

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On Saturday morning, we made a very short foray into the Wyanbene Caves. My little torch was just about out of power. Next time, we'll make it a bit further along I hope.

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We launched our boats on the wide, tidal section of the Clyde river. We shared the water with water-ski-ers, and some fisherman. Our trip on the water was much more conservative than that of the week prior.

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Jenny makes it look easy.

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We cooled off at South Durras beach on Saturday afternoon before driving that familiar stretch of the King's Highway.

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Optimistic boating

Following a drawn-out attempt to have me see reason, we settled on launching our vessels from the eastern shore of a bend in the Clyde river just north of the locality of Brooman. Laboriously, we inflated our ($20) boats and were bouyed (excuse me) by the copious depth and breadth of the river at that point.

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Princesses appreciate luxury. Here, Glynn tows an esky of beer (hat-tip) in a specially-designed pontoon.

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The Clyde, at its lowest in 100 years, was unable to support boats of even our modest draft. Inhospitable terrain forced us ashore after two hours on the water. After a late dinner'n'drinks on Friday I was malfunctioning and retired early to my hootchie. The lads stayed up with the fire and explained again, to the bemused farmers-on-horseback that we had planned to make it to Nelligen for lunch on Sunday, the following day.

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Reasoning that we were going to need a week at this rate to complete the intended journed, we trekked back to the car. We took only 12 minutes to arrive at the Focus! Really, at the rate we moved, a month would have been more appropriate!

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We made our way back to Nelligen along the River Road, passing over Shallow Crossing. The lower sections of the river are tidal and the current was flowing backwards in the morning. Had we miraculously made it this far, we'd have been frustrated by the current!

The lads and I stopped in at the Braidwood Hotel for a refreshing ale. (No Fanty here, Roberts).

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