Genealogy notes 18 Feb 2012 - Day 2 of Darwin battlefield tour

After a very nice buffet breakfast I joined everyone on the War Comes to Australia battlefields tour on a bus trip around Darwin to see the various military sites. As I explained in my Day 1 tour blog, I've been to most of these places numerous times but never as part of an organised tour. The first thing that struck me was that the commentary from the bus driver does really set the scene and that local knowledge is not something that you can read for yourself in the various tourist brochures on specific sites.

First we had a bit of a drive through the city as we made our way to Stokes Hill and on to Fort Hill Wharf. Then to our first stop which was the WW2 Oil Storage Tunnels and I remembered how surprised I was when I first went into them because they are so much bigger than you actually expect to see. My fellow travellers were equally surprised and everyone wandered the length of one of the tunnels looking at the various photo displays along the wall.

Then we went out to the Charles Darwin National Park which I had never been to so I was surprised to see the almost underground old RAAF ammunition bunkers and we had a quick stop at one with a comprehensive display inside. There wasn't really time to have a good look so we will go back out on Wednesday after the tour as I'm not sure why Max hasn't taken me there before, perhaps he has just forgotten about them or doesn't expect them to still be there. The lookout at the Park gives a magnificent view of Darwin and it's worth the drive out alone just for that.

Then it was back into the city and although I've walked past Christchurch Cathedral many times, I've never bothered to walk down and look inside. It's partially survived the bombing and Cyclone Tracy and is today a mix of the old front of the church and a more modern building behind. Back on the bus and we went out to the other side of the city and passed the 1934 QANTAS Hangar another place we've never visited. Unfortunately a stop there wasn't on the agenda so we will go there on Wednesday as it is run by the Motor Vehicle Enthusiasts Club so no doubt lots to interest Max.

Our next stop was the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory another familiar place for me and a great place to take the grand-kids. Still it was good to have a quick look around and I noticed that Frontline Australia was running a Darwin Film Festival there from 15-22 February including the National Sound and Film Archive film Out of the Ashes. Different films were running on the hour and you could easily spend the day in air conditioned comfort for free.

Then back on the bus and back to the hotel to get ready for the two afternoon lectures. First up was Dr Tom Lewis OAM, Director of the Darwin Military Museum and he is the author of a number of military books including A War at Home. I found him an entertaining speaker who talked fast and never used notes (yes an ex schoolteacher). Tom's talk was NT Under Attack: 1942 air and submarine attacks and introduction to war heritage sites, including Darwin Military Museum and I did wonder how he would fit it all in and finish on time but he did.

With the use of two large, easily read maps, Tom was able to discuss the Japanese and American strategies and where Darwin/Australia fitted in this bigger picture. While I was aware of the bombing raids on Darwin, I had not realised that submarines were also active in the area prior to the raids so I found this part of Tom's talk really interesting. Towards the end of his session, Tom then talked about the bombing raids and at this point I would have liked to see a slideshow of images behind Tom as he discussed the various ships, buildings and so on. I think this would have given a much more visual insight into the death and destruction that he was talking about. Given the scope of his talk I could have listened to more, but we are visiting the Darwin Military Museum on Monday (I've been several times and always found it fascinating) plus we are also going to the just opened Defence of Darwin Experience so that will reinforce the points Tom was making.

The next session was Brad Manera and his topic was on the Japanese Submarines in Sydney Harbour 1942 and again I had some familiarity with the topic. Although Brad has a script he doesn't refer to it very often and he is an easy speaker to listen to. Perhaps what struck me most about his talk, was the slide showing the map of Sydney Harbour and the paths taken by the three Japanese midget submarines that night of 1 June 1942. I hadn't realised that one of the subs had actually sailed down and around Fort Denison which is pretty close to where the Sydney Opera House is now. The other surprising fact is that Fort Denison bears two scars from the Americans trying to shoot one of the submarines when it surfaced. I would have liked to have seen a photograph at this point so that next time I'm sailing around Sydney Harbour I know exactly where to look as I've not seen it before, or not realised what I was actually looking at.

The other thing I really liked about Brad's talk was his detailed information on the crews of the three submarines. He had photos, biographical information and so on that showed they were people just like anyone else but caught up in a war. I'm not sure if it was the proximity to St Valentine's Day or not, but I found myself wondering about whether they had wives and families or girlfriends they had left behind like everyone else. And of course their mothers.

One submarine the crew blew up, the other ran aground and the captain killed his crewman and then himself and the third escaped but its fate was not known until it was finally found five years ago. In the chase that night   in 1942 there were casualties apart from the 4 Japanese crew, 19 Australians and 2 British sailors were also killed on board the HMAS Kuttabul which took a torpedo and sank within minutes. The Kuttabul is the focus of a commemoration project 1942-2012 and descendants and relatives are being sought.

After a few questions we were all heading out to the buses for the trip down to Darwin wharf and our sunset cruise around the harbour. I've done a few of these (even the pearl lugger used in the movie Australia) but never with a commentary specifically about the bombing raid and where all the various ships were in the harbour. The welcome champagne was nice and the nibblies delicious but then I've never met an oyster kilpatrick that I didn't like!

After sunset we headed into port and the long walk down the wharf back to the buses and the short drive back to the hotel. Tomorrow is the official memorial celebrations and we will all be making our own way there (just a short walk along the Esplanade). There's a free afternoon for people to do their own thing, I'll probably be catching up on my blog writing!

I should also mention that Unlock the Past and Gould Books are tempting people with their book stall at each lecture session and one lady mentioned to me on the harbour cruise that she had spent a small fortune. For once it wasn't me! Till next time.

Genealogy notes 16-17 Feb 2012 - Battlefield tours

Why is it when you have limited time, everything goes ever so much faster. Thursday was a blur with lots of unexpected things happening while I was busy trying to tidy up before leaving for Darwin and the War Comes to Australia tour. This has been organised by Unlock the Past and Mat McLachlan's Battlefield Tours and I am very privileged to be one of the speakers on the tour.

This is my first battlefields tour and I have contemplated doing one to Gallipoli or the Western Front as we have relatives who died at either place - Tasman Jarvis who died at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 and Frederick Trevaskis who died at Langemark, Belgium on 13 Oct 1917. I'm a bit cranky with myself for missing Greece and Crete last year as Max's father Charles Douglas Spencer received his military medal in Greece in 1941.

I also wouldn't mind doing a South African one as two of my mother's uncles, Solomon and William Price went to the Boer War twice, both joined the South African Police and William even married a Boer widow before he died in South Africa in 1916. The other trip I would seriously consider doing is Tobruk where my uncle Leslie Gordon Price was a 'Rat' but his 'kidney dish' shows that he was at many other places in the Middle East and later the Pacific.

So in some ways it's a  bit odd that I have ended up in Darwin for a battlefields tour with no personal connection apart from Max's 25 years defence service which saw him in Darwin with both the Army and the RAAF in the 1960s and 70s. However,  it was a good opportunity to see how these tours operate and whether you do find out more about the military side of things as well as doing the touristy thing too. As we have four grandchildren in Darwin, we know the city fairly well but I was interested to see how others highlight Darwin to tourists.

So it was with some excitement that I made the trek out to Melbourne airport and after about an hour's delay due to 'paperwork', my Jetstar plane finally made it into the air. It's a long flight over Central Australia and I always get a window seat so that I can look down on the desert, see the sand dunes, the salt lakes, sometimes flooded creeks and rivers and so on. It's fantastic scenery even from that height although we didn't seem to be as high as usual. The pilot also managed to make up some time and after collecting our luggage we (other battlefields tour people were on the same flight) were quickly met and at the Novetel Darwin Atrium on the Esplanade in no time.

With about five minutes to spare before the official welcome dinner we all quickly checked in and headed back down for dinner which was postponed for a few minutes so that we could all settle. I had a bit of trouble with my key card not opening the door but that was soon sorted. Given my hearing issues, they very nicely left me a seat on one of the front tables where I was pleased to see two people I knew from Queensland and the gentleman on my right was from the same suburb where I live (talk about a small world).

Like most group dinners this was an either/or choice and I ended up with chicken for a main and the pudding for dessert with the other choices being steak and cheesecake. Tables of eight never really work for me but given the noise level everyone else seemed to be having a good time getting to know each other. A sponsor of the tour is Inside History Magazine and there was a complimentary copy of their magazine handed out to each individual or couple - appropriately it was their military issue Sep-Oct 2011. After dessert we had the first lecture of the tour, no wasting time!

Brad Manera's World War 2 1939-45: an overview of Australia's role in Europe and the Pacific was a very good introduction to the whole tour. Brad is an easy speaker and his photographic presentation supported what he was saying. At the end he took lots of questions from a very keen audience.

We all have to be ready for our tour of Darwin in the morning at 9.00am and as I had already lost 90 minutes that day (daylight saving & time differences within Australia for my overseas readers), I went to bed! Tomorrow afternoon there are two more lectures and a sunset cruise so another big day ahead. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 8-15 Feb 2012 - Cornish genealogy this week

Where does time go? I've spent a lot of the last week sidetracked by cleaning out my family history file cabinets and rediscovering bits and pieces I'd forgotten about. It really is amazing how much is now online. I must have spent a small fortune printing out images of BDM indexes and other genealogy resources on fiche and film which of course I no longer need hard copies of. Also lots of poor quality printouts from early newspapers which I can now get better quality digital images of through TROVE.

I also spent a bit of time looking at my Cornish ancestors as St Pirans Day is approaching in March. The FamilySearch website now has digitised images of Cornish parish registers so as long as you know the date of the event you can get an image from the digitised register. Certainly beats all those hours of winding through microfilm back in the late 1970s early 1980s when I first started researching my Cornish gg grandparents. The Cornwall Online Parish Clerks website is a perfect companion to the Family Search site and it's no wonder I lost a day or two.

Perhaps the most exciting news of the week was that I entered an Inside History magazine competition and was one of the lucky winners. I'm eagerly awaiting my prize which was a copy of the book Abandoned Women by Lucy Frost - all about Scottish female convicts to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

I'm off to Darwin tomorrow for the War Comes to Australia Tour which is participating in the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin. It's only five days but the itinerary includes a lot of touring and seminars which should be interesting. Then I have three days off to see our four grandchildren and to do other touristy things in Darwin. We go up every year, usually in the rainy season as there are less tourists then.

Before we head back to Melbourne there is a Darwin family history seminar with the Northern Territory Library and the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory where  Rosemary Kopittke  and I are giving three talks each. I'm hoping to do some tweeting and blogging from the far north over the next week as I think it will be a fascinating time to be in Darwin.

Reading the Queensland State Archives Feb 2012 qsa-bulletin, I noticed that there is a new online index to lands sold 1842-1859 which is exciting and one of the reasons I subscribe to free government archive e-newsletters is to learn about new resources. The February issue also had lots of other interesting news and if you have Queensland interests then past issues may be worth looking at here.

One day I will catch up with all my reading piles, paper, email, and online but it won't be anytime soon. There's too much happening which is a good thing for family history. Until next time, happy searching!

Genealogy notes 21 Jan - 7 Feb 2012 - Lots happening

It has been unbelievably hard settling back into a routine after our five week trip. Even with the laptop permanently set up and connected to the internet again, I find that it is not as easy to spend as much time online as I did before. Probably a good thing!

Part of the issue is catching up with everything - all the emails, blogs, Facebook, Twitter and so on. I feel that I have missed so much and just reading the online newsletters takes a while, especially if you stop and look at links mentioned. This is especially true for Lost Cousins, Dick Eastman, Now & Then (SRNSW) to mention just a few.

Then I have my 'paper' genealogy journals and magazines to catch up on and the various books I bought on the cruise. Plus I've been down to the local library and took out two books that people suggested I read for information and background on convicts (Alison Alexander's Tasmania's Convicts: How Felons Built a Free Society and Babette Smith's Australia's Birthstain: The Startling Legacy of the Convict Era).

We've also made a decision that we are definitely going to sell up in a couple of months so a lot of my time has been tackling various rooms of the house in a bid to declutter and pack. It's also been a discovery process as we are now looking at some boxes that we never really unpacked from Canberra (yes I know it's been nine years). Max has an incredible number of photo albums, loose photos etc plus we 'found' all his mother's albums as well which Max received after she died. So I have been distracted by early photos of Max including his school days!

What I also discovered going through some of Max's boxes was that he has kept all my letters to him after I moved to Melbourne (he didn't have email) so that is bringing back a torrent of memories for us both (and what do I do with them - never imagined anyone would keep my letters!). So while it is relatively easy to clear out cupboards, repack and so on, it is also incredibly easy to get sidetracked. Another bag of letters were from his mother and included all sorts of correspondence from family and friends so I have a lot of reading and sorting to do. It is all Max's family, but that's not what he likes doing so it's up to me to be the family archivist for his side, as well as my own.

I also have some genealogy commitments coming up so I've been busy reworking a military talk I am giving in Darwin for the War Comes to Australia Tour and another three talks for the Unlock the Past Darwin family history seminar on 25 Feb 2012. The AFFHO genealogy congress in Adelaide is fast approaching (28-31 March) and I have to get my two presentations to them in advance. The congress should be good as lots of my friends from around Australia and New Zealand will be there and we are even having a Genealogists for Families catch up as well.

The Kyabram Regional Genealogical Society have asked me up there for a seminar on 3 Mar so I'm fitting that in between Darwin and Adelaide - one day I will learn to say no, but these small societies don't get the chance to hear 'external' speakers all that often so it is hard to say sorry, can't do. Plus I have been friends with one of their members for a long time and she is letting us stay with her.

As well as my talks, I also try to do a blog or two and I participated in Twigs of Yore's Australia Day Challenge with my Thomas Price - Wealth for Toil blog and I can never resist a Geniaus challenge so I also did a My Bucket List geneameme. I'm also writing an article for Inside History magazine.

My aim is to get back to doing this diary on a more regular basis as well as keeping on top of my emails and other genealogy news. It makes me wonder how I fitted everything in when I still worked every day - was I just more organised and focussed or am I taking more time out now to smell the roses (and overdosing!). Enough pondering for now, it's back to work - should I tackle all Max's mother's letters or her photo albums? Stay tuned!

Genealogy notes 13-20 Jan 2012 - end of the journey

Thanks to those people who have been commenting on this blog either directly or through Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. It's always good to know that someone is reading it!

After my idyllic stay at the Jamberoo Pub, we went on to Ulladulla where we spent two days with Max's brother and checked out some nice places to live including Tabourie Lake and Burrill Lake. Now we are wondering if Port Macquarie will be too hot and wet although the Ulladulla area is a little cool for January. The only thing we agree on is that we want to leave Melbourne and move to a much smaller town, away from the traffic madness of a capital city.

We then continued on down the coast and originally planned to stop in Eden but we have been there many times, so pushed on to Mallacoota in Victoria. We have only been there on day trips while passing through so it was good to stay overnight although there was no mobile phone coverage and incredibly windy. We usually cook outside or use the camp kitchen/bbqs but the wind was whipping up a bit of dust so we went to the Mallacoota Hotel for dinner (very nice seafood platter for two and three times cheaper than Melbourne and other places we've been). The stars tonight were absolutely brilliant as there is very little light as Mallacoota is so remote.

Next day we stopped in remote Cann River for an early lunch and unbelievably I had more mobile phone coverage there than I usually get at home (outskirts of Melbourne) so I'm not sure how they roll their networks out! One can't go past a Cann River pie and we didn't - not sure how many Cann River pies I've had over the last few years that we have been doing this trek through Victoria/New South Wales but it's quite a few! We weren't disappointed and after satisfying our pie lust, we moved on towards the Gippsland Lakes which are the largest network of waterways in Australia.

Our friends have a remote property just outside of Paynesville (apparently the boating capital of Australia) and they invited us to stay for a few days. Their place is a haven for just about every bird you can think off. You could spend all day watching the galahs, crimson rosella and lorrikeets and at night you have the owls and possums and other wildlife moving around as well. The fish weren't quite as plentiful but we did manage a feed of garfish which were incredibly tasty once you managed to remove the backbone.

They do a lot of their travel down there by boat so we did the trip into Paynesville by boat and also down to Loch Sport as well as visits to various of the islands which are also breeding colonies for the many species of birds that make the Gippsland Lakes their home. We even had a picnic breakfast on one island, you take all your rubbish back with you and the eco-toilets were interesting. I could have done without the very big hairy spider running across the picnic table as were eating, but then I wouldn't have known that I can still move that fast!

Eventually all good things come to an end and we said goodbye for the trip back across Melbourne and home to Hoppers Crossing (five weeks away and just over 5,000km). The pile of snail mail was unbelievable, but our good neighbour had mowed the lawn for us so that didn't look too bad. Unpacking the caravan was a chore along with washing it down, doing the laundry and going out to the shops, paying the bills and so on. How quickly life returns to normal!

My 'to do' list is several pages long - I have an article to write for Inside History, a Twigs of Yore challenge blog to write for Australia Day, four talks to prepare for the Unlock the Past War Comes to Australia tour to Darwin and the genealogy seminar on 25 February, two presentations to finalise for the AFFHO genealogy congress in Adelaide at the end of March, not to mention getting the house ready for sale! At least the time will go quickly and who said retirement is boring with nothing to do - they obviously weren't a genealogist. Stay tuned.

Genealogy notes 2-12 Jan 2012 Still following in ancestral footsteps

One thing that has surprised me on this trip is the varying range of mobile phone and internet connections as we move from place to place. Sometimes I have been unable to connect when I fully expected to yet in small remote places I have been able to. One thing I do know, if all capital city people had to experience the varying and frustrating cover like regional people, then I suspect our communication systems would improve speedily!

Before we left Tweed Heads, New South Wales (see last Diary post), we visited the North Tumbulgum historic cemetery as my John and Sarah Finn family moved to Tumbulgum after they sold their farm at Nambour in Queensland. The cemetery is literally on the side of a small mountain in the middle of a rainforest and not quite 20 years ago there was an effort to reclaim the cemetery from the rainforest and signs explain the history of the area and the cemetery. However it was obvious we were the first people to visit in quite a while and the trees and other vegetation have grown even more and the mosquitoes were very hungry! It reminded me very much of Walhalla in Victoria but it's not in a rainforest.

We also took time out to visit Grafton again as another one of my families, John and Helen Carnegie moved there from Brisbane in the 1860s and early 1870s (only then they were temporarily using the surname Stanley) before they moved back to Toorbul in Queensland and restarted using the Carnegie name! Both John and Helen Carnegie are buried in the historic Toorbul cemetery and their gravestone is the only surviving one. I actually have a photograph of it before it was broken.

From there we moved on to Coffs Harbour and stopped at Boambee for the night. As Coffs gets bigger, the smaller towns around it seem to become suburbs and we nearly drove right past the caravan park as we were thinking south of Coffs not in it!

Then we arrived in Port Macquarie a place I have visited many times over the years and is now firming up as one of our options of retiring to. Although I will say it is a very busy place in the Christmas/New Year period, usually we are there outside of the holiday season. The weather was great, although a little humid some days and even a bit cool on others (but then the whole east coast seems to have been cooler this January). There is lots to do here but one of our highlights was an afternoon cruise on a real Chinese junk through the various waterways and we were even followed by a school of dolphins which was good to see.

We had to keep moving on so after four days we headed south and did the big detour around Sydney and finished up in the Southern Highlands, overnight at Moss Vale. This is another family area where my Thomas and Elizabeth Price first went to after arriving in Sydney in 1878. I can track their movements as they had a child in various towns (with my grandfather Henry Price being born in Nattai near Mittagong in 1887) before they moved down to the Shoalhaven area. As we drove down the incredibly steep escarpment via the Illawarra Highway and Macquarie Pass, I couldn't help wonder how they travelled down it in the late 1880s.

We stayed two nights in Shoalhaven Heads and spent our days exploring this very scenic area and again visiting the various places my Price family lived before they left for Charters Towers in Queensland. I also spent time speculating on the fact that if they hadn't done this, Henry Price would never have met Alice White and my mother (and me) would never have been born. It was quite chilly at night for January (although the weather reports said that it was unusual weather) but we still left with Port Macquarie our firm favourite to retire to.

After a look around Kiama where another Price child was born, we headed to Jamberoo where Max was meeting up with his brother for a bit of bush camping which is not quite my style. I am currently booked into the historic Jamberoo Pub and Motel enjoying the peace and quiet and catching up with my emails, writing some long overdue blogs and generally relaxing (although the cockatoos are a bit noisy).

I also have a lot of email newsletters to catch up on and there must be heaps of genealogy news I've missed via tweets and Facebook but I also have to say that I don't think I've been this relaxed in years. Sometimes it really is good to stop and notice the wonderful countryside in which we live and it's great to be able to visit the places my ancestors lived and try to picture what it was like for them back then. Until next time, all the best with your own genealogy searches.

Genealogy notes 18 Dec 2011 - 1 Jan 2012 Genealogy on the Road

The first two weeks of being a grey nomad has simply flown by, but not without a few dramas along the way. I even managed a bit of genealogy too.

Before we set off we made certain (or tried to) that we had both the car and caravan mechanically sound - new tyres, batteries, services etc - because we knew that we would be travelling on outback roads. We also were keeping up with weather reports because we were travelling in the wet season and that area can flood quickly. Stopovers included Finley (largest irrigation channel in Australia), Forbes (home of Ben Hall's grave, he was an Australian bushranger for my overseas readers), and Gilgandra (home of the 1915-16 Cooee March). The bird life on the way up the Newell Highway was amazing and in many places water lying either side of the road had transformed the area almost into a wetlands. I loved seeing all the emus as you don't always see them closer to the coast.

We finally ran into both mechanical trouble and floods just as we were heading into Walgett, a small town in north western New South Wales which doesn't have a caravan park either, so we couldn't stay. Nor could we find anyone with the time who could help with the caravan dust caps popping off - Max being mechanically minded knew that there was a problem with the bearings so we decided to do makeshift repairs ourselves, gave up on trying to reach Lightning Ridge where we might have been flooded in for Christmas, and made a run back to Narrabri on a road that was 'open with caution', floodwaters having receded a little. We treated ourselves to dinner at the Narrabri RSL and their restaurant the Outback Shack is definitely worth a visit for both its amazing decor and food (real country servings). This is also a cotton growing area and it was interesting to drive through all this lush greenery when we expected dry and dusty.

We have Top Cover with RACV and we were aware that there was a reciprocal arrangement with other RAC organisations around Australia. So we also contacted NRMA but under the arrangements we only have basic cover in NSW which meant the caravan was not covered and they couldn't help us until we actually broke down and needed a tow. We need to look into this a bit more when we get back as breaking down in the outback with no mobile phone coverage is not something we really want to do. Nor do we want to take up membership with every RAC organisation either, although maybe you can't if you don't actually live in the state. I could rave on here about why isn't Australia a single country with a single RAC and all the other state differences (including fishing licenses) we have every time we cross a state border but I won't.

I was disappointed about not getting to Lightning Ridge as I do want to see where my great grandmother lived for a time. But she was also out at Thargomindah and Eulo so we will have to definitely come back in the dry season as those towns are even more remote. I always wonder how she managed to get that far out - coach? And of course, the big question - why?

Our repairs held so we moved on to Goondiwindi just over the Queensland border but by then we knew we were in trouble but again, only a day out from Christmas Eve, we couldn't find anyone that could help. So doing more temporary repairs on the other wheel too, we decided to try and make Brisbane. The RACQ advised the best road was via Toowoomba so we set off on the long lonely stretch between Goondiwindi and Millmerran, a town even smaller than Walgett. I was very happy to see the caravan park in Millmerran as at least we would have somewhere to stay as it was now obvious we needed to fix the bearings on the caravan wheels.

Advised there was only one mechanical place in town we went there seeking advice and walked in on them having lunch. To our surprise, they came outside straight away, checked both caravan wheels and said, yes you have big problems! This was more than we had been able to get anyone else to do but then they went on to say they could fix both wheels for us and have us back on the road within the hour. And they did, all still within their lunch hour! We gave them a bit extra so that they could have a Christmas beer or two - we would never have made it down the Toowoomba range without their friendly assistance.

I have always loved small Queensland towns and Millmerran is now one of my favourites for its hospitality and helpfulness. We wandered around the main street while the mechanics fixed the bearings which apparently hadn't been put back on quite properly when serviced.

We then made it into Toowoomba (Max's great grandfather was mayor at one time) and finally Newmarket (Brisbane) to spend Christmas Day with my family. We also caught up with Max's cousins in Burpengary and Redcliffe. We also spent some time in Toowong cemetery looking for family graves which I had last seen thirty odd years ago! Armed with my laptop we could look up Grave Location Search which gave us portion, section and grave number and a map to assist (but it still took some searching and Toowong is very steep in places). Sadly it didn't look like anyone had been to my grandfather's grave in the last three decades so we spent time digging up all the weeds and we then took new digital photos of all my relatives graves. I have old photos at home so it will be interesting to see the changes as the graves look more worn and one had even collapsed.

We are currently at Tweed Heads on the Queensland/ New South Wales border and catching up with friends and relatives before heading further south. Max is off visiting an old army mate who he recently found after forty years and I am taking the opportunity to catch up on my emails, enewsletters, blogs and so on. Before our next trip, I definitely need to get a smaller laptop (or  whatever) as this is too big to set up daily, not that I have the energy, or even the inclination, every day. The other drawback is that we don't always have mobile phone or internet coverage and we spend long hours on the road some days.

However it's been great fun so far and we are learning more about our country's history and geography as we go around and I really need to do something about organising our digital photos and movies as we go or it will be an enormous job when we get back! So many interesting things to take images of but often the real thing is so much better to watch. I've seen some great outback sunrises and sunsets, not to mention the absolute beauty of the stars at night in areas where there are no streetlights.

Until I next log on, all the best for 2012. I hope it's a great year for everyone.