Flinders Dig at Mallala

On Friday we exercised our archaeological brains with Flinders University field school. They were investigating a former pub located at the intersection of 7 roads. The remains of the pub have been plowed over for decades and most of the stone was removed.

The students flagged each artifact and then were gathering the spacial information of their location. Each one was bagged and labeled with the point data to plot back in the lab.


I surveyed a bit outside of the area plowed up recently to see how far the scatter went across the field. A beautiful working environment.


Back in MI we saw a track of a small animal in the snow & out in this field, the tire tracks reminded us of that shot. Ahh, the serenity.


The sun was setting & the pub was calling us to discussions over the historic pub we were recording for the day. One last recording before everyone packed up.

Swimming Trials @ Marion

Cam & I went to the Australian Swimming Championships the week of March 20th and really had a fantastic time watching all the swimming. This is the qualifying race for the London 2012 Olympics.

Check out the two Beefeaters down in the lower left of this photo. Two guys in red coats with the tall black hats. Adelaide's version of guards for the royals weren't as stiff as those in London, but they were entertaining & they danced.


Lots of finishes were extremely close like this one. I really love the butterfly, people powering through the water only raising forth to look ahead every few strokes. Its really powerful (my version, not so much). The guy that is two from the top has already won this race and is lifting his head as the guy second from the bottom just reaches the wall.


This is Libby Trickett, who has returned from retirement to enter her 4th Olympics. She just made the team when I took this shot & she was elated. Not only an amazing athlete, but also a spectacular role model. Keep an eye out for her in London everyone.


Cam snapped this "best shot" of the night - the start of a women's backstroke, I think. I hope the woman at the bottom closes her mouth soon.


Of course there was lots of competition, but also quite a bit of camaraderie. These two have been training together for years and they placed right next to each other. A healthy rivalry if I ever saw one.


My favorite moment over the course of both nights was this victory. I can't remember the whole story, but she has just found out that she won the race & I think she managed to beat her personal best record. When they interviewed her, she was so happy, she couldn't talk.

Neither Cam nor I are really much into following swimming as a sport, but these trials were really exciting. We rode our bikes to the pool & had a great couple of evenings. The scent of chlorine with a dash of Beefeaters and lots of splashing has set the stage for us for the Olympics.

Endeavour - in Port Adelaide

A huge replica of Captain Cook's ship that came to Australia in the 1700s came to Port Adelaide over Cam's birthday weekend. I thought, what an opportunity NOT TO MISS! So we signed up to volunteer & sleep on-board overnight. Our job (for 2 hr shift) was to make sure no one came on board from the water side of the ship. I guess there have been attempts to take it over in other ports & the volunteers help to prevent that. All we did was fill out some paperwork, have a federal police check (easy since we've had one from the visa), and show up. It was an AMAZING experience, we're both happy that we did it, and one night was enough.


We got to the boat about 7:30 pm and were there till about 8 am. We snapped some nice shots, and are going to have a contest (see below & vote carefully because a beer is riding on the winner). This shot has the Endeavour in the foreground and another tall ship that lives here in Adelaide in the background. The best story is that when the Endeavour arrived to dock, no one bothered to tell the bridge people when they would be arriving. They had to sit just outside Port Adelaide for about 1 hr before the bridge lifted.

We got to wander around, before either of our shifts & before we tried to sleep. This is at the back of the ship where the head 5 or so people including Joseph Banks (botanist) and James Cook (captain) would eat. It really reminded me of the ship from Peter Pan.


Like I said, we tried to sleep in these hammocks, but really neither of us did. We were docked and every time anyone on one of those hammocks moved, the other 3 of us felt it. I can't begin to picture what it would have been like at sea, swaying back & forth. I had a hard time because of my knee hyper-extending. I moved to that hard bench in the foreground and "slept" much better.

My shift was the 4-6 am shift and I spent most of my time trying to translate this photograph into a drawing. The perspective was really challenging and the light was dim, but serene. The rudder runs from the back to the right out of the photograph. All the ropes and details didn't quite come out in my pencil drawing, but it wasn't bad.


Cam had the 6-8 shift, so he was on deck while the rest of us swept up under the hammocks. The boat was built as a coal transport vessel & converted for Cook's voyage. Thus, one deck is about 1/2 the size in height as a usual deck. That is where most people slept. I guess since they would be lying down, no need for a full-height deck. C & I weren't too tired, but we went home & slept a couple of hours.

NOW onto the photo contest. Two were mine, two were Cam's. We are asking YOU to pick 1 image and vote for that image in the comments part. The one with the most votes after Sat March 31 5pm EST will win and the loser must buy a beer.

Ghost or Not?

Sunset or Sunrise?

All a-glow.

Picture perfect night.

Sydney & the Family

Cam & I headed to Sydney to check out all the new additions to his family. It was a great weekend and lots to eat. I went with MaryEd to get her haircut, the guys hung around the house, and we went on a super long walk at the north head (the entry to Sydney Harbor). On this trip too, Cam went to see The Wall in concert with Steve. There were lots of kids and less sleep than is our usual, but a great weekend overall.

The newest addition to the family was Aidan, son of Ted & Song. He was not very fussy at all, although he smelled like milk, all the time.


Here are Tony & MaryEd with all 6 of their grandchildren. They range in age from 12 to 3 months. How adorable are all of them?

Toby & Yalda traveled with their little Andia all the way from Chicago. She did well on the plane, and really liked spending time with her cousins. I even think I was able to convince her that the Superbowl was quite a fun game... She sat with me for the whole first quarter! Toby was convinced that was just because it was TV, but I think she enjoyed hearing all about it. Lets face it, this year's game was pretty exciting too.

The Bowral clan was also there in flying colors. We had a bit of a windy day, but that just made the Chinese lanterns and red or pink balloons take off.

Both Michelle and Nick are Godparents to the Shanghai crew. Here's a photo of Michelle, who spoke about the Chinese astrology. Sydney (in the front) was keen to inform me that the city was named after her. I tried to explain who came first, but I wasn't convincing.

All of the grandkids and their parents joined together to hold onto a red ribbon, symbolizing the blood line that runs through them all. I think the symbolism may have been missed by the little ones, but the photos will help tell the story when they are a bit older. Cousins unite!

Belair National Park

Cam & I went for a walk in Belair National Park, just about 1/2 hr from home. Neither of us have ever been there, but we've heard about how beautiful & huge this place can be, and were not disappointed.


When they say "Everything else" on this sign, they mean all the plants, animals, and rocks. There was tons of park and bushland in this national park. I just thought it was funny to put it on the sign...

Government house, a summer house for the governor, really wasn't as large as it appears in this image. We didn't go in (it was closed by the time we passed by after our hike), but they do have tours. The garden surrounding it was pretty nice, and there was a nursery that sold native plants next door.

"Walladar" is a word I made up to stand for looking out for koalas. Its a combination of "walla" short for "koala" and a shortened version of radar. Cam was smoking & found 4 to my 1, but then I came back for a final score of Cam 6 to my 5. We asked someone if they were looking at a koala just before leaving & she was convinced that the same one followed us & moved faster than us!

This view was a lookout near a "waterfall." Although we aren't in a drought, South Australia isn't really flowing with fresh water like Ohio. You never see a "creek" unless it is after a rain. The infrastructure of this lookout is anticipation of the flooding that occurs. Its feast or famine I guess.

The coolest part of this walk was this tunnel that you walked through to pass under a RR. The blackberries along the trail were daunting & over our heads on the approach. Ivy covered the other end, creating a mysterious exit.

Cam & I are enjoying Australia Day (celebrating someone coming on-shore near Sydney for the first time). We are listening to TripleJ and the "hottest 100" countdown of the best 100 songs of 2011. Its a sweet countdown that you can hear on-line. Check out

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/11/

On Line artile about newest exhibition

Check out this on-line article with some quotes from yours truly about the current exhibition at the Unley Museum...Silver Selection from our Collection. 70 people chose 70 things that meant something to them from our collection that is 25 years old.

I'm most proud of the photos! The article is on the bottom right.

http://www.indaily.com.au/default.aspx?iid=58714&startpage=page0000001#folio=010

Industry & Museums in New South Wales

Of course, what vacation of ours would be complete without a little archaeology, industry, and a museum or two?


Lets start with the first blast furnace to smelt iron ore in Australia! You probably can't read the sign, but this site was originally built in 1864 to create iron. The history of the operations were not nearly as successful as the WPF in NY, but there were similarities: huge stone foundations, salamanders the size of a desk, iron bolts a-plenty. I stumbled upon this place, which was adjacent to a car parking lot that interpreted and left open some of the archaeological remains.



Like many industrial complexes, this one was pretty substantial. The area is rich not only in iron ore but also granite to build the facility. The interpretation was very well done. Cam & I even picked up a little lunch and were yelled at by a security guard because we touched a sign while discussing the process.


Between Sydney & the farm is Goulburn and they boast at having a very powerful waterworks with in-situ original pumping engines and boilers. They rev them up each month and have a bit of an open house that helps to draw visitors. The town of Goulburn relied on this station from 1885 until the 1977.


There is an Appleby Beam Engine that transmits motion from the pistons to a crank. This engine was steam powered and later replaced by an electric engine.









These boilers needed to be kept going throughout the night when the beam was rocking. There is a small house that was built at the same time to accommodate the boiler - keeper and his family. Today a care-taker resides on the property. While we were there, the spot was very well-visited by the local youth as a swimming hole. I'm pretty sure that people have been swimming there even when it was the town's water supply.





Finally on our tour, I'd like to take you to an exhibit about "lace" in different forms. This wasn't your grandmother's lace, but thinking of patterns where the empty space is as important as the actual space.



This was at the Powerhouse museum and Cam, Lachlan, and I went there one afternoon. The web of iron and the aluminum shield were both amazing pieces, especially with the light. I could appreciate the movement of the pieces of material as they gently swayed with people walking by.



Lachlan wanted to see if his hair was going to stick up, but it didn't. All well, the trip was fun nonetheless.