Alpine Shire holiday
We returned to Mount Gambier today after a lovely two-week holiday in the Alpine Shire region of North East Victoria, where we used to live. (more…)
Dude’s oak tree
We were curious when we returned to Porepunkah to see if Dude’s oak tree was still there.
When he was three or four years old, about 10 years ago, my parents gave Michael and Kathleen each an acorn, which they planted in pot plants.
Kathleen’s failed to grow, while Michael’s thrived.
He planted it in the back yard of our “little house” where we lived for our first four years in Porepunkah.
The tree grew and was doing well when we left four years ago.
It’s still going strong (pictured to the right of the cubby house).
I hope it’s never removed. We worried it may crowd out the fig tree next to it someday, or the roots could become a nuisance.
It’s just nice to think we have left behind something so substantial and beautiful. (more…)
Porepunkah revisited
We visited Porepunkah today for the first time since we left almost four years ago exactly. (more…)
Feeling the cold
Winters in Kalgoorlie are short and not very cold, but temperature is a relative thing. It does get down to zero in Kalgoorlie but it’s a dry crisp cold and days starting that way tend to warm up nicely.
I only encountered a handful of days when the wind was strong enough and chilly enough to make indoors more attractive than being outside.
Moving back to south-eastern Australia we’ve experienced a very mild start to winter, but there have been a few hints of what’s to come.
Stopping near Ballarat for lunch I wanted to close the door to keep the cold out; haven’t done that for three years. (more…)
Alpine News
Cleaning up before a big move always reveals some nostalgic items. Today I came across CDs containing copies of the Alpine News.
This was a weekly newspaper that Juliet and I produced from our home in Porepunkah for six months from July 2002 to January 2003.
It circulated in the Bright area and reached a peak of 2400 copies when we also distributed free in Myrtleford. (more…)
October in Kalgoorlie
The weather has been relatively mild so far this month, although they’re forecasting 35 degrees and windy for the “spring” festival on Sunday.
I came home from work this afternoon after a full day inside the office, stepped out of the car and said to Juliet: “This reminds me of those summer evenings in Porepunkah when we used to go for a swim at the river.” It was 29 degrees.
Of course, it will get much hotter in Kalgoorlie and we’ll have more days over 40 than Porepunkah used to get over 32, and North East Victoria gets hot by Victorian standards.
Our first house at Porepunkah
The first house we ever owned was at Port Pirie, South Australia. We bought it for $45,000 in 1993. We sold it to my parents when we moved to Eden.
We bought a house again when we moved to Porepunkah, Victoria. It was a small three-bedroom hardiplank home on a delightful block in Seamer Street, and cost $81,000. A few years later we moved two doors up the road to a much bigger house, which cost $184,000.
The picture shows the last heavy snowfall at Porepunkah. I think it was in 2000. I remember it was a Sunday in May. We don’t have many other pictures of the little house, and I regret not taking more photos around Porepunkah on the day of that snowfall.
