Fence construction, Part 1

As evidenced by the photos below, the back fence was badly in need of replacement. So I got to it, the replacement to be made with treated pine.



All pulled down. Luckily the grandson of our 95 year old neighbour was round to visit his grandfather and saw it all sitting there, he came and took it away to burn in his fire which was an excellent result.



Chris came round one morning to lend a hand, here he is circular sawing and chiselling out the grooves in the posts.






First posts in.



Lining up



Getting the rails on



Post and Rail. Much to Alan's disgust. Alan is the 95 year old neighbour. I get the feeling he'd prefer the fence to stay down so he could come over and chat six times a day, about the same thing each time. Anyway, he has been keeping an eye on progress with great interest and kindly offered to 'keep an eye on the place' while we were away. No idea what he'd do if something went down.

Whitsundays

Kelley was fortunate enough to have a week long 'work' conference on Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. I say 'work' because she had to attend all of three half days. The rest of the time was lounging by the pool, driving golf buggies and eating fancy dinners. But anyway, I've heard enough....she finished up early Friday morning so I took the day off and flew out to meet her. We made the most of the last hour of golf buggy hire and Kelley's work mate Julia took us for a spin around 'Hammo'. Hamilton Island is easily the most built up of the Whitsunday Islands.



Skye, Julia, Kelley and I



Hamilton Island Marina



We then took a ferry to long Island which was mainly a National Park and covered in bush. Nestled in amongst the palm trees was Long Island Resort, a little run down compared to some of the others around but fine for us.

Long Island Resort at Happy Bay



We arrived at the resort on Friday and we were both quite tired so we made the most of the spa bath and had an early night. On Saturday we set about utilising the facilities at the resort, tennis, basketball, a walk over the island, a demonstration, and practical application of observed coconut de-husking skills.

A break on our walk over the island.



Strange fungus



Sandy Bay



Happy Bay, where the resort was, was very shallow and when the tide went out there was a lot of exposed sandy mud - as these clowns found out, the hard way. Was a bunch of young blokes who had hired a boat for the day. They didn't really get their money's worth!



The whole Island had these strange wild turkeys wandering around. After a few discreet enquiries - 'can you eat them?' - I found out they were protected.



On Sunday we embarked on a full day sailing trip aboard 'Camira', a 26m catamaran and capable of moving along under some decent wind.



The trip left from Daydream Island which was a small island dominated by a very nice resort, complete with a living reef and a reasonably decent sized shark



The Camira was great fun and we circumnavigated the largest of the islands, Whitsunday Island. We stopped off between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island for a spot of snorkelling which was good, some coral and plenty of fish but not everyone was keen, probably about 1/3 of people did it. It was then on to the famous Whitehaven beach which was stunning and we celebrated wildly...







After a spot of beach cricket, it was back to the boat for lunch, around the eastern tip of the island where one of the crew was sure she saw a female humpback whale. God knows how she knew it was female and no one else has seen it yet..

It was good going sailing with the wind behind us and we made good time back to Daydream island.







Was such a shame o have to get packed up and leave on Monday morning. The ferry back to Hammo was rough and I was the only one to ride it out on the exposed top deck and although I got wet it was probably better than watching people throw up downstairs.

Al in all, a very relaxing weekend and a great place to really get away from it all.