Living the dream!

Hi lovelies...

So Friday, we had a day off (it was crap as weather so we didn't have any plans - a chill day, if you will) and I received a call from the I-MED X-ray department in Rockhampton.

In a very brief phone call with the manager, he offered me a 4 week casual contract (not with any agency) so he offered accommodation too. So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to get working in radiography again (it's been 5months since Melbourne contract ended)!!! The catch: start Monday 8.30am!

Since I have been working at Luv-A-Coffee for 2ish months, I guess they knew I wouldn't be there forever. So my last day was Saturday, we went to the Irish Pub, had a lovely pizza, cut some shapes on the D-floor and Eaky had too many free beers - all round excellent night!

The girls got me some lovely flowers! So beautiful!!

 

 

I caught the bus from Emerald to Rockhampton, usually a 3hour drive took 4hours gaaahhh!

Was very glad to have rocked up to a lovely apartment, near town and the Mater Hospital (where I'm working for CQMI/I-MED/MIA).

 

After chats with the Manager, this could lead to permanent work - probably because it would be cheaper for them, but still awesome for me! If they train me in CT then I might be able to work in Emerald... Finally things are looking up!!

But they are all lovely to work with, very old general equipment but that's not surprising, so all round I'm one pretty happy lady!

Now if both Eaky & I can get permanent work then we can finally make some awesome money and continue to live the dream!! Hehe!

Xxxx Miss everyone in NZ, send us some news!!

Love Shahn!

Motivation Station

Sorry we have been SO slack this month, seems that this month has seen Michael slogging his ass out at the Cotton Gin, working 6 days a week.  We have both been suuuper busy WORKING. We have been both having Fridays off and attempting to do something awesome on that day off.

We were planning to go to Rockhampton and head to Yeppoon on the 4th of May, but we ended up yarning to a Kiwi guy at Trivia so got home late and then lacked the motivation to get up at 5am. So we minced about for the day and ended up heading to the the Fairbairn Dam for a dip.

We decided to head back to the Blackdown Tablelands, we missed out a real nice track last time that we were keen to look at.  The Rainbow Waters track was a mission for Hugo the Hulk, poor car, it was a rough track and to travel 14kms of gravel took over 45mins!

Our trip to Gudda Gumoo a short 4km round tramp in the Blackdown Tablelands

Shahn standing in the rocks near Rainbow Waters waterfall.  An absolutely stunning place!

 
It really is Rainbow Waters!! So gorgeous!

Eak and his clever bird friend - feeding it nuts, pretty cool!

We finally got our shit together (on 18/5/12) and made the 3hour trip to Rockhampton, with the intention to head to the coast to see the Keppel Islands and to smell the sorely missed sea breeze! Poor old Eaky was struggling after working his 72 hour week and then up at 430am to drive 3hours.  So we cruised on through Rocky, leaving the druggies and hobo looking people behind us and headed to the beautiful coast, to Yeppoon.

Wreck Point Lookout at Yeppoon.  Those hills are what we climbed to take the below pics...

 

The fan like structures are formed from lava tubes travelling up and then cooling.  Formed millions of years ago, and the top picture is a blow hole!

Green Tree Ant (Oecophylla smaragadina)  

Than can be used when out in the bush to make a tasty drink when quenched in hot water.

We ventured 18kms down the coastal scenic route to Emu Park, to the singing ship - a monument to honour Captain Cook who discovered and named Keppel Island in May 1770. It is a huge structure that does hum and whistle in the breeze, just lovely!

Poor Eak is missing his boat!

On we trotted to the Koorana Crocodile Farm, they breed their own Crocs for farming their skins, meat, skulls and teeth - they kill 700/year for exporting and consumption.  We got to see a baby croc being born, below is old love holding the egg and showing us how the female croc helps them out of the egg.  This farm can only use their captive bred crocs as farmed products, any wild caught crocs can only be used a breading stock.  As this farm catches massive rouge, wild, saltwater crocs causing issues in the community. Although  It could be argued we are in their territory but they are a danger to all.

 

Brand new baby croc, only a few mins out of his shell.  He can kill and catch his own prey fresh out of his shell.  Amazing that something so big managed to fit in that egg!

 Us each holding a 3year old croc.  He was incredibly smooth feeling, especially underneath on his belly - that is the main reason they are farmed, their belly skin is work $50/square cm.  Absolutely incredible reptile!

On the way out of the Crocodile Farm, we saw a pair of Emu on the side of the road, still not snakes, koala or kangaroo on photograph.... we will get there!!!

We have been thinking about our future travels, which seem to be sneaking up quicker than expected! Realistically we need to get it sorted, so we need to sort our shit out and make some serious money so we can travel the way we are intending to (far and wide, for as long as we can!)

The potential travel plans just trying to price it all up... just a few ideas still a few places to add this is just a idea as we need to price tickets and all.

Trying to do something extreme while in Africa... Anyone want to climb Kilimanjaro???can't be that bad, only 6000 odd metres to climb. http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/  http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/climbing-kilimanjaro/

We will endeavour to do better with future posts! Hopefully we have exciting things to report, like awesome jobs!

xxxxx Love Shahn & Eak

Two Months and going...

We have now been in sunny Queensland for two whole months! Crazy how time flies when your busy tiki-touring around and working semi-hard.

Sunset at the Fairbairn Dam

We went for a drive with Richard out to where all the underground coal mines are located, they are about an hour away from Emerald.  We weren't really sure what to expect but there is very little physical impact on mine site, to look at there is just site buildings and then there is the big ass piles of coal being offloaded from conveyor belts.  On the way out there, there was a Police escorted wide load trucks  with mine vehicles being sent to Emerald to be fixed/serviced - If any big loads have Police assistance you MUST pull over, luckily we had Richard with us to tell us to pull over as we would have just rolled on through. Classic! 

We went to see some of Richards mates, Shaun and Dawn Goodman for a yarn and ended up staying for a few beers.  They have two little kiddies Poppy and Guss, they are pretty funny kids. Poppy decided she wanted to paint everyone's toe nails, the boys were not excluded either!

I got bright red toes done, fully all over my actual toes - jandals (oh sorry, thongs... NOT) got a bit hammered too haha! Richard had a delightful shade of bluey-green, he was pretty chuffed! And Eak got gold glitter, he thought his toes looked a lot better shimmery and golden.

Cute little Poppy skillfully beautifying Eaks toes!

Eak has bought a fishing net/crab pot, and on our many trips to the Dam we drop it in to see what is lurking in the lake! On our first drop (bait: blue cheese wrapped in bread) we caught a freshwater cray - wasn't quick enough for a picture.  The second drop we didnt catch anything (bait: just bread). The third drop we caught a cat fish and a mud fish (bait: chicken with stuffing and bread).

Michael with his net (and new haircut, à la Shahn's skills)

Our catch of the day... We tagged and released all of these fishies (and the cray) as we didn't really want to eat them and we are not sure what the size limits are. Yip kosher Coastwatch, right here!

Michael finished up picking watermelons Sunday 29/3/12, after being rained off for 2 days. He started at the Cotton Gin seasonal work on Monday 30/3/12, he is driving some pretty budget trucks (the leader truck with no gear leaver have to use a piece of wire and jiggle it to find the gears up reverse, down a bit neutral, and push it a bit you get forward. Classic and rangi as) and then generally hanging out. Its 12 hour days, 6 days a week with Fridays off.
 

The beast "Leader" circa 1980 - The truck Eak has the pleasure of driving everyday!

Bales of cotton ready to be processed.

By working such big hours it will put us in the black until we can find something more fruitful to spend the rest of our time in Aussie until our further travels fall into place!

xxxx Love Shahn & Eak