It's been another week of great sunrises and radically different temperatures...One morning, it's freezing...Put on all the layers just to stay halfway warm...A couple days later, it's over 100 F...Strip down and find the breeze..

 (above) It is so nice to have a sunrise view...

 

(above) One evening I noticed the radial light pattern from the solar lights at the bottom of the front door steps...

 (above) The freezing cold morning sunrise...

 (above) I can't believe that it's been more than a month that I've been here and this is my first pie...!!!...I still think that someone in The States will start a drive-thu-pie-kiosk chain, and become fabulously wealthy...

 

(above) Another day, another great sunrise...This was on a day that was a scorcher...!!!...

 

(above) Sunrise reflection in the round window...

 (above) Neighbor's house on the dirt road...It's got that fix-er-up thing going on...You can almost hear the banjos playing...

 (above) At the tool rental store...Beds, folding tables, fiberglass crocodiles...Sure...



(above) How about a concrete kangaroo...Why not...???...Or maybe the baby giraffe behind it...???...

(above) It's worth getting up early every morning just to see the light show...

(above)  I appreciate each and every sunrise because someday I won't be here to see them...

(above)  The wild dog came around again...I went outside to see what it would do and it stood it's ground...Good to know...

(above)  I've been working on building the refrigerator/freezer...

(above)  It is solidly in place...I jacked up the concrete countertop, slid the box in place, silicone caulked the rim and lowered the countertop...Like I said, it's solid...

(above)  On the way to work every day, the local herd is all heads down...

(above)  Not much rain lately...

(above)  Mailbox...

(above)  Down in Wauchope there is plenty of pasture land...

(above)  Every other truck around here is some variation on this style...

(above)  Back up in Comboyne, Till and I bottle the beer we brewed last week...

(above)  My share of our batch...

(above)  Another day, another sunrise...

Friday I went to work, put in a full day and made plans to work over the weekend since the homeowners were going out of town until Monday...After work i went to town to get a beer and a pizza...Just as I got into town, the engine made one of those horrible breaking noises and all power was lost...I was fortunate to be able to coast to a curb and park it...I looked at my watch and it was 5:15...Fifteen minutes after most businesses close...I was screwed...I had the address of Andrew's preferred repair shop with me...I walked to it luckily it was still open...Long story short, It was the timing chain that broke and plans were made for repairs...The auto shop guy kindly gave me a ride back to the house I'm working at...

(above)  So I had my beer and pizza and walked around and took some pictures...

(above)  The house is along a river...They say bull sharks cruise around here and recently a boy got chomped...Cows regularly get pulled in and discover their place on the food chain...

(above)  From the river looking back to the house...

(above)  It was a nice warm late afternoon...

(above)  In the neighboring field, baby has a snack...

(above)  In the other field, Salt and Pepper bask in the low sunlight...

(above)  "Hey, where's my apple?"...

(above)  This makes me think of my daughter's hair...

(above)  Springtime is in full bloom...



(above)  So much rich color here...

(above)  I get the impression it never snows here...

(above)  The homeowners have a pair of Jack Russels that seem joined at the hip...

(above)  See...

(above)  A Holden "Ute"...

(above)  I dig these things...

(above)  I moved a chair into the sun in the covered barbecue area and read a book...

(above)  "No Angel" and undercover cop's true story of infiltrating the Hells Angels...

(above)  The sun about to drop out of sight...

(above)  Meanwhile the nearly full moon continues it's circular path...

I worked long days over the weekend and got word the van had more serious damage than first thought...I ended up staying at the workplace for another two nights until I got a car to drive for ten days...

(above)  Finally on the way back to Comboyne, This pelican would not move out of the road until I opened the card door to see if it was hurt...Then it got up and casually sauntered away...Weird...

(above)  Back up at Comboyne, the full moon rises...

(above)  As a full moon sets...

 

(above)  ...the sun also rises...

 

(above)  It's going to be a warm one...and it was...

 

(above)  Back home after work, the moon rises...

 

(above)  The next morning, a wallaby and it's kid came around...

 (above)  It's Saturday and I've made plans to go surf with Rob, so it was a drive to the beach on the back road...The dirt back road...

 

(above)  Understatement...

 

(above)    When I hit the pavement, I checked out the car for potential missing hubcaps...

 

(above)  Simple works for me...

 

(above)  Short black and a cookie, the cornerstone of any worthwhile day...
I met Rob over coffee and we went off to the beach in his rig...

 (above)  At the State Park, the wallaby's are secure with having humans around...

 (above)  Diamond Head...Small clean surf...Just what I've been needing...Oh yeah, the water's warm too...

 (above)  After our surf Rob and I solved half of the world problems...

 

(above) Next it was time to pack up and for Rob to get some food...

 

(above)   Driving the dirt road back to civilization...

 (above)  This past week these trees have been exploding with blue flowers...

(above)  Rob ordered some food...

(above)  ...and I checked out this picture of determination or stupidity...

 (above)  That pelican I saw on that same mast a few weeks ago was back up there again...

 

(above)  Rob dropped me back at my car and I went to North Haven beach to hang out at for the afternoon...

 

(above) The surf got good for about an hour when the tide was just right...

 

(above)  Between the close-outs, some waves ran nicely down the beach...

 

(above) Overcast but still warm...

 

(above) Squeaky sand...

 

(above) The locals always seemed to be in just the right spot at the right time...

 

(above) Mostly shortboarders, but a few loggers gave it a go...

 (above)  Paddle in and go as fast and as far as you can before you get passed up...

 (above) As I was taking these pictures a young guy from South Africa asked if  knew where he could rent a board..."No"..."Where to buy a used one?"....So I offered him my 7'2" soft top board without a leash to use for a few waves...He was on it...It's really easy to loan somebody a board that's not yours...

 

(above)  Fire stain on park grass...

(above)  It's red, it has six wheels, I want it to be mine...

(above)  Far from subtle...

 (above)  I had plans to meet some friends and be part of the "100 Years of Surfing, History and Awards, Black-Tie Celebration Dinner" hosted by the local board riders clubs...

 

(above)  Somebody did an incredible job of cataloging the history of the region, cataloging it, and presenting it on display boards around the banquet hall...

 

(above)  About two hundred "local legends" showed up ready to revisit the good old days...

 (above)  Plastic wall decoration...

 

(above)  The surf clubs have deep traditions down here...

 

(above)  All kinds of things were on display...

(above)  There was a couple hours of time dedicated to drinking and talking and checking out the displays, then dinner was served...After dinner the ceremonies on stage started, first it was about a dozen different group pictures were taken, then some old guy got up and started reading from a book he just wrote about the history of surfing in the regions...Basically it all started in 1912 when some guy stood up in a boat...Ten minutes of book reading expounded on that way deeper than it should have...Next it was "Fast forward to 1916..."...Time for me to make my exit...I have a dirt road to drive back home on...

More later...

(above) Smoke and fog...

The day after my last post, the hydro-electric system for the house I was living in failed and is as dead as Elvis… Without an electric generation system, I have no power, no water, no refrigeration, no phone...The house became uninhabitable..

.
Despite having an abundance of work lined up and a surfboard building workshop planned, I could not live in a house without power and water for another month, so I re-booked my flight home and spent a week closing down the house and getting ready to return home…

Below are the final pictures from the trip...

(above and following) After a month of preparation, patching and painting, the mud brick house paint job was completed...

 (above)  The spiders have been busy...I used that broom less than a week before I shot the picture...

 

(above and following) From the train to Sydney...

It was a three day trip back home on planes, trains and automobiles..All the fun stuff, getting on and off busy public transportation with bulky heavy bags (long sets of stairs included), wandering aimlessly around airports just killing hours, sleeping on airport seats and floors, getting roused in the middle of the night(x3) and told to move on and find somewhere else to sleep, being asked "to see your passport" after being awoke from a deep sleep, then the waiting, waiting, waiting...

In Sydney, when I got my boarding pass, I was lucky and was given an exit row seat on the flight across the Pacific...With that I was able to stretch out and not feel like I was pressed into a mold...That alone made the flight back feel like it took half the time that getting there...Still, thirteen hours in a seat is a long time...

After the fight to the US, I had a ten hour layover in Los Angeles...Ten hours that felt like it moved glacially...Enough time to be reminded how crass, loud and obese most Americans are...Bad cell phone manners abound...

In the end, the long travel days went well and it feels great to be back home with my loving family...

I didn't tell my daughter that I was coming back, I wanted it to be a surprise, and last night we went to Seattle to pick her up after her bus ride there...Pam arranged to meet her at a food market...Pam spotted her un-obvious to us being there and alerted me, I snuck around and got in the check-out line right behind Ann and bumped into her with my shoulder...She turned, saw it was me, said something like "Oh my god, Dad you're here!", then the hugging and tears began...One of the Top Ten moments as a dad...It couldn't have gone better...

Paul Jensen - November 2012