VICKI'S 60TH
Vicki's 60th was held in the Tarago Community Hall.  She had a bush band from Canberra and they were fantastic.  We did quite a bit of dancing.

 Jeff, Vicki and Katie.

Nearly all of Vicki and Roger's grandchildren.  It wasn't until after the photo was taken that we discovered that little Ella wasn't in the photo.  Grant , the eldest, is 17 and his baby sister Bronte at just 9 weeks is the youngest.
No they don't all belong to the same parents!!  There are three families represented there.

 Vicki and Roger have been together since they were 14 years old.

 Katie and Troy.They have three children, Jack, Oscar and Phoebe.

 Scott, Renae and Bronte.Scott and Renae have Grant, Bre and Bronte.

 Luke.
Luke and Allison have Blake, Ruby and Ella.

 Vicki and Jeff and one of the working dogs beside Vicki's quadbike.

 Layla was a poddy-lamb brought up by the working dogs.  They kept her warm in their kennel and now she thinks she's a dog.  She runs up to meet you with the dogs and even tries to bark like a dog.

 I LOVE it when our car gets covered in dust on the road to Vicki's.  When we come back to Wollongong everyone knows we have been somewhere exciting!!

I didn't let Jeff wash the car for three days.
I just love getting out into the country.

CHRISTMAS IN WINTER
It was lovely to get together with Diane and Graeme, Annette and Norm and Daryl and Julie and have all that heavy Christmas food in the 'right' season, instead of trying to eat a baked dinner in 38c degree heat!!
I put out a few Christmas decorations but mainly just wintery things like pine garland and pine cones, lots of my bird ornaments, a moose and a deer.
We ate vichyssoise, roast pork and chicken and vegies, plum pudding, tiramisu and Di's famous sponge cake.  I made chocolate boxes for the ladies.

 We started the morning with an early walk and a coffee at the harbour with Graeme and Diane.

 Pre lunch drinks in the garden.

 My winter garden.  My hanging baskets of primula hang from the clothes line to get maximum sun this time of year.

 Our dinner table at the end of lunch.

 We finished off the time with a walk round Bulli with Norman, Annette and Paddy.

At  Belmore Basin in Wollongong.

PEOPLE AND PLACES

 Jeff, Julie and Daryl in the lift at Pacific Bay Resort

 Jeff, Janice, Daryl and Julie at Wollomombi Falls

 Janice, Peter and Julie at
The Armidale Folk Museum

 Peter and Julie at Dangarsleigh Warm Memorial

 Julie rugged up for the cold

 Jeff rugged up for the cold at Gostwyk

 Peter checking out the date on the tap.  l946.

 Jeff and Julie looking at the grave of an 18 month old baby in the Uralla Cemetery.

 Rod and Lyn at Uralba, Moonbi

 Rod in his easy chair.

 Rod and Jeff in the workshop shed.

 Lyn, Julie and Erin in Erin's kitchen of her new house in Tamworth.

 Lyn, Clair,  Rod and Erin in Tamworth.

 Daryl, Jeff and Julie at Ainslie House Motel, Scone, having breakfast in the restaurant.

 Jeff and Daryl at lunch in the Royal Hotel in Windsor.

 Janice and Julie on Diggers Beach Coffs Harbour

 Julie and Janice at Ebor Falls.

 Janice, Peter and Julie in Peter's loungroom in Dumaresq.

Mindy, Janice, Julie and Peter at the Gostwyk church.

 Erin, Lyn, Clair, Rod, Janice and Julie in Erin's loungeroom.

Janice and Julie at breakfast at Ainslie House, Scone.

  THE WATERFALL WAY - COFFS HARBOUR TO ARMIDALE
WOLLOMOMBI FALLS - ON THEWATERFALL WAY
Don't you just love old chimneys?  The are a monument to pioneer families.  Some indication of the temperature this region plummets to in the winter.  Three fireplaces so close together.

Our first glimpse of Wollombi Falls through the trees on the short walk to the lookout.

 The great gaping gorge.  Wollomombi Falls are one of the highest falls in Australia.  We have seen it raging after heavy rains and reduced to just a trickle in drought time.

 After we left Coffs Harbour we went through Bellingen, full of craft shops and cafes.  Very arty.

 The old Hammond and Wheatley Emporium whereJim Muldoon helped with the restoration work. He made the wooden curved bow at the top of the building.  The Emporium is full of shops.  We didn't stop so it will have to wait till another holiday.

 The rich alluvial flats of the Bellinger River.

 As we began to climb the mountain up to Dorrigo the waterfalls began.

 The winding narrow road on the way to Dorrigo.  There is one bend on this road that can never be widened due to a colony of rare frogs that inhabit the bushland just on that bend!

 The beautiful Dorrigo Plateau.  They grow potatoes in Dorrigo and I once visited a daffodil farm there and we picked our own daffodils.

 The Dorrigo Hotel

 Sleepy Dorrigo. This building on the corner of the main street used to be an emporium,  Something happened in the family and the shop was just closed up, still containing all its stock.  It remained closed for about 20 years or so.  I saw it when it was all closed up and really would  have loved to have looked through all their wares.  Now it is a secondhand shop, but unfortunately was closed the morning we were there.  My brother Peter said he has never seen it opened.

 There is a train graveyard at Dorrigo.  All these trains and rolling stock were purchased with a view to opening a train museum.  They were being acquired while we lived in Grafton.  We had a tour of some of them when they were waiting down at Glenreagh.  Most of them got up the mountain before the trainline deteriorated too much.  Now some of the trestle bridges on the line have declined and are impassable.

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The 'museum' has now gone broke and the trains are beginning to deteriate.  There must have been 100 engines!