This Weeks Walk at the Arboretum

This week we headed to the Arboretum for our NZ training walk. It was a bit cool and windy but the rain held off. We parked at one end of the Arboretum near the Cork Forest and walked right down to Dairy Farmer's Hill, we did about 9km all together. Lots of lovely views along the way and some interesting trees and sculptures.

The Cork Oak forest was grown from acorns brought out from Spain in 1917, they have had cork strippers come out several times from Portugal to get cork from the trees, a lovely quiet forest.

Lots of lovely views and different angles of Canberra

 Above and below were some of the sculptures we passed on our walk.

I love this one to, "Wide Brown Land"

It was a very enjoyable afternoon and enjoyed seeing so much more of the Arboretum on foot!

Amy and I Donate Plasma

Last week Amy dragged me off to the Blood Bank yet again. This time we were donating plasma. It takes a bit longer and especially the first time but they do bring you a milkshake while you are donating and then you can have another one after! It is an interesting process. They take out the blood, separate the plasma and return the red blood cells back to you. Later in the process they also give you some saline which feels a little weird but doesn't hurt, made me feel a bit cool! They are so friendly in at the Blood Bank and grateful for the donations!

Walk up Mt Ainslie

Yesterday's walk was up Mt Ainslie, back down the other side and around the base back to the car which we left at the back of the War Memorial. It was a lovely morning for a walk, lots of people on the Kakoda track on the way up , but we went a different way home so a lot less people. Lovely views and bush and kangaroos not far from the city centre.

Bill and his Birds

Here is Bill with the two macaws- Ziggy and Budgie. Budgie is supposed to be called Zoe but that never lasted. Budgie is definetly Bill's bird, she just loves him and will sit happily on his shoulder for as long as she can. Both the birds get on really well and Ziggy loves the company.

Granite Tors Bushwalk Namadgi National Park

Bill and I headed out to Ororral Valley on Saturday to do the Granite Tors bushwalk. It was a good hour each way, fairly steep climb on the way up with a few little flatter bits in between to rest and recover, and then coming down you needed to take your time to avoid slipping. There was magnificent views up and down the Ororral Valley in both directions, lots of granite rocks and a now unsued observatory that was built in the 1970's. According to the walking astronomy encyclopedia that I had with me- the story is that after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the astronauts left mirrors behind on the moon.Various sites around the world fired laser beams at the mirrors, which took approximately 1.1 seconds to get there and 1.1 seconds to return, during this space of time the earth had moved 600 meters, they used these measurements to determine how far it was from the earth to the moon.The tracking station at Ororral Valley was one of these sites. 

Lovely view up and down the Ororral Valley at the top of the walk.

Some of the many granite boulders along the way

About half way up I need to rest so a good spot to take a photo!

Bill having a rest on one of the granite outcrops

All the way up without catching a glimpse and then all of a sudden you spot the observatory

 Great look out spot

Another shot of the observatory

Down on the flat again in the valley you could wander around the grounds of the old tracking station, lots of signs giving a bit of the history of the site.

Lots of kangaroos feeding, and so many of them had joeys in their pouches, they wouldn't let you get too close.

View of the track on the way down- a great walk and good training for our New Zealand trip

Wattles in Bloom

Lovely to see the wattles in bloom in our driveway, you can feel spring is on the way!