September 18

Tuesday September 18, 2007 6:00 am Lennox Head, NSW Australia

I do not have Internet access at the moment.

A. Morning Musings

6:00 am

Where to begin?

A sip of Gloria Jean coffee, freshly brewed. Delicious.

We moved into our unit yesterday morning and are still in the process of getting settled.

Everything has been very positive since we arrived in Lennox Head on Saturday, September 15. We were met at the airport by friends and were soon at their place. It is always difficult to realize that we have come half-way around the world and now everything is more or less normal again. A few beer, some red wine, and a gorgeous swordfish steak barbecued to perfection, and the day was soon over.

Sunday was a day to acclimitize to the time difference and to meet more friends and make phone contact with others. We're back! Dinner was a fantastic chicken/vegetable soup/stew. Hearty food and a perfect meal. More red wine. Life is good.

Monday we moved our stuff to Lennox Head and saw our unit for the first time. We love it! We were appalled at how much stuff we had packed away. Today we will take a complete inventory of what we have (we didn't do this last time) and will see if we can set aside some stuff for St. Vinnies as well as for the garbage. We also did our first grocery shopping and now have enough basics to keep us going. We have some beer and some red wine. And a little food. The wine could be dangerous. There is an obvious surplus and I was able to buy some "cleanskins" (i.e. wine without a label on it) for $6/bottle. We also bought some castello cheese (soft blue cheese that is to die for).

Dinner was fish and chips from the Bream Hole. Superb! We walked down to the shop from our unit - only a couple of blocks. This is something we are likely to do fairly often.

Now to begin thinking about today. Our car is in great shape. New tires and a regular maintenance were done just before we arrived. We are very fortunate to have such great friends.

Immediate	Description	Time
Literature	Continue reading "The Captive & The Fugitive", Vol. 5 of "In Search of Lost Time" by Marcel Proust	1 hr
Mathematics	Complete exercises p. 45 - 46 from "The Mathematics Survival Kit"	1 hr

C. Actual Learning Activities

7:50 PM

I have brought the previous few days entries up to date. But I still have to add a few images from those that I took since we landed.

I saw my first sunrise over the ocean at 5:30 this morning. We went for a hour walk on seven mile beach a little later in the morning. This will soon be a regular habit, we hope.

sunrise

Here is our first image of seven mile beach. We are looking south toward Lennox Head.

beach

Here is the Brahminy Kite that flew overhead while we were beach walking:

brahminy kite

Further down the beach we met about a dozen 4WD's with large plastic containers and some labels indicating it had something to do with fisheries and bait. We will have to ask around and find out more about what that was all about.

We then drove back to Ballina, revisited the ATM, and had our first cuppa cappuccino at the Pelican 181, our favorite cappuccino place. It was fantastic - thick and creamy on the top.

A few more groceries at Valdis, then back to the unit to continue unpacking and organizing our stuff.

We seem to have figured out the dish washer but have uncovered a couple of problems. The television seems to be shorting out, as is one light in the living room. Also the stove, which runs on propane, failed to light. The burners all sparked, and we could smell gas, but that is all. Our best guess is that the tank needs to be turned on. We will have a look at it in the morning.

We now have our telephone number, but the phone was not sitting properly in its stand and lost its charge. We will try it again tomorrow.

I found time for a little reading of Proust today, but feel that I am still a few days away from getting back to doing some mathematics. I did fill up my Pelikan fountain pen today, using the bottle of Quink ink that I borrowed from a friend, and used it to write a postcard home. I can still remember those bottles from undergraduate days.

I also downloaded the photos from the camera. Tomorrow I will go through them and select a few for adding the web pages for the last few days.

In addition to the Brahminy Kite (#3), the Butcher Bird was #1 and the Eastern Rosella was #2, we identified a Little Pied Cormorant (#4), a Little Black Cormorant (#5), a Silver Gull (#6), and an Australian Pelican (#7). Then, much to our surprise we identified a new lifer - an Australasian Gannet (#8). We watched a number of them plunging into the water from our balcony and with the help of our field guides soon realized we had a new bird. We also saw a few terns but need to review our notes before we are able to identify which ones they were. It is a beginning but we have yet to do any serious birding. We have yet to take our binoculars on a walk.

We had a butter chicken dinner tonight. Even though we couldn't get the stove working, there was an electric frypan. It is an easy matter to fry some chicken and add a jar of butter sauce to the meat. Voila, done in 20 minutes. Soe fresh green beans made a perfect accompaniment. We tried one of the "clean skin" bottles of wine with dinner and it is superb. At $6./bottle I should go back and see if they still have more for sale.