A mixed post of mixed things
Jan. 28th, 2013 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vanessaramaWe have a long weekend, meaning today is a holiday for Australia Day (although the day itself was actually on Saturday). Yay holiday!
Alas, most of this weekend has been spent waging the War On Ants. The dry weather is bringing them up. They appeared in the bathroom on Thursday, the toilet on Friday, the kitchen on Friday and Saturday, and the laundry on Sunday. I have persuaded Rohan that his usual method of "nuke them all with Mortein" clearly isn't working, and so we have resorted to the Ant-Rid. Hopefully that will get rid of them for good.
And meanwhile, as we whinge about the dry weather, Queensland is flooding. Ahh, Australia.
Here is one of the most haunting things I've read in a long time: The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans.
This guy is a search-and-rescue volunteer who, on his own time and dollar, goes looking for long-lost missing people in various types of wilderness. He became interested in the case of a German family who had gone missing in Death Valley in 1996; their car was found but no searches turned them up. Based on what he knew about the family, and on how he thought a European might react in those circumstances (for instance, they might make for a nearby military installation, believing its borders would be patrolled as they are in Europe), he went out looking in 2009; and he found them. Or he found the parents, at least. It's a long read, and it's not easy; but he doesn't post any pictures of anything upsetting. And he remains a very sympathetic guy, even in the face of unsympathetic authorities and what certainly seems like foolhardy behaviour from the people he was looking for.
On to more pleasant things. We've done very little this long weekend. But I baked! Here is my first attempt: a cheese pull-apart!
Unfortunately its structural integrity wasn't the best and it rapidly became a cheese fall-apart. But Rohan says it tastes like a real pull-apart like Baker's Delight used to make. Yay! Now I'm hoping the cinnamon and sugar scrolls I have proving at the moment will be just as successful. They haven't swelled up as much as the bread dough did, and we don't have that amazing yeasty smell throughout the house, but they're definitely getting plumper.
I've also got around to posting some of the photos we took when we visited Maldon a few weeks ago. Maldon is an old gold-mining town that's notable for having the most untouched streetscape in Australia... allegedly. Rohan's Irish ancestors spent the 1860s/70s in Creswick, a town quite close to Maldon and also a goldmining town, and I like to think of them walking these scenes. Even though I don't know what any of them looked like :)
Maldon from Anzac Hill
Another shot from Anzac Hill. You can see the big church. All these little Australian towns, a church or two was always one of the first things to be built. And sadly, they all have a war memorial, even the teeny ones which barely exist as towns any more.
The main street. The cars and the asphalt are new, but everything else is pretty much as it was... including the uneven cobbled pavement in places!
Random buildings:
Sadly, we had no cash and there isn't an ATM in Maldon. The only thing we could afford here was a jar of local honey!
This is the Mount Tarrangower Lookout Tower. It was made from an old mine poppet head brought from Bendigo and carried up the mountain by horse-drawn jinker in the 1920s. It is now used as a fire-spotting tower as well as a lookout, and the firespotter sits at the very top, but that is off limits. We only went up as far as the first platform - I started up the second ladder but it was alarmingly jiggly in the wind!
The ticket office for Carman's Tunnel mine. Sadly I couldn't show you my mine photos as it was entirely lit by candlelight in there, just as it would have been for the miners! We did have hard hats though :)
Oh, and one last thing:
THIS STILL MAKES ME SMILE.
AS DOES THIS.
(both images stolen from tumblr, omg how does anyone ever work out who was the first person to create anything on that thing? it's impossible! tubmlr is frightening)
Alas, most of this weekend has been spent waging the War On Ants. The dry weather is bringing them up. They appeared in the bathroom on Thursday, the toilet on Friday, the kitchen on Friday and Saturday, and the laundry on Sunday. I have persuaded Rohan that his usual method of "nuke them all with Mortein" clearly isn't working, and so we have resorted to the Ant-Rid. Hopefully that will get rid of them for good.
And meanwhile, as we whinge about the dry weather, Queensland is flooding. Ahh, Australia.
Here is one of the most haunting things I've read in a long time: The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans.
This guy is a search-and-rescue volunteer who, on his own time and dollar, goes looking for long-lost missing people in various types of wilderness. He became interested in the case of a German family who had gone missing in Death Valley in 1996; their car was found but no searches turned them up. Based on what he knew about the family, and on how he thought a European might react in those circumstances (for instance, they might make for a nearby military installation, believing its borders would be patrolled as they are in Europe), he went out looking in 2009; and he found them. Or he found the parents, at least. It's a long read, and it's not easy; but he doesn't post any pictures of anything upsetting. And he remains a very sympathetic guy, even in the face of unsympathetic authorities and what certainly seems like foolhardy behaviour from the people he was looking for.
On to more pleasant things. We've done very little this long weekend. But I baked! Here is my first attempt: a cheese pull-apart!
Unfortunately its structural integrity wasn't the best and it rapidly became a cheese fall-apart. But Rohan says it tastes like a real pull-apart like Baker's Delight used to make. Yay! Now I'm hoping the cinnamon and sugar scrolls I have proving at the moment will be just as successful. They haven't swelled up as much as the bread dough did, and we don't have that amazing yeasty smell throughout the house, but they're definitely getting plumper.
I've also got around to posting some of the photos we took when we visited Maldon a few weeks ago. Maldon is an old gold-mining town that's notable for having the most untouched streetscape in Australia... allegedly. Rohan's Irish ancestors spent the 1860s/70s in Creswick, a town quite close to Maldon and also a goldmining town, and I like to think of them walking these scenes. Even though I don't know what any of them looked like :)
Maldon from Anzac Hill
Another shot from Anzac Hill. You can see the big church. All these little Australian towns, a church or two was always one of the first things to be built. And sadly, they all have a war memorial, even the teeny ones which barely exist as towns any more.
The main street. The cars and the asphalt are new, but everything else is pretty much as it was... including the uneven cobbled pavement in places!
Random buildings:
Sadly, we had no cash and there isn't an ATM in Maldon. The only thing we could afford here was a jar of local honey!
This is the Mount Tarrangower Lookout Tower. It was made from an old mine poppet head brought from Bendigo and carried up the mountain by horse-drawn jinker in the 1920s. It is now used as a fire-spotting tower as well as a lookout, and the firespotter sits at the very top, but that is off limits. We only went up as far as the first platform - I started up the second ladder but it was alarmingly jiggly in the wind!
The ticket office for Carman's Tunnel mine. Sadly I couldn't show you my mine photos as it was entirely lit by candlelight in there, just as it would have been for the miners! We did have hard hats though :)
Oh, and one last thing:
THIS STILL MAKES ME SMILE.
AS DOES THIS.
(both images stolen from tumblr, omg how does anyone ever work out who was the first person to create anything on that thing? it's impossible! tubmlr is frightening)
