This will have to be a quick post. I’ve put some pictures up on Flickr, but probably won’t have time to put many in the post itself.  Only 30 minutes of internet left tonight.

So, Thursday morning started with sunrise at Uluru.  It was cold and brisk, with a gorgeous sunrise behind us and a bit of sunlight on Uluru.

From there we moved on to the base of the rock.  Climbing to the top was ruled out by the rangers because of high winds at the summit.  I don’t think I’d have chosen to climb anyway.

Instead, we walked the 9+ km around the base.  It was cold, but a lovely walk.  I highly recommend it.  Halfway ’round we ran into some unlikely fellow hikers.

At the end of the walk, it was back on the bus to Kings Canyon Resort.

This morning we had another early start — to climb up the Kings Canyon Rim Trail in time for sunrise on the canyon.  Another 6+kms to walk, with lots of steep stairs and uneven rocks.  But well worth the effort.  We got to the canyon before 6:30 and were walking until around 10:30.  I think my feet may eventually forgive me, but not until next week.

We finished off our time at Kings Canyon with a 15 minute helicopter ride.  The perspective is so different from the air.

Well, we are now back in Alice Springs and will fly back to Brisbane tomorrow.  It has been a lovely break, but the real world beckons.

Today (Wednesday) we were up bright and early for our trip to Uluru. The bus left Alice Springs at 7am and we arrived at Ayers Rock Resort at 1pm. There were several stops along the way. First off, Frank took advantage of the opportunity to try a camel ride.

From there we stopped at Mt Ebenezer Road House for a light meal. Last stop before the resort was a view point where we saw Mt. Connor and Lake Amadeus.

We have a nice room at the Desert Gardens Inn — with a view of Uluru out the back window, but didn’t have much time to enjoy the room. After just an hour to get settled and have lunch, we were off on a tour to see the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) and sunset on Uluru. The Olgas were gorgeous.

And we had time for a one hour walk up Walpa Gorge.

Then back to Uluru for the sunset with the rest of the crowd.

It’s been a great day — and the skies have been washed clear by the rain, so the views are fantastic. Tomorrow morning is another early start — 6am to catch sunrise at Uluru.

PS — the wi-fi here is just about useless.  I’m trying to upload pictures, but I don’t think they’ll make it.  I’ll come back in a few days and add the pictures once I have access to real internet.

Edited to add pictures (and fix spelling)!

Yesterday morning we left Brisbane bright and early to catch a direct flight to Alice Springs.  We were looking forward to crisp blue skies and cool winter days in the desert.  Reality is a bit different.

Sunday afternoon wasn’t bad.  We had a half-day tour of the city.  It was cold, but dry as we viewed the city from Anzac Hill.

At the School of the Air we saw a movie about how the school has changed in the internet age.

The old Telegraph Station and the Alice “Spring” (really a waterhole) provided a useful history lesson.  The telegraph was completed in 1872, making communication with the outside world possible.  When it ceased operation in the 1930s, the site became a home for half-caste children until WWII when the military took over.  While we were touring the barracks, an older man was telling us what the place was like when he lived there as a child in the 1930s.

Next stop was the Royal Flying Doctor Service where we saw a short film about the history of the flying doctors and viewed the museum.  This plane is a model of the type first purchased by the Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs.

Last stop for the day was a visit with reptiles.

Monday was a bit colder (high of 12C) and much wetter!  It rained or drizzled all day.  But we didn’t let that stop us (much).  Starting with the Flynn Memorial, we trekked up muddy trails and tried to keep warm.

At Simpson’s Gap it was only drizzling.  We had to laugh at the “No Swimming” signs — it was way too cold for swimming!

A little higher on the range, at Standley Chasm, the rain was coming down steadily.  After 45 minutes hiking the narrow, rocky trail to the chasm and back, we were damp and cold.  Hot coffee and a sandwich in front of a warm fire made for a welcome break back at the trail head.

The last stop of the day was the Alice Springs Desert Park.  Now, I think of deserts as hot and dry — but today the park was cold and muddy!  Due to the rain, the bird show was cancelled.  We walked around the park and caught a tour of the Nocturnal Animals building.  It was a lovely park, and would have been a great day trip on a drier day.  We listened to the audio guide and learned quite a bit about desert habitats.

Coloured Stone from EGMTK:

Falkland from FeltStudioUK:

and Coral Sea from Spindlefrog (Corriedale top):

spun them into singles:

Then plied them on my jumbo electric spinner:

The result? About 350 grams of 11wpi (about 8-ply, or DK weight) yarn:

And these two as well:

I had fun with the second set — they were originally these batts from Wooldancer:

and came with some cut threads and ribbon, which I placed in between the strands while plying.  Can’t wait to see what the washed skein looks like.

Last week I finished this skein from some batts I bought in the UK:

I spun each batt onto a separate bobbin, and tried to keep the colors in the same order on each bobbin.  The resulting skein goes from rust to yellow to green.

Of course, it hasn’t been all spinning.  Last Saturday we melted at the QSWFA Christmas Fair.  It must have been almost 35C, and no aircon.  It’s hard to get people to buy woolly things in that type of heat.  Sunday was a warm one too, so we spent most of the day out at the mall, where the aircon worked pretty well.  In the afternoon there was a massive thunderstorm, but it had all blown over by the time we finished shopping.

Meanwhile, Alan has left for his semester in Oslo.  He’s started his own travel blog at http://alan.imagin-itis.net — go over and say hi.  It appears that he is settling in to the cold weather and the different choice of computer games at the Oslo office.

After Reno, I got to spend a few days at the Disney Shrine, also known as the R&S Ranch in northern California:

It was great to see Sue, Ron, Crystal and Ryan.  Of course, nothing is ever boring at the Ranch.  I did get a chance to see a film in the Ranch Movie Theater — Ron has put in an amazing home cinema in its own shed in their back yard.  Reclining seats, projection TV, surround sound (the seats are even wired to vibrate with low, rumbling noises) and tons of movie memorabilia.  It’s like going to Gold Class.  While I was there we went to Ron’s birthday party one night, complete with Halloween candy and temporary tatoos.

The plan was to drive down to Anaheim on Wednesday afternoon after a (hopefully slow) day at the clinic.  We would have breakfast with my parents at Goofy’s Kitchen (at the Disneyland hotel), then they’d drive ne down to Escondido while Sue, Ron, and Ryan went to Disneyland for Ron’s birthday.  Well, there’s never a slow day at the clinic.  For those of you who don’t know my sister Sue, she’s a veterinarian with her own clinic in Empire California.  Her husband, Ron, is the business manager for the clinic.  Wednesday morning as we were packing up the truck, they decided that their dog Bond should be taken to the clinic to see why he wasn’t eating.  After checking him over, they found a mass in Bond’s spleen which needed immediate removal.  So, rather than having a slow day at the clinic, Sue had to operate on her dog and have the spleen biopsied. Sue asked if I wanted to observe the surgery, but I declined.  When Ryan got out of school, he asked for a snack and I offered to take a cake that had been sitting in reception back to the staff kitchen to cut him a piece.  Of course, you have to go through the procedures room to get to the kitchen.  So, there I was, carrying a lovely iced carrot cake back to the kitchen right past the HUGE dog spleen sitting out on the operating table.  (Not appetizing)  Ryan, of course, had hundreds of questions (what’s that? did that come out of Bond? can Bond live without a spleen? what does a spleen do?…..)  Now, there’s a reason I chose to work with numbers rather than blood and guts; so I couldn’t answer any of his questions.

Clearly, Bond couldn’t stay at the Ranch, so Sue decided to bring him along.  Ron had to rearrange everything in the truck to make room for Bond, and Sue arranged to drop him at an emergency vet clinic in Anaheim.  So,  rather than heading off early, we didn’t leave the clinic until well after 5pm, and Ron drove us down to Anaheim.  We got to the emergency vet clinic around 1am and to our hotel around 2am (just a bit later than planned).

Everyone converged on Escondido over the next few days for my Dad’s 80th birthday party on Halloween.  Sue brought down a ton of Halloween decorations;  Anne & Mike (& Emi) came down from Seattle;  my uncle Bob (Dad’s brother) came out from Tennessee; my cousin Craig flew out from New Jersey (hadn’t seen him in 40 years); Bob’s kids Nela (Seattle) and Willie (Southern California) were there; and, of course, my mother’s two siblings and 7 of Frances’ 8 children (David even flew out from Tennessee, as it was his 50th this year).  All up about 80 people showed up for the party.

We were in California until Friday 6 November, when we flew to Maui…. but more about that in the next post.

As you can see, mostly fiber.  On the top we have Romney lamb (85%) and tussah silk (15%) in the Painted Desert colorway. Immediately below, in bright rainbow colors, is 50/50 tussah and baby camel down.  Clockwise from there: 60/40 Merino/Bamboo (vegetable medley colorway, braided); two bags (natural cream and brown) of Romney roving, braided and banded, BFL in Autumn Fire colorway; braided Wensleydale roving in fire colorway; a bag of natural cream Wensleydale mix; jewel-toned alpaca/silk (70/30) blend; Icelandic lamb roving, cream; fawn colored Jacob wool.  The green shell shaped bit on top of the Icelandic Lamb is a needle gauge charm that goes down to 0.75mm.  And stuck in the lower left corner is a cute little turkish spindle:

As you can see I’ve started spinning the alpaca/silk, and the spindle works great.

And… in knitting news, I finished up some twined fingerless mitts just in time to wear at Rhinebeck:

We landed in NY late on Wednesday night.  Thursday it was cold and raining.  But we didn’t let that stop us.  We arranged to meet up with Frank’s nephew Robb at Grand Central Station and walked around Times Square.  We stopped at Brooklyn Deli for a HUGE American sized lunch:

It was great catching up with Robb, who was in Connecticut starting on the massive job of clearing out his dad’s collections of minerals, African art and loads of other stuff.

On Friday we spent the morning at the laundromat — unfortunately, you can’t travel for more than 3 weeks without doing your laundry!  The weather forecasts for the weekend were pretty dismal — some even predicting snow on Saturday.  So, I bought myself a pair of snow boots for Rhinebeck and Frank decided he’d spend Saturday in the hotel room catching up on academic work.  Friday afternoon we took the train up the Hudson to Rhinecliff.  It’s a gorgeous train ride, right next to the river most of the time.  The trees were just starting to change colors, it will be glorious in a couple of weeks.  Once there, we got a taxi to our hotel, the Rodeway Inn/Skytop in Kingston.  The hotel is up a hill in the forest, with a great restaurant/brewry right next door (and a mile to the next closest shop or restaurant).

The restaurant was packed on Friday night.  As we went in, we saw a couple of women with Ravelry nametags on, so we introduced ourselves and asked if we could join them for dinner.  Peta (Petaknits on Ravelry) is from Maryland, and was with her daughter Rachael (jetgrrl on Ravelry) who lives in New Hampshire.  (See, betsybookworm, we’re not the only mother-daughter set on Rav, not that I thought we were).  We had a very pleasant dinner, and swapped souvenirs (Australia magnets for Maryland lapel pins).  Peta and Rachael were able to give me a ride to the fairgrounds on Saturday (Rhinebeck without a car is a bit more difficult than you might think as public transport is non-existent in that part of the state).

After a stop at a local diner for breakfast and a pleasant ride through the wooded countryside, we arrived at the fairgrounds around 8:30 in the morning.  It is HUGE!  There are at least a dozen buildings full of vendors, plus the usual sheep shearing and animal judging.  I focused on the vendors and bought mostly fiber.

Just after lunch (Polish hamburger), there was the Ravelry meetup — very chaotic, but I got to meet Casey and “Bob”:

Later in the afternoon was the Weavolution meetup:

Weavolution is a social networking site for weavers, with the ability to put in all the project details that weavers want to know.  Claudia (on the right in the photo) is one of the founders of the site.  I’m on Weavolution as spinweaveknit, but haven’t put much up there yet.  The site launched in June, less than a month before I left Australia.

I still haven’t taken pictures of the stash I bought at Rhinebeck (or the cute little turkish spindle), but I’ll do that soon and post them in another entry.

I got a ride back to the hotel from Marion (desertrat on Rav) and Geri and we joined them for dinner in the Skytop Steakhouse.  Marion and Geri are retired teachers from the Toronto area and had driven down for the festival.

Rhinebeck was a great experience.  Great to meet such nice and friendly fellow knitters, and great to see all the vendors’ products.  Wish I could go again next year.  May have to satisfy myself with going to Bendigo instead.  Weather-wise, I was very lucky.  Probably could have survived without the snow boots as it was dry and mostly sunny all day.  A cold wind did come in the afternoon, but all in all, it was much better than the forecast.

Sunday morning we took the train back to NYC.  Since 9/11 there are no more luggage lockers anywhere.  It was quite a hassle getting around with our bags (we had left the big suitcases at our hotel in Queens while we were at Rhinebeck, and only had backpacks plus a duffle bag full of fiber).  We took the subway up to the American Museum of Natural History, and waited in line for 40 minutes to get in, then had to wait another 20 minutes for a bin to free up in the cloak room for our bags.  It was all worth it, though.  The museum is huge — we barely made a dent in it in the five hours we were there.  Frank enjoyed seeing the large meteorites:

And everyone loves the dinosaurs:

There was also an interesting exhibit on American Indians, including some details about the weaving they did:

Monday was our last full day in New York.  The weather had been miserable, but on Monday everything cleared up and we had a lovely day.  Taking advantage of the good weather, we started off at Top of the Rock.  The views were spectacular:

For the afternoon we decided to do a tour of the city so that we could see many of the sights we hadn’t yet made it to.  It was definitely the right decision — we could never have made it to so many places on our own.  It was a 6 hour tour starting near Times Square, going uptown to the Dakota and Strawberry Fields, and downtown to the Staten Island Ferry (for a view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island), Wall Street, and Ground Zero.

After an exhausting day, we were ready for our flights on Tuesday.  I’m now in Reno, and Frank has gone to Pittsburgh — both for conferences.

The hotel is situated in the old part of town, between the Opera house and the Puerta del Sol.  The streets there are mostly narrow and they head off in all directions.  Many streets are “pedestrians only,” except sometimes there are cars carefully going through them.  The hotel had lots of character, with the original cage lift (in addition to a more modern lift), and rooms opening on to a self-contained courtyard.  However, after one night we had to change rooms due to a plumbing problem in the restaurant right above our original room.  Internet access was wi-fi in the lobby only, but free.

The city of Madrid is, at the moment, the city of road works!  All over the place they are converting streets to pedestrian walkways and re-covering plazas. Everywhere we went there was construction of some sort going on.

For Monday and Tuesday night we had to move.  It seems we timed our visit to coincide with the National Day festival on Monday 12 October — it isn’t even listed in our tour book, so how were we to know.  Anyways, we had a devil of a time finding accommodation for the last two nights (all done while we were still in the UK), and ended up moving to the Salamanca neighborhood in the north-east of Madrid.  There’s construction here too! But, at least there’s internet in the room.

So, what have we been up to?

Friday we got our bearings by taking two walking tours, one of the old town (Plaza Mayor to the Royal Palace) and one of the “new” town (18th century — Plaza Mayor to Puerta de Alcala).

Saturday was shopping/rest day.  Sunday was museum day.  We visited Museo del Prado and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The Prado was huge.  We spent 6 hours there, focusing on Spanish paintings.  They have paintings by El Greco, Goya, Ribera and all the Spanish masters (of course), plus some other European artists.  The Thyssen museum is organized chronologically, with paintings from the Renaissance through the 20th century. We only had two hours there, but could have spent more time.  It was particularly interesting to see the progression of painting styles over time and the similarities of painting from different countries at the same time.

Monday, after moving hotels, we spent the day in Toledo.  As it was a festival day, many of the shops were closed.  But the charm of Toledo is walking the winding medieval streets in this hilltop town.

There was no lack of tourists.  After all, it was a holiday for Spanish tourists as well.  When we arrived, there was some sort of commemoration happening in the main square.  It was a bit strange, since about a block away in all directions there was a definite police presence, riot gear and all.  But as far as we could tell, the police just stood there looking scary.

Highlights were the churches.  The main cathedral in particular.  Here’s an exterior shot, no photos were allowed inside:

Inside the cathedral is opulent.  Lots of gold and marble.  The Choir area contains exquisite wood carvings and the altar is covered with Spanish Baroque painting with a liberal amount of gold.

We spent hours wandering the city streets before heading to the bus station for our ride back to Madrid.  There were busloads of people waiting — we got on the second bus, but the line was just as long when we left as when we arrived.  Fortunately they were sending extra buses, not just the one per half-hour that were scheduled.

Tuesday we explored the north side of Madrid.  We went to Plaza Norte 2 Mall:

And San Bernabéu Stadium:

The mall was quite upscale, with way too much marble.  The stadium is home to Real Madrid — the “best football club of the 20th century” (really, they have a trophy from FIFA to prove it).

The north side is where you find modern Madrid.  There are 4 huge sky scrapers (kind of lonely, all grouped together with everything around them less than 10 stories), and a bit south of there, the Puerta de Europa:

So, now we’re packing up to fly to New York this evening.  Once we’re packed, the plan is to tour the Royal Palace as our last European tourist venue.

Jewish Museum: The new building that houses the permanent collection is quite confronting and thought provoking. When seen from above, the building is shaped like a lightning bolt. You enter through an underground passage from the
older building and are immediately presented with three axes – the axis of continuity, the axis of exile and the axis of holocaust. Continuity takes you to the main exhibition about the history of Jews in Germany from around 800AD. At the end of the axis of exile is the garden of exile: trees are planted in 49 cement blocks at least 10 meters tall, and everything is tilted 12.5 degrees so it FEELS off-balance. The axis of holocaust ends in an empty concrete space called the holocaust tower. Throughout the building there are empty voids symbolizing what has been lost. You can enter only one of these, the Memory Void, with hundreds of thick steel disks with eyes and mouth cut out. They make an eerie clanging sound as people walk through the void.

(ok, now I’m sitting in Barajas Airport Madrid waiting for baggage. This has to be the slowest airport for baggage claim. Plane landed 40 minutes ago and baggage won’t start arriving for 10 minutes.)

Sansouci Palace in Potsdam: Actually, all of Potsdam is pretty spectacular. We took a guided tour of the city, including Frederick the Great’s Summer Palace. The guide must have been trained as a history professor specializing in Frederick the Great, because he knew a lot of detail. His view of Frederick was not as rosy as you usually get. Sansouci is a small palace and Frederick built a much larger one 2km away for his wife and guests. We went through the Neues Palace on our own (with audioguide). They’re still in the process of restoring it. The most spectacular room was the Grotto, lined with shells and minerals. In many places they noted the works of art that used to hang in these palaces, but had been moved to Russia during the occupation of East Germany. Potsdam is just outside of Berlin and many buildings in the city center had been damaged during the war and not repaired during the Soviet occupation. When Germany was re-unified they tried to trace the pre-war owners of property. There were often severa l claimants for a single property, and ownership of some properties has yet to be settled.

~~~
OK, that’s enough for now. We’re settled in our hotel in Madrid, and once again internet is only available in the lobby I should be able to upload the Berlin pictures to Flickr tomorrow. You’ll just have to go there to find them. I’m composing this on my phone, so the formatting may be odd. Proof-reading on this tiny screen is a pain too, so I hope there aren’t too many typos.