A win at Rockhampton.

We've found a good budget place to rest the night at Rockhampton, this may become a habit for us as it's a nice distance from home if we're travelling down the Bruce highway.
They still have what's becoming quite a rarity, an overnight van, which is more than good enough to be comfortable for one night (or longer). $50 a night, the lass booking us in was friendly as was the hordes of holiday folk camping there, the place was very clean, all up it left a positive impression.

Plenty of campers.

A welcome addition.

The Canoona historic spot now has a lavatory which is somewhat oddly labelled but not actually in error, this was very pleasing as I've always found the Yaamba one down the road to to crowded into queuing.

Burdekin bridge.

Early on our trip away Olivia snapped this shot of us crossing the Burdekin River bridge between the towns of Ayr and Home Hill, it's rather an outdated engineering marvel now but the difficulties of making a new bridge will be quite a costly hurdle.
It was completed in 1957, some would say it was a great year but the difficult thing about it is that nobody has ever dug deep enough to find a solid foundation to build on, something that creates quite a challenge for engineers.
As it stands now it's too narrow for current standards but is very valuable as a link, even the rail shares this bridge.

What a lucky day!

We get home from a trip away and notice a rather horrid stench as well as rather a soaking area around our sewerage drain, bugger. I was going to inspect the council manhole tomorrow to see if as usual the blocked drain was on the council side of the money pit, but then our doorbell rang and amazingly some contractors were doing the rounds of the area clearing the area around the manholes in Ingham, an incredible coincidence.
I advised them about my angst and to my joy they removed a bolt from the manhole which then send a stream of brown yucky stuff out, confirming my belief the blockage was downstream of us in a council zone of cost, they just put the bolt back as there was no point lifting the lid, but happily for me they will report the problem as well as give council a fair idea of blockage location.
This really helps make Jimmy's job easier, and saves paying a wad of money for a plumber to waste his time with us.

A little brown yucky stuff came out here when the bolt was removed but I'm sure the plant life will make good use of it.

For now it works.

The repaired lamp in action, the reflected crescent is somewhat interesting, perhaps Islamic but looks suspiciously like a profile view of any of the riders in the Tour de France pushbike race, which because of Jimmy's completely different one would automatically render him without any chance.
Maybe I should also say this work is done on our Philippines residence, a land where plenty of freedoms still exist.

A new age of repair.

The LEDs I ordered to fix this kitchen lamp arrived while we were away so rough as guts Jimmy who is getting more and more hopeless with intricate repair jobs did a quick solder job to patch up this lovely efficient lamp.

Back in the days of inefficient and poor colour temperature Edison type lamps they just became land fill after failure.
I inclined to think the failure was caused by insect ingress rather than as a result of our power company pushing 250+ Volts along our line that is specified to be 230 Volts.

Back from a trip.

We've been away for a little while, met up with sibling and sibling in-law then visited my parents.
I even managed to have us all pose for a family photo at one point, something that's always been a little difficult in the past.
The trip gave Olivia a fleeting glimpse of what winter is like in non-tropical areas, snow was only a few hours drive south of us but the grey skies in Walgett helped our mood in this shot.
It's always half past on the clock in this shot, the minute hand is controlled by gravity, the hour hand operates normally so the clock retains some credibility.