Yesterday, we took a drive along the Sunshine Coast of Australia. We got off the Bruce Hwy and traveled through the Glass House Mountains. Despite being out of shape and, in my case, wearing the wrong shoes, we managed to climb to the lookout tower on Mt. Beerburrum. I hope you enjoy these pictures!









Several times, I gave up my hike up the mountain, partly because of a fear of heights, partly because I was afraid of going down, partly because I was out of shape and wearing the wrong shoes!

At one point I was sitting on a rock trying to decide what to do next when two men and a woman came down the trail. The woman told me I was the smart one. I looked down at my feet and told her I wasn't very smart because I was wearing the wrong shoes. The woman turns to the men and and says "Look at that, she's wearing thongs!" I think, no I've never worn a thong in my life, why would she say that? Ohhhhh, in Australia shoes like mine are called thongs. Blimey!








I'm glad I made it to the top! The view was definitely worth it.





Sorry Susie D, I know I look like an ill-prepared tourist but I wore the socks anyway!

Remains of Survivor - Vanuatu

When some of my Survivor fan friends heard we were going to Vanuatu, they wanted to know if we were going to visit the site where Survivor/Vanuatu was filmed. Stephanie said there were far better places to visit (she is right) and the Survivor site was too far away. Never-the-less, on our way to Pele Island our van driver pointed to the road leading to the village that hosted Survivor. On the way back I asked if the driver would stop so I could take a picture of the road.
As a perfect host in Vanuatu, the driver not only stopped for the road, he took us up the road and directly into the Survivor site. These pictures show some of the site. When I get back home, my to-do list includes renting Survivor Vanuatu to see if I recognize any landmarks.

For now, my Survivor friends, I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Virtual University Week 5, Part 4

When we were in Malvasi, Steph & I took a walk to her garden. The garden needed a git of weeking which, with my allergies, I was not about to do.
I took a photo of the garden and using PSP, I applied a weave effect using Visman filters. This gives a completely different picture of the garden.

Virtual University Week 5, Part 3 - More Warping

The pictures shown here are the same daily - the first one is the original picture tube. The 2nd one is after I played with various warping tools - warp brush, iron out, expand, contract, twirl and, noise. I can't wait to try this on some of my photos. Looking at the 2nd daisy, it sort of reminds me of what my little garden might look like if I left my favorite son in charge of watering while I'm on vacation.

Virtual University Week 5 Exercise 2.1B

I made this cat using a picture tube of an orange. My first step was to use the warp tool to make a round orange into the shape of a cat. Obviously, my cat is not symetrical. I downloaded the eyes, added raster layers and inserted the eyes - which had to be moved and resized. The next step was to use preshapes - a red triangle for the nose and a pink ellipse for the tongue. The final steps were straight lines for the whiskers and free-hand (not easy with the built in mouse on a laptop) lines for the mouth. Hmmm, I wonder if I can use the warp tool to make photos of me slimmer.....

Virtual University Week 5 Lesson 1

While we were on vacation I missed the final week of lessons on Virtual University. Although it is too late to complete the course, I'm still going to do the work. Week five, lesson 1 is about changing backgrounds using flood fill colors, gradients and different levels of opacity. The first sample is using gradient metallic gold and adding blue stripes in various tolerances. The 2nd picture is a new image opened with a yellow as the color. I added a foreground of the beach pattern and a the background is Metallic Gold Gratient with radiall style, angle is 45 and scale is 100. Both pictures changes a background to something unique. I'm off to do lesson 2 now.

After watching Stephanie doing laundry, I vow never to complain about laundry at home again. The clothes are placed in the tub with soap & water to soak. Then, they are scrubbed, rinsed and hung on the line to dry. Some days she starts laundry and by the time the clothes are ready to hang, it starts to rain! When we arrived in Port Vila the last time, we paid $10 a load to have our clothes washed. Unfortunately, after having the basket of clean clothes returned to us we realized some of our clothes were missing - they were in a bag stored at the Peace Corp office. We brought the dirty clothes with us to Australia & will wash them later this week at the hotels laundrymat. Unfortunately, the bag does not contain any warm clothes!

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Today, we visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We watched two sheep dogs herd sheep, learned about large birds in Australia, learned about koalas, fed kangaroos and, for a price, I held Bruce - a koala. The weather here is quite cold and - stupid me - I didn't bring shoes & socks. The clothes I'm wearing in these pictures are my only warm clothes and they were'nt warm enough. The weather forecast is colder later this week. Guess it's off to the mall for some new Aussie clothes for me.

Steph wants a casserole for dinner tonight. Unfortunately our well stocked kitchen does not come with a casserole dish. Guess we will buy a casserole dish while we are at the store.

Malvasi Kindy School

While we were on Epi, Steph took me to visit the schools. The first school we visited was next to Steph's house. This is the Kindy school - only kindergarten age students attend this school. There are some similarities to American schools - the children learn their ABC's, how to count, sing and play like in America. However, there are many differences too. Notice how uncluttered the classroom is. There are no toys, puzzles, educational games.....
Stephanie told me a story about a time her neighbor went to the bush and let her kindy age son stay with Stephanie. Steph got a puzzle out and worked it with him. Remarkably, he helped work the puzzle - all 100 pieces - until it was finished. There are not many kindergarten aged kids whose attention span would last through a 100 piece puzzle!

When we visited the school, the children sang some songs for us, complete with hand and body movements. They are absolutely adorable. Later in the week we visited the primary school which is a 35-40 minute walk from the village. I'll post some pictures later from our visit.

Yellow Sunglasses

One day I left my sunglasses laying on the bench. Many people tried them on, here are a few photos...