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jenn

Murder by Death

I read cozy and historical mysteries, a bit of Paranormal/UF, and to mix it up, I read science and gardening books on occasion.

16 Tasks of the Festive Season - Bon Om Touk task (Square #2)

This task was oddly tough for me; being blessed to have grown up on the ocean, my idea of a holiday tends to be the converse andI head for the mountains.

 

So, I was all set to do the part about "living on the sea" - which you're still going to get - when I remembered our trip to New Zealand in June.  We stayed in a house on the lake; I was mostly paying attention to the mountains and sort of forgot about the lake.

 

I present to you, Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, New Zealand (S. Island):

 

This was our view from our back balcony.  This is also why I am not in charge of accommodations when we travel; left up to me we'd end up in a Marriott.

 

Sunrise on the lake as seen from my bedroom window.  Right before I rolled over and went back to sleep.

 

Rather than explain how one forgets about a lake they're sleeping on, I give you this - the true focus of most of my trip.

 

He's not much to look at, and definitely height challenged,  coming in at a whopping 6 inches or so, but it was the first day of "ski season" and not yet the first day of winter, so I didn't have a lot to work with.

 

I named him George, my snow goonie.

 

I'm currently living in Australia - a country known for its beaches, but Melbourne itself is at the top of the horseshoe shaped land that wraps around Port Phillip Bay.  Now, I know I'm going to sound a bit elitist here, but I don't really consider bayside shores to be 'beaches', and I'm a total princess about water temperature, so I don't spend a lot of time on Melbourne's shores.  But I'm in the tee-tiny minority.  People here love their beaches and spend a lot of money to live on them - or even just to own visiting rights to a small plot of it:

 

 

These are the beach boxes at Brighton, an outer suburb of Melbourne.  Aren't they cool looking?  They're about the size of a generous garden shed.  Most are made of wood, although there are a few stone structures, and that's all they are - boxes.  

 

They are also a dying breed.  Victorian law has prohibited any further beach boxes from being constructed, so the ones that are standing are all that's left.  This makes them instantly iconic and instantly oh-my-god expensive.  Because these are almost never sold, but rather handed down the family line, so when one comes up for sale it's a big deal. 

 

To see the proper ocean requires driving down one side or the other of the horseshoe, and the most popular choice is the Great Ocean Road.  A 151 mile / 243 km road, built by returning WWI and WWII veterans, it hugs the coastline of Victoria, going along the cliffs and rainforests and is the route from which the 12 8 Apostles and all the other famous limestone stack formations can be seen.

 


 1st pic: 2 of the Apostles still left standing and the shoreline the Great Ocean Road follows.  2nd pic: the remaining Apostles  3rd pic: part of the Blowhole formation (I think)

 

But as I think just about everyone who reads my posts knows, I was born and raised in Florida and lived the great majority of my life 5 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. It remains, in spite of all the glorious places I've seen and have lived in since, my favourite spot on Earth.  It's my soul's home, no matter where my heart roams.  

 

That's my mom on the far right side of the second pic, looking for sharks teeth.