Happy Australia Day family friends and fellow citizens. Hip hip hooray for all of us who are fortunate to live in such a great country!



Norm demonstrating his pride in our flag on our poor old sunburnt lawn!

Well finally located the second UK video Clip from 2010 so here it is.

What can I say? He likes seeing me ride but we will hopefully have some more interesting ones on the next trip.

The link to find it is below:

July 15th 2010 Castle Combe UK: http://youtu.be/nH8xt0PgGQI

Yay, I’ve finally signed up for You Tube so we can load some videos on for our upcoming trip. I’ve also loaded 3 from times gone by if you want to check them out. The 2 from our last trip I have also added into the blog in the appropriate place for a bit of context and the other 1 is from the previous trip (on a wiki) if I ever get that transferred across I’ll do the same to them.

July 13th 2010 – Hardknott Pass UK. http://youtu.be/Ng47XFnTMmc

October 13th 2011 – Barge traffic on the Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise. http://youtu.be/FZLnuZLGLIQ

October 19th 2011 – Entering the he largest Lock on the Amsterdam to Budapest river cruise. http://youtu.be/WoWQEUi3CSo

A great day was had by all who attended – Norm (of course….life partner and husband extraordinaire), Rosey, representing all the immediate family and Sharen (cousin) representing all the extended family both those still here and those absent.



Norm and Nola after the investiture in front of the ‘little’ water feature in the garden at Government House

To quote Nola “It was a great honour to experience the investiture and also to just be within Government House, I felt really privileged and enjoyed the fact that I could share that with my family. My Dad would have been stoked that Jeff Hook of Herald Sun cartoon fame received an OAM on the same day”.



Quite a collection to bring home…the kids have made a few interesting comments about who will get what when Nola is no longer here to which her response is …..”Better treat each other well because it all has to stay together”. You have to laugh.

It has been announced today that Nola has been awarded an OAM – Order of Australia Medal for Services to the Transport and Logistics Industry, Women and the Community. The actual Investiture will take place at Government House at a date yet to be fixed.



Nola being interviewed by the local WIN News team at the Municipal Australia Day Breakfast in Victory Park

To quote Nola “I am humbled that doing what I do in supporting people working in the industry to make things happen and ensure they have a voice where needed is valued, it’s also a little uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. I hope this is considered a win for the Transport and Logistics Industry, Women and the Industry”.



Nola flying the Aussie flag on the bike (as did Norm). She decided to leave it on the bike until it fell to bits……..or she needed to put the big bag on the back.

To quote Nola again “it felt good with the flag on the bike “.
PS: She finally had to take it off a month later to put the bag on. Norms’ flag on the other hand only lasted a couple of hours before the stitching started to unravel. Go figure! Is this a reflection of the manufacture we wonder..…an Aussie flag manufactured in China and sold to Australians in a German owned store. We are truly a multicultural nation.

Happy New Year to all who pass by here. I aim to progressively add some of our rides on the Blog with picture though the more unpleasant the weather the fewer photos I suspect.

Stay upright, ride safe and enjoy the ride!

No promises but I hope to transfer our 2009 Darwin bike ride over to the blog during January and if I ever get registered again with wikispaces will do likewise with the 2010 UK odyssey and will let you know when it's done.