Coming to the end of our time in Mildura :(

We can’t believe that our 3 months in Mildura is coming to an end this week!  The time has really flown…and Xmas is just around the corner – yet again!!!  The weather is starting to warm up here – a beautiful 32 degrees today – so great to have the shorts on again and the caravan all opened up.

I have really enjoyed my time working at the hospital - I have had some fantastic births and experiences here and the staff have been awesome to work with.  If Mildura was on the coastline I would happily hang my hat and stay here.

A few things have happened over the last couple of weeks.  There was the big celebration of the paddlesteamers in Mildura a few weekends ago.  Mal watched as they made their way past the caravan park over the week prior to the celebration and after I finished work we went down to the wharf and had a look at all the various boats and paddlesteamers – it was quite a sight.  Here are a few piccies of the ones that went past the camp

Mal got to try out the hospital services on a personal level last weekend in the early hours of the morning.  We have got friendly with another couple we met here at the park and we all had a bit too many drinks last Friday night – Mal must have polished off the best part of a whole bottle of red wine himself!  He took himself off to bed at 10.30 pm – I was woken at 3.30am by what I thought was a car driving in to the side of the caravan – an almighty crash with the whole caravan rocking side to side.  I reached across to wake Mal up and he wasn’t there – when I turned the light on I finally found him out cold on the floor flat on his back – his head under the end of the bed with blood all over it.  I finally worked out that he had got up to get a drink and had passed out hitting the back of his head on something (still a mystery) and  had a gash about 7cm wide on the back of his head.  Had to wake up our friends to come and help me get him in the car and took him up to Emergency to get 5 stitches put in…..silly bugger!!!

I have taken a contract in Kalgoorlie Hospital (Western Australia) starting 15 October.  As part of the contract we have scored a one bedroom fully furnished flat for only $77 a week which is a bargain as accommodation is expensive due to it being a mining town (the caravan park charges $41 a night out of season).  Means Mal can get full time work as we can leave Chip at home without worrying about him.  The contract is initially 3 months but if we both like it there we will probably stay till the end of next year before we head back to NZ for Xmas and a few months with the family.  We have 3 weeks to travel to Kalgoorlie so are going to take the scenic route along the Eyre Peninsula coastline – quite looking forward to a bit of R&R!!  Our caravan gets solar panels installed on Monday just before we head off so we will be self sufficient to do free camping all the way.

Today we headed to the Perry Sandhills for a look out past Wentworth across the border in NSW.  The day today has been glorious – though the sandhills were a bit of a let down as nowhere near as big as we thought they would be (good ole tourism info!!) and although we tried very hard we couldn’t ski down them on our cardboard boxes!!!  Here are some piccies of our efforts….

not sure what these are????  they were everywhere - are they edible???

Tonight we are going out for dinner on one of the paddlesteamers with the couple from the park – we thought we had better fit that in before we head off!!