Last post for 2015

It's time to update the last few days and post my last blog for this year. I reported on our Christmas gathering, and also that purple quilt. Thankyou for those who have offered their opinions re the binding to Sue, and I look forward to seeing what she uses.

 My Christmas gift was a voucher to spend in a garden store, and when the chance came for a trip to Mount Gambier with friends, I accepted. It was not hard to spend my money, and I will come back and post about my purchases in the new year. After we had finished our shopping, we did the "tourist" thing and went for a drive. I have been to Mount Gambier a few times and even holidayed there many, many years ago. My friends had lived in the area earlier in their married life, so they knew a lot about the area, and gave me a tour. We drove to the coast, and visited Port MacDonnell, which is you can see in the next few photos.

I know that the South East of our state is known as The Limestone Coast, and I now realise why. There is stone everywhere. The photo below is of a pit where they used to cut blocks of Mount Gambier stone, which is used as a building material. This was very interesting to me, because the house we lived in on our farm which was north of Bordertown, was made out of this stone. In earlier days it was cut by hand, but now they have machinery to do this.

The south east also has a few extinct volcanoes, the most famous one being The Blue Lake in Mount Gambier. I managed to get the following photo as we were driving past, which shows how blue the water is. We did not stop as I had been there years ago. This lake supplies Mount Gambier with their water.

I did not know that there was another lake, called Little Blue Lake, which is a few kms out of Mt Gambier ,near Mt Schank on the way to the coast. This is also an extinct volcano and filled with water, although more green than blue. It is a local swimming spot, as well as a cave diving site. The South East area has a lot of caves, and lots of limestone.

There is also another extinct volcano close to the Blue Lake, called Valley Lake which is also filled with water, and used for swimming and boating.

This is Valley Lake taken from the Lookout up above the town.

And this (?? forget what you call them??) is also up at the lookout and points to local landmarks and also which way to go to New York, and Tokyo!

It was a lovely day out, with beautiful weather and the company of good friends. Thankyou.

The weather since then has gone "down hill". By this I mean the temperature has risen to a high today of 41deg!! Much too hot for me. I have been doing some edge to edge quilts, and staying close to the air conditioner after early morning watering in the garden.

If you are into celebrating the new year in, I hope you have a good night. I will be having a quiet night. I wish all my readers a year of hope, joy, peace and many blessings for 2016.

Be back in 2016,
Blessings, From Jude