Trout Weekend

 We've just returned from a weekend at Liawenee in Tasmania's Central Plateau. Apparently it is the coldest place in Tasmania. Clearly somewhere you really want to go heading into winter . . .

We went for the Inland Fisheries' annual Trout Weekend, which is held at IFS' Field Station, near Great Lake. We decided that rather than drive up and back in a day, we'd stay up there overnight, so it was a nice weekend getaway.

Among the things to see and do was the angling pool, where kids could catch trout; watching trout being stripped of eggs (a very strange thing to see); and helicopter rides, which we decided at the last minute to do, because it's not an opportunity that you get every day.

It was a fun weekend and, although it was cold and there was some snow on the ground, it wasn't as freezing as we'd expected. Today was a beautiful, clear sunny day, perfect for our helicopter ride.

Juniordwarf was very excited to catch a fish from the trout pool, and was even more excited when he got a certificate (he's highly motivated by certificates at the moment). He thought it was great to catch a fish that he could eat for dinner - only once it was on his plate, he said he didn't like it and filled up on carrots instead.

For the record, the trout was 35 cm long and weighed 600 grams. Not a huge trophy fish, but perfect for the three of us.

On the way home, we stopped to have a look at the Steppes Stones, which are some wonderful sculptures by Stephen Walker in the middle of the bush.

Great Lake at Miena - trying out the AutoStitch Panorama app on my phone

Great Lake at Miena

Great Lake Hotel, where we stayed

Juniordwarf was fascinated by the egg stripping

IFS officer talking about egg stripping

Juniordwarf and his fish

Near Liawenee

Helicopter ride

Helicopter ride

View of Great Lake from the helicopter

Helicopter ride

We stopped to look at the fantastic Steppes Stones on the way home

The Steppes Stones by Stephen Walker

The Steppes Stones

Country road, take me home . . .  (outside Bothwell)

Sultanas Layout - a sketch challenge

I haven't been doing much scrapbooking lately. It seems every time I go into my craft space I spend more time organising my stuff than actually doing anything.

Apparently this means I have too much stuff. Who'd have thought?!

Every second Friday is scrapbooking night at our local scrapbooking shop, and this is where I pull out a half-finished layout from my "work in progress" album, try a few things out, shuffle a few things around on the page, realise the thing I need to add is at home, sigh, and put the page back into the album . . . where it stays for the next six months. Then I pull out the next unfinished project and repeat the process. 

It's a process very much like the one where I shuffle stuff around in my craft space. 

Last fortnight one of my scrapping buddies published a layout on her blog for the A2Z Scraplets May challenge. I had a look at the sketch and realised I had the perfect photos for it, if only I could find them.

When I finally located them (which was very easy to do because my craft space is so well organised . . .), I was amused to find that they were already in the "in progress" album along with the same sketch.  I'd seen it a couple of years ago, and had decided to use those photos for that layout. I hadn't picked out any paper or card, so they were just sitting there, neglected.

During the week I selected some card, papers and other bits and pieces, and last night I finished the layout. It's very rare that I get a project completed the same night I start it, so this is cause for celebration :)

A note on the products: part of the challenge was to use chipboard, so the letters are Basic Grey micro-chip (milk chocolate). Card is Bazzill (lemonade and one of the Swiss dot range) and Coredinations (cappucino). The paper is from a pirate range, left over from Juniordwarf's birthday card. The dies are by mpress via my Cuttlebug and the pen is a Zig Writer (chocolate). Eyelet and ribbon from my stash (aka the stockpile of "too much stuff").