This year our primary exercise was again cycling, both about the island and on rides in the region with the Bribie BUG (our cycling group of about 100 members). Regular island rides of 20-25km are becoming much more popular - perhaps with the proliferation of e-bikes. Our favourites are with 5-15 riders on Wednesday mornings and 20-30 on Saturdays. We also enjoyed many of the "away" rides in the region especially those on the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail which connects Ipswich and Yarraman ( a total distance of 162 km, which we have ridden most of in 20 to 40 km sections ) and a particularly memorable Woodford-Peachester ride on which the rain came tumbling down for the latter three quarters - what a bunch of drowned but happy rats we were on our return to Woodford. Bob was president of this group until August, when he switched roles with the then treasurer.
In February the two of us, and a friend Kim Bennie, enjoyed a weekend camp at Booloumba Creek. It also rained but just a little - and that was almost the last of the rain for this year. As a result Australia has experienced record high temperatures almost every month, a devastating drought, and in the last three months truly horrendous fires up and down the east coast of Australia the likes of which Australia has not seen in living memory.
Mid-February we spent six weeks in St Arnaud, New Zealand helping Janet settle into her "company house" and exploring the area around her new home. We ended up camping in the lakeside campground for a couple of weeks while the house was being freshly painted, and were kept busy cleaning up the yard, unpacking many boxes from Geraldton, and building a chicken house and run. Janet is enjoying her work as a biodiversity ranger focusing on threatened plants that includes being helicoptered into remote areas for plant surveys, weeding and trapping feral animals. She too is captivated by the beauty of the environment - though still getting used to (and fit for) their love of tramping vertically up and down the nearby mountains.
Joyce's energies this year have focused slowly continuing to develop the Labyrinth at the Art Centre, and an associated collaborative mural painting project (see also BribieLabyrinthProject.blogspot.com) which has led to lot of intense discussions on pathways in life as well as having fun creating a bright and playful feature at the Arts Centre. Music has continued to be an important part of her life, with weekly trips to Bli Bli on the Sunshine Coast for to play recorder duets and trios, and continuing participation in the Bribie Island Orchestra, and the Island Celtic Fiddlers. In May Joyce enjoyed a week camping on North Stradbroke Island at a inspirational seminar on 'Elderhood in a Troubled Age' presented by a Canadian, Stephen Jenkinson, who is best known for his writings on grief and dying (https://orphanwisdom.com), Later in the month, she enjoyed a long weekend as part of a BioBlitz doing a wide range of ecological surveys just south of Fraser Island.
Bob continued with golf 3 times a week (including being treasurer of the social group Dad's Army), and treasury duties at the Bribie Butterfly House. These meant a fair bit of time in his "pod" with a fair bit of coffee.
The Butterfly House (https://www.bribieislandbutterflyhouse.org) continues to be very popular, turning over in excess of $200,000 p.a. with almost three quarters donated to local and overseas charities.
Joyce came home from New Zealand wondering what winter would be like amongst the mountains. So of course off we went again for two weeks in St Arnaud in late August cuddled around the wood stove at night with morning temperatures in the yard below zero admiring snow on all the local peaks while we did odd jobs for Janet. We included a visit to a local ski field and a few days down in the Franz Josef glacier region. Global warming has drastically shrunk the glacier - a stark reminder of our changing world.
On the glacier trip Bob admired the clean gravelly rivers of the west coast and was heard to unwisely wonder how they would be for kayaking. No sooner were we back in Australia, Joyce was organising yet another cross-Tasman trip over Christmas including a six-day 150 km kayak trip down the Whanganui River on the North Island with Janet (pictures next year). This has also resulted in us getting our own kayaks out here on Bribie as much as possible for the last couple of months to build some paddling fitness for this adventure - which has been great as the kayaks had been languishing unused for many months.
In the midst of this Bob had a couple of rectal bleeds and was put through the colonoscopy torture. Fortunately he only lost three polyps which proved to be benign. The worst part was having to do it all again if he survives Joyce's holidays for three years.
Now we are again well into Christmas Party and Christmas Card time which signals the end of our 2019 blog.
As we finished last year, may your countries struggle on through 2020 without too much climate-induced damage and may your politicians not cause too much angst.
All the best for 2020,
Bob and Joyce
And as a postscript - a poem (by Joyce)!
