Bush Dancing with Broken Ribs

The following day after coming back from our trip to the Outback, Sarah and I ventured down to Castlemaine to play footy for our respective teams. In the game I got an elbow in my ribs, which to cut a long story short resulted in me breaking two ribs. And yes, I did give a 4X about it. However I did not find this out until 10 days later, when my male ego failed me and I eventually decided to go the the doctors because it was painful for so long. But the weekend in between saw me play through the pain barrier and net a goal for my team in a 2-2 draw. The injury forced me to miss all of August's fixtures, and resulted in me being quite miserable because I could not do much in terms of exercise.

At the end of July Sarah's Mum, Sue, and her partner, Pete, came to Oz to visit us for a while. We fed them with wonderful Aussie steak on their first day here and sampled some of the local wines too. We took them to a wildlife park as Sue was desperate to see some kangaroos and other Australian flora and fauna. They then went up to Darwin to get some winter sun before finishing their trip down under with another stay with us in Echuca. Their last night here saw us visit Bendigo on a trip organised by the International Teachers Association for a local bush dance. It was good fun and I had to join in, despite my ribs, which probably put my recovery period back a little.

The last weekend in winter saw us visit Melbourne for the weekend and Sarah and I went to the Science Museum and Planetarium, which took us on a trip through a Black Hole. We also visited Vic Market and lots of shops, so Sarah could buy some clothes (yawn!) for her birthday.

Apart from day trips here and there such as to Shepparton, Heathcote and Beechworth, in the foothills of the Victorian Alps, we have not done too much else because of the rapidly dwindling money supply. However Sarah has managed to get some more work recently, which will be good for our last big trip at the next school holidays at the end of September. My parents are planning to come and visit and we are planning to go to Queensland for a while then. Something to look forward to.