Greetings from Gracemere

Hi everyones,

Today's published peculiarities come to you from the little town of Gracemere, located about ten kilometres west of Rockhampton. My family moved out here from Rockhampton last year, to a lovely house complete with veggie gardens and nice breezes. Since then, they have added an aviary, two birds and several guinea pigs to the list of facilities, and if you're lucky, the odd horse wanders down the street from time to time, ideally emblazoned with a rider of some kind.

It's a wonderful example of city-country hybrid living, and it's a great place to chill. I have travelled down here for a week to spend time with my family because my father turns the ripe, young age of 60 on Saturday. Quite the milestone of achievement, really, so good on ya', Pa - Happy Birthday!

The trip down here was reasonably non-eventful. I like to travel by road overnight, as some people know, and others consider unsettling. I enjoy it - it's cooler, there is much less traffic on the road and provided you know your body well enough to pull over and power nap when necessary, it can be done safely. Having a healthy supply of caffeine helps too, and a good collection of CDs to carry you down the highway as you sing your guts out.

So, having insomniated a total of about seven hours' sleep since Sunday morning, I didn't think I'd have any problems staying awake driving down with my friends, Mr Red Bull and Mr Ice Break (who, incidentally, are selfish prats when it comes to driving and won't do any of it for you).

And so here we are. Thanks, God, for the safe trip. And thanks to Miss Melanie, who assembled a pack of physical and intellectual stimulation to keep me going on the trip down. (Mel, I have not yet told you but your ANZAC biscuits are fantastic!) She taught me not only that I know more about Australian trivia than I thought, but also that seedless grapes are fantastic car food. They're fruit, they're healthy and you can make your way through them easily with no mess and no fuss! I think I polished off that whole bag by the time I made it to Mackay. So good...

Taskmaster Mel also set me an objective to compose a happy story about a sailing adventure, and an additional verse to our national anthem. I wasn't able to do this on my way down (too busy warbling) but I'll endeavour to work on these and post the results over the next few days.

I am hoping to travel further to Gladstone tomorrow (just for the day) to visit a paramedic friend of mine down there. That's only an hour-and-a-half drive, so since it doesn't justify a Red Bull, Mel's ANZAC biscuits are definitely coming with. SG