Tag Archives: holidays

Digital De-cluttering

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While we have been away I have been working on making some order of my digital photographs.  It is all too easy to simply download them from the camera and go no further.

My earlier feeble attempts had resulted in me putting the photos from each major holiday since December 2005 into their own folder.  I had not made any further progress.

During this holiday I have sorted through each folder and selected those that have some merit and deleted many which simply do not make the grade.

The joy of digital photography is that you can take lots of shots and then choose the best ones.  However, after taking heaps of photos, you do need to actually follow through and complete the process by deleting those that are not worth keeping.  You know the ones – sloping horizons, blurry, too far away, can’t remember why you took it etc.

After culling the excess, the next step was to number them so that they would stay in the order I wanted them.  The system I use is a 3 digit numeral eg:  001, 002 and so on which is followed by a description.  Without the numerals at the beginning the photos will be sorted alphabetically by the title which is not helpful when you want them to follow a sequence.

I have completed the descriptions on the photos for 6 of the trips plus about half of our last trip in May.  I also made sure that I have done the ones for the current trip and kept up to date each day.  This is how I intend to do it in the future 🙂

Once I have done all of the holiday photos I will then need to work on all other the others – children, grandchildren, house, garden etc.  It will be a long process but hopefully worth it in the end.

Inspired by Sandra, I will then scan all of the existing print photos that are in albums and sort them in a similar way.  Hopefully, my children will never have to sort through shoeboxes full of un-named photographs when I am gone.

I have included some of the photos that I regard as the best of what I have sorted through recently.  I hope you enjoy them.

Holiday Eating

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One of the biggest holiday budget killers can be food, especially if you find yourself eating out.  It does not have to be high-quality restaurant dinners either.  Coffee and cake for afternoon tea or a sandwich and juice for lunch – it soon adds up.  $5 or $10 here and there can quickly add up over a couple of weeks.

After our road trip in the middle of the year to NSW and South Australia we decided that it is definitely worth it to pay a little extra for self-contained accommodation where you can cook your own evening meal as well prepare food for travel/sightseeing the following day.  A couple of nights we stayed in basic motel rooms and found that we ended up spending more by the time we had even a basic pub meal.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it has been a little trickier this time as we were travelling internationally.  However, we brought a set of the bare minimum of our picnic set.

It all packed into a small cloth bag.  The bag was the ‘packaging’ from the last set of sheets that I bought.

We brought a few bags, including these ziplock bags which have proved to be very useful.

Avoiding packaging has been a bit of a challenge but I feel that I have done the best I could under the circumstances.  The supermarkets here have bulk bins of various items so we managed to utilise the ziplock bags to buy cereal as well as nuts and dried fruit for snacks.  Bread has been my downfall but I have kept any bread bags to pack our sandwiches in for our lunches as well as finally using them for rubbish bags.  I have also bought meat on styrofoam trays covered in cling wrap from the supermarket.  It has reminded me of how much packaging I actually avoid at home by making our own bread and taking our own containers when buying meat from the butcher.

These are some of the groceries we have bought along the way.  The scrambled eggs, baked beans, chicken and pasta meals have meant that we could budget for some special meals as well.

We have eaten out a few times and really enjoyed the meals.  The Thai meal we ate in Christchurch was excellent and the food highlight of our trip so far was our meal at the Harbour Light Bistro in Nelson.

Holidays are not all about the food, although The Duke may beg to differ.  We have enjoyed being able to take a couple of tours which, although not cheap have been really interesting and good value.  I have already told you about the one to Farewell Spit and yesterday we went on the Mailboat Cruise on Queen Charlotte Sound.

Holiday Habits

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We are now on holidays in New Zealand for 2 weeks so the posts will be a bit erratic.  As with our holiday in May I am trying to maintain our sustainable habits as much as possible.

It is a bit more difficult this time as we were flying internationally so customs precluded taking any of our own food.  Nevertheless, we took our own food in reuseable packaging on the flight.

I packed a calico shopping bag as well as some of the mesh bags I use when buying fruit and vegetables.  Our food for the trip was in ziplock bags so those have been washed, dried and reused as well.

Although we could not carry fluids on the flight we did pack our stainless steel flasks and have been using them since we arrived.  I also packed plastic plates and some cutlery in a cloth bag so that we can use them for lunches when we are travelling.

Yesterday I bought an insulated cooler bag with a zip top to carry some refrigerated items in the car as we travel from one self-contained accommodation venue to the next.  The cooler bag is soft-sided and can be folded flat so that I will be able to take it home to use on future trips.

The supermarkets here have a range of goods in bulk bins so I bought muesli, dried fruit and cashews.  I used my own ziplock bags so did not need to add any extra packaging.

Till next time.

Home Sweet Home

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We are home again after our trip away and I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.  Although, we did find some good beds in our travels and the best of these was at Willyama Cottage in Broken Hill.

As well as a bed that was easily as good as our own, the cottage was very well presented and had absolutely everything that we needed.  The kitchen utensils were excellent quality and preparing our own meals was a breeze.  This was an economical and healthy option to dining out.  The tariff was $100 per night.

If you are ever planning to be in Broken Hill I would suggest that you consider this cottage.

A ‘COFFEE’ update:

Clean – washing the clothes and linen from our travels.  I am on to the 3rd load now.

Organise – all of the bags are unpacked

Frugal – avoided buying any souvenirs or things that I thought I wanted while on holidays

Finances – totalled up every cent spent of the trip – 16 nights away and 6,000km travelled for $4,650 (included fuel, food, accommodation, tours, wine bought etc)

Eating – put another lot of refried beans on to cook in the slow-cooker overnight

Exercise – does running back and forth to the clothesline count?

Sustainable – bought meat while we were away from 2 butchers and asked for it to be put in my own plastic bags that I took with me.

That is enough from me.  Till tomorrow.

On The Road

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We left Brisbane late on Thursday afternoon and headed to Goondiwindi, on the Queensland/New South Wales border for our first night.  After a busy week in the lead-up to our departure I slept brilliantly last night.  In fact, I slept so well that I woke up this morning thinking that I was in my own bed.  That is unheard of, for me!

Today was a long day of just over 1,000 kms and almost 12 hours of travelling.  We arrived in Hay just after 6.30pm.  We shared the driving and while I was a passenger I did manage to do some knitting.  I am making some dishcloths and I have almost finished the first one which I had started at home during the Easter break.

I am hoping to continue our sustainable habits during the holiday as we would at home.  I brought food in containers, our own carry bags for shopping as well as drink bottles with water.  It is sometimes difficult to maintain habits when out of your normal environment but we will try our best and record our success (or otherwise) here.  The only spending today (apart from fuel) was one cup of coffee for The Duke ($3.85) and consequently a disposable cup to the rubbish!

Holidays Here We Come!

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Tomorrow is the big day – we set out on our road trip through western NSW, into Victoria (albeit briefly) and on to South Australia.  We have our itinerary planned, the accommodation booked and most of the packing done.

I have a medical appointment at lunchtime and The Duke is working so we will hit the road at about 4pm.

The excitement really set in this afternoon when I moved the car and reversed it into the garage so that it would be easier to pack the boot.  You know the trip is close when the car is reversed into the garage!

Holidays are a bit like Christmas – making a list and checking it twice!

The broad categories are:

Clothes

Electronic gadgets

Craft/games/books

Linen

Camping stuff

Groceries

Medication/first aid

Miscellaneous eg: torch, compass

I hope to post along the way and share our adventures.