Thursday, September 3rd ....

The weather yesterday was about as bad as it can get in Tasmania. The temperature never rose over 11degrees, there was a gale blowing off the Southern Ocean and it rained non-stop. A day for sitting in front of a log fire reading a book and drinking hot chocolate.

However, Marilyn and I were booked in to do a Defensive Driving course at Symmons Plains raceway. We're crazy!

It was organised by the local council and we were invited because of our Community Car involvement. The rest of the participants were employes of the Council, including two ladies from the office, Robbie who is the senior mower driver and a handful of various maintenance men. The Council supplied the vehicles: a couple of Camrys, a Nice little Dualis and various Hiluxes and Navaras.

Being asked to drive at 100 kph, in a howling gale and heavy rain, and being told to hit the brakes when the whistle blew was a challenge but we all survived, and passed. Most of the cars did very well, but the Hilux, not having ABS, was a nightmare. We drove the Dualis, which is quite impressive.


Today was fine so I managed to get some mowing done. The grass here is different to Dilston and the soil is fantastic. There are plenty of weeds, too, and some of them I've never seen before.