14th December 1907

Renee's Grandmother "Jessie Lindsay' was born in Bournemouth, England on the 14Th of December 1907. Bournemouth is in Dorset on the south coast of England about 2 hours from London. December the 14Th 2007 would have been Jessie's 100Th birthday so we made the pilgrimage to Bournemouth for the weekend. We had the address of where she was born and even a photo so our aim was to find the street and see what it was like 100 years later.

We managed to find the street without to much trouble and we found a part of the road that looked the closest to that of the photo. I had the laptop in my backpack so we were able to refer to the picture as we stood on the street and took some pictures. In Australia streets can change a lot over the years but in Bournemouth things seemed quite similar to how they would have been way back then.

Bournemouth is a seaside resort town, and we spent some time walking on the beach and checking out the pier. Being December it was freezing but we imaged it would be lovely in the summer.
We had a Cup of tea and some scones with jam and cream and reminisced about Renee's Grandma. We will go back to Bournemouth in the summer when Renee's parents come over to visit.

Some pics of our trip are here

Dashing Through the Snow

Merry Christmas!
We figured this year would be a good opportunity to experience a white Christmas after all these years of heat and sweat in Queensland. With no sign of snow in London for Christmas we decided to head for Austria. We arrived in Salzburg on the 23rd and it was cold! About minus 5 and although it wasn't actually snowing there was still some left on the ground and roovesetc from when it had fallen 10 days prior.

We started by Checking out the Austrian version of Christmas markets and they were a little bit different to the German ones but equally as good. They had different types of sausage and different hot alcoholic drinks to the ones we went to in Germany. We enjoyed the hot cherry or berry punch they had on offer. Renee bought some mistletoe and a little Christmas tree for our hotel room.

On Christmas eve we went up the the big Fortress that overlooks the town, it was built almost 1000 years ago and is quite impressive. The view was great and we could see large snow capped peaks as we looked out towards the alps. On the way way back to our hotel we picked up some delicacies like strudel and giant chocolate pretzels. In the evening we tried to find a traditional Austrian inn for dinner bu they were all full up so we settled for Indian. As it was already Christmas morning in Australia we had arranged to do a web camera session with our families. It was great to share some present opening with them and be apart of there Christmas day.

Christmas day was fairly quite , we started with a nice hot breakfast in our hotel and then opened presents from each other. As there wasn't much open on Christmas night we had dinner at the Italian restaurant next to the hotel. The food was good but we did miss the roast turkey dinners back in Bris.

Boxxing day was the real highlight of our Austrian trip. We booked a day trip to the mountains and a horse drawn sleigh ride. We headed about an hour out of Salzburg into the alps at about 3000 meters elevation. The scenery was incredible and we were blessed with a prefect day of clear blue sky and sunshine. We played in the snow for a bit then had a traditional Austrian lunch with dumpling, Sauerkraut and meats. Then it was time for our Sleigh ride, our sleigh was pulled along buy 2 Horses complete with jingling bells attached. They took us around for about 2 hours through forests, little mountain villages, and passed ski Fields. We stopped for a break at an inn to let the horses rest and had a hot mulled wine in the snow as we waited. It was an amazing day and a great way to finish our time in Austria .

Happy New Year

Pics here