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Lisa, The Kids and I went over to Ballarat for a touch of shopping today. On a whim we went home via Waubra, which is where a huge wind farm is being installed.

According to the fact sheet on the official website the 128 turbines each generate 1.5MW for a total capacity of 192MW.

The turbines are huge. We found a side road where we could get pretty close to them, and while we were out of the car taking photos a farmer stopped by to say hello. He owned one of the 34 properties they’re on and invited us in to have a closer look.

Each one is 89 meters from the ground to the turbine housing, and 109 meters from the ground to blade tip. The actual blades are enormous and although they look like they’re turning pretty slowly the blade tip is certainly moving pretty quickly.

Lisa and I were both impressed with with how graceful they are. I know some people think they’re an eyesore, but we don’t agree. They’re pretty quiet and considering how much good they do (enough power to 140,000 homes) it’s a wonderful installation.

Many thanks to the anonymous farmer who kindly let us past the “No private access whatsoever” sign to take a close look.

We had visitors today – our nephew Adam and his girlfriend.

The Kid decided she would make dessert for us tonight. She presented Lisa with a shopping list.

• Two blocks of chocolate
• A can of whipped cream
• A cherry

I have no idea what she was planning to make.

These stupid and artificial roadblocks are starting to annoy me.

Having to use a US based proxy to work around these lame attempts to control where you can view content takes 30 seconds out of my day. Not happy.

Today’s the first day back at school for term 3. Gocky was very happy to be back with her friends.

I wonder if there’s a noticeable spike in water consumption on the Sunday evening before kids go back to school after two weeks holiday? You’d have to imagine that we’re not the only parents giving our kids a nice long warm bath before heading back to school.