New Adventures

We're Back!

2010-10-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

So it might look like we haven't been anywhere since our trip to England in 2008 - not so. Somehow we missed posting our trip to Glacier & Banff National parks in 2009, but here is our 2010 road trip to California ~

First stop was Yosemite, which was beautiful, but more crowded than the mall the day after Thanksgiving - not what we want when trying to experience the great outdoors!

Scene's like this would be spectacular in the spring thaw: And would you believe that people actually book a year in advance to climb to the top of this rock!

The beauty is all around ~ but some look-outs are a little too high for Marylin's comfort zone!
Then onto the Sequoia National Forrest. If you look closely you can see Marylin standing by the fence - the trees are beyond enormous!
This is the General Grant tree - impossible to get it all into one frame without an ultra wide angle lens:
Apart from the trees, the scenery is totally beautiful:
And then over to the California coast - windy... with morning fog:

Breath taking sunsets:

and the awesome Redwood Forests: Gary took his car where no self respecting mercedes should be taken:

So that we could explore Fern Canyon - where dinosaurs roamed in the making of Jurassic Park:

The driftwood was mighty tempting to bring home - shame about it being so big, and the Mercedes so small:

But of course, it is the trees that take your breath away: The most amazing thing is how they continue to survive even after been badly damaged during fires. This one had an empty core, but still had living branches:

How insignificant we are:

Then we continued up the coast into Oregon, and woke to a perfect morning for a last soul restoring walk on the beach:

Back inland to Crate Lake:

Where Marylin got to feed over fed, friendly chipmunks: And then homeward bound across some very desolate landscape:

Where - at 9.30pm......in the middle of nowhere............ Not one.....But Two flat tyres/tires within 2 miles of each other!
Thank goodness there are still kind people travelling the road - and we were lucky enough to be able to hitch into the nearest town (109 miles away) leaving the car on the road overnight (no sleep for Gary!) and then went back out the next day with a tyre repair service and were able to continue on our merry way.

Until next time............

2008-09-01T10:03:00.001-07:00

ENGLAND ADVENTURE

Well, it's a rainy Labor Day and I find myself in a rare state of having nothing pressing to do so I though I'd post just a few pictures of our England trip. For the full slide show you'll just have to come see us! You will note from the pictures that we had magnificent weather. Despite the common perception that it always rains in England, we had nothing but beautiful sunny weather our entire trip!

This is the apartment "flat" that we stayed in. Marylin's sister Felicity works as an live in care taker for a wealthy woman with advanced MS. She and her husband have this beautiful place in Poole (an English resort city) which they use as a retreat from the hectic pace of London. They graciously offered it for our use while we were there. What a blessing!

Marylin's sister Lyndsey who we had come to England to visit lived in Poole about 10 minutes from this place where we were staying which was very convenient.Marylin has previously posted pictures of her sisters and other family so I'll stick to the "vacation" aspect of our trip. Even given the somber circumstances of our trip we had a wonderful time touring England. We drove about 700 miles in two days and saw much of the English countryside. The purpose of our road trip was to visit Scothern Village.

It was a beautiful little village on the outskirts of Lincoln, a large city in Northern England. The picture below is the Main Street of Scothern Village. It is now little more than a bedroom community for Lincoln. As far as I could see there were not stores or businesses in the village.

We encountered the postman who said there were no longer any Scotherns living in Scothern Village. The photo below is of the Church of England chapel in the village.

We walked the graveyard surrounding the church and although there were graves going as far back as the mid 1700's we didn't find any Scotherns. Hard to say if any of our progenitors were actually from Scothern Village.

England is dotted with beautiful cathedrals and castles. One of the most magnificent is in Lincoln. We were privileged to be there early in the morning before the crowds and were among only about half a dozen people in the entire cathedral. Although photography is not allowed in most of the cathedrals we were able to take some pictures of the inside. The following pictures are of Lincoln Cathedral.

All of the incredible stone work in the castles and cathedrals is hand carved, not cast. The craftsmanship is astonishing.

You can't begin to experience the grandeur of these buildings in pictures.

On the way to Northern England, we stopped a Kings College at Cambridge. Those who have seen the movie "Dead Poets Society" will recognize this square as the one they raced around.

The following pictures are of Kings Cathedral at Cambridge. We would marvel at the craftsmanship in this building if it were built today but when you consider that it was built nearly 400 years ago it is mind boggling!

The English country side looks much the same everywhere you go. Quaint little villages, thatched roofs, etc. Really beautiful.

Typical English country road. They have hedge rows that go for miles and miles unbroken except for an occasional cross road or driveway.

And yes... this road is only one car wide with occasional wide spots for passing. If you encounter an oncoming vehicle between wide spots, one must back up to allow the other to pass. The blind corners can be VERY exciting too!! There are places where the tree canopy over the road is so thick and so long that you have to turn your lights on mid-day to see where you're going.

When you get outside the major metropolitan areas, the villages all have a similar look. Here are a couple ... The following pictures are a few shots of Castles and Cathedrals.

Anadale Castle

Canterbury Cathedral

Windsor Castle

You'll notice that the Queen Guard have replaced their muskets with Automatic rifles.

We wanted to spend a couple of days in London and were very discouraged by the train fare from Poole to London ($90.00 each round trip) and staying anywhere in London was out of the question. Then I had what turned out to be, I think a moment of inspiration.

We wanted to go to the London temple as part of our trip and as we were lamenting the high cost of transportation to and from London, it occurred to me that the Temple had guest accommodations. We called and were able to get the last available room at a cost of $18 per person per night! So, we drove to the Temple, (about 35 miles south of London) stayed there and took the train from there to London. We were also able to do two sessions at the temple which was wonderful and the temple grounds were magnificent!

London is breathtaking! The architecture over the centuries is nothing short of unbelievable. The following few pics are just a sampling.

I'm sure everyone recognizes Big Ben

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben from the Thames River Another view of the Houses of Parliament

Buckingham Palace The Tower of London

Westminster Abbey St. Paul's Cathedral ... There are 515 steps to the top of the

dome and 515 back down. We walked every one of them!!!!!!

Tower Bridge

On the Sunday prior to our departure from England we were sitting around the "flat" wondering what we might do on our last day. We pulled out the map and discovered that Stonehenge was only about 40 miles north of Poole. En route we passed through Salisbury and discovered another magnificent cathedral.

Salisbury CathedralI put this picture here to give you some scale of the size of this building.

The entire face of the cathedral is statues such as those shown below.

We arrived at Stonehenge just at sunset and got some incredible pictures!

If you'd like to see more of our nearly 600 pictures, lets make a date for Sunday dinner and a slide show. Love ya all!

Family

2008-08-06T18:42:00.001-07:00

My sisters - standing Jean (living in South Africa) - Lyndsey (in her pyjama's & robe - I mean what else do you wear to your birthday party?) and Felicity (living in England).

All the family that we able to gather for Lyndsey -

Front row: George - Lyndseys' husband : Gavin in the blue baseball cap with his wife Claire in front of him : sister Lyndsey : sister Felicity in front of Lyndsey : Me & Gary.

Back row : Paul & Sharon (Sharon in Lyndsey's daughter) : My sister Jean & her husband Valley

And this one is just to prove that I am not the "crazy" sister!
And just because I love this one of Lyndsey & her daughter Sharon

I will leave the travelogue for Gary - he is much better at that than me!

A Trip Worth Taking

2008-06-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend!

We took off Friday morning with Mindy, Steve and kids along with Ben and his boys and headed for Wheeler Peak, Nevada. It's a 5 hour drive (with kid stops) through some of Utah's most baren landscapes. Then, about the time everyone is thinking Grandpa must be either lost or crazy, a majestic snow capped moutain range appears on the horizon, looking very out of place in the middle of such a desolate desert. (The end is in sight!)

After climbing about 5,000 feet from the valley floor on a steep winding (well paved) mountain road as you round a corner this view unfolds and takes your breath away.

This photo actually taken last August, more snow now

The campgrounds are at about 10,000 feet. The summit is over 13,000 feet. It was cool and breezy when we arrived, but it turned out to be a beautiful evening.

Saturday morning we woke up to this ........

The kids were delighted!

We older folk just took it in stride.

I threw this photo in just because I really like it.

After breakfast we decided we'd better break camp and head for more hospitable accomodations. Upper Lehman Creek campgrounds, at about 7,500 ft. seemed a better bet. We set up camp there (another beautiful campground) then, after lunch, took a tour of Lehman Cave, just a short drive from the campgrounds. Truely one of the most spectacular caves I've ever seen! It is third in the world in the number and type of cave formations. I didn't take any pics inside the cave but here are some stock photos I found on the web. They really don't do justice. The cave is over a mile long and filled with this kind of stuff....

Saturday evening we just kicked back and visited. Sunday was another relaxing day. In the afternoon we took hikes. Steve, Ben, Rachel, Julia and Seth, hiked the 3.4 mile and 3,000 foot climb from the Upper Lehman Creek campground where we were staying, back up to the Wheeler Peak campground. (No easy hike for little legs but the kids did great)

The rest of us waited at the top for them. These are just a couple of the many photos we took while waiting.

The little boys had great fun walking logs and little Emily got in on the action as well...

While Grandpa couldn't even sit on one without falling off!

Just another picture I really like .....

Mindy, Marylin, Rachel and I then hiked down the trail back to camp. Yes, Rachel hiked both up and down!! About 7 miles altogether. Way to go Rachie!!!!!

It was a beautiful hike through a variety of terrain.

Thick pines, sage brush (not a lot), and beautiful mountain meadows.

Monday morning the sane amoung us had breakfast while Steve rode his bike about 12 miles up the steep canyon road to the upper campground and back about 25 miles round trip. We then packed up and took a few parting photos...

then braced ourselves for 5 hours of boring, baren, and bleak surroundings as we headed home.

What a terrific weekend!

PS - Mindy also has some very nice pictures.

A road less travelled

2008-05-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

We decided today (Sunday) to take off on another day trip, and chose "9 Mile Canyon". OK - so the canyon is in fact 40 miles long, but we knew that before we took off. We also read online about the "well maintened gravel road" which obviously has not seen any maintenace since the winter snow melt. It was bone jaring and fat jiggling for all of the 40 miles. Oh, and that was just "9 mile canyon, it doesn't include the 35 mile dirt road back to civilization after leaving the canyon! But that said - it was well worth the ride.

The road starts in Wellington (just past Price) and comes out just east of Duchesne. There is a download available that gives the mile markers where you can stop and see the petroglyphs and points of interest which was invalueable as without it you wouldn't see anything more than a beautiful, rugged canyon.

The picture below is the place where Butch Cassidy tipped off the Army that his gang was planning to rob the army payroll - he apparently realized that the Army would hunt the killers down and didn't want to participate in the scheme - but knew if his "gang" went ahead he would be blamed even if he wasn't there - so with the warning, the Army doubled the size of the guard and the gang, seeing such a large escort hasitly called off the ambush.

Aside from the historical interest - this really was a place where you would almost expect cowboys & indians to step into the scene at any time.

We then decided to take Highway 35 home - a spectacular canyon drive at any time of the year, but after spending the day in the dry, dusty 9 Mile Canyon it was quite a contrast to find so much snow still on the ground.

We ended our day by stopping by the Caldwell's just in time to taste Mindy's "to die for" peanut butter cookies - a perfect end thanks Mindy!

Happy Mother's Day.......

2008-05-12T07:04:00.001-07:00

With the "Ben" spin..........

I absolultely love this card, but for some reason just can't bring myself to look at it for very long!

Love you too Benjamin!

Spring has arrived!

2008-05-10T06:00:00.001-07:00

It still amazes me that we can go from this:

To this:

Yup - spring is definately a "New Adventure" each year! I love it!!

Picture Pefect Day

2008-01-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, after Zeus's farewell party, Gary and I decided to go on another New Adventure (for me anyway) to take a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon as it was just an incredibly beautiful day. We were hoping to ride up the gondola at Snowbird to take some photo's from the top, but unfortunately arrived just 15 minutes after they closed ticket sales, so we stayed a while watching the skiers and then continued up to Alta. It was still really worth the drive - so beautiful, and it inspired Gary to be determined to get in shape and ski again next season ~ can't wait!

Unfortunately the coming down the mountain was a headache with , I am sure, 90% of Utah also trying to leave Alta & Snowbird - the traffic didn't move for close to 45 minutes...... not even an inch. Luckily they were still serving food at Alta so we stayed for dinner and left after the rush.

Hope you enjoy these photos! Amazing high winds at the tops of the mountains!

Winter Beauty!

2008-01-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Gary & I decided to take a trip on Tuesday to delight in all the snow we have been having. We went to Snow Basin......

Of all the people at Snow Basin - we bumped into Mindy!

Then it was over to Pineview for my first look at a frozen lake.....there were some hearty souls who had dragged a snow blower onto the lake (through deep snow on the banks) to make a ice hockey rink ~ guess you have to love ice hockey! The blue sky made the snow all the more impressive.....

Then we went over to Powder Mountain - again a first for me. What a beautiful canyon!

A fun day!

Christmas Lights

2007-12-19T07:45:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share our Christmas lights with you all - Gary does such a great job each year despite all his "muttering" ................ and then the snow just makes it perfect! Frosty actually tips his hat to you ~ such fun!

Thanksgiving

2007-11-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

As promised, we are back in business!

And again, as promised, here are a few shots from the wonderful Thanksgiving retreat....

Kids Football........

Something not quite "fair" about this picture Steve.......

Listening intently to Grandpa in the Huddle

"Turkey Bowl"

Random shots....

Nearing the end :-(

2007-05-03T02:30:00.001-07:00

Hi again family and friends ...

It's Thursday night and we begin the long flight home on Saturday. The time here has gone by way toooooo fast! Back to work on Monday, yuk :-( This has just been such an incredible trip! Mike and Sandy have been wonderful hosts and we feel right at home here. We're going to miss them very much. Marylin has had a great time visiting with old friends and ward members here. She's out to dinner tonight (girls nite out) with some old girl friends so I thought I 'd take time and update the blog. Hopefully (for you who are following the blogs) the last couple have looked better. We kinda screwed up the first few but we're getting the hang of it now. (We think)

Yesterday we took a drive into town to the Temple. We were so dissapointed that we weren't able to do a session. (Think we told you in a previous blog about the luggage fiasco). We also did a little souvenir shopping and picked up some trinkets for everyone back home.

Today we took an old fashion river boat up the Brisbane river. They served a great lunch buffet and seafood platter. It was a nice relaxing day (no hiking). Took lots of pics again. Think the total picture count now for the trip is approaching 500. With the digital we just click away and are amazed at how many we've taken. The real trick is going to be sorting through and deciding which we want to save. Guess we can start the effort on the flight home.

Tomorrow we're going to a place called Tangalooma on Moreton Island. It's off the coast of Brisbane and is a nice area for snorkeling. You can also hand feed the dolphins. It should be a lot of fun and a relaxing last day for our visit. Being the last day, we're going to spend it alone. We've really enjoyed meeting and visiting with Marylin's friends and the time with Mike and Sandy has been special. We've laughed ourselves silly most of the time. But, we're looking forward to a day of our own now.

We had the most incredible sunset last night! We probably shot 30 or more pictures of it as it progressed. We have so many incredible pictures to show you all when we get home.

Thanks to all who have visited our blog and commented. It's good to hear from you. See ya all soon.

Love ya :-) Dad & Marylin

So much to see!!!

2007-05-01T14:28:00.000-07:00

Hi guys & gals...

Wow! This place is amazing. I wish we had a month or two here. It's hard to believe that we'll be on our way home in just 4 days! The time has flown by so fast it's amazing.

We love our new digital camera. When you are completely unrestrained by the cost of film and developing it's easy to go hog wild on the pictures. We've taken over 500 so far! I'm sure we'll delete many of them but what fun it is to just snap away at anything remotely interesting. We'll get the best ones into a powerpoint slide show and have everyone over to view them on the big screen.

We've spent the last three days (Sunday - Tuesday) in a beautiful city about 1,200 miles north of Brisbane called Cairns (pronounced Kens by the Aussies). We flew up Sunday morning and back last night. We golfed at a country club, took a sailing yacht to the Great Barrier Reef and your old Dad scuba dived for the first time. What a treat that was! I even had a Reef Shark swim within 3 feet of me.

There is a small town high in the rain forest about 30 miles by rail from Cairns called Kuranda. There is a scenic railway which connects the two built back in the late 1800. What an amazing train ride! This railway is built on and through the side of a mountain in heavy rain forest. Many men were killed making it. There are 18 tunnels, some several hundred feet long, all dug with pick and shovel.

The return trip from Kuranda to Cairns is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. They call it the Skyrail. It is a gondola ride which goes OVER the top of the rain forest. You're gliding over tropical rainforest jungle with tree as tall as 100 feet!

In short, it was an incredible 3 days. I had no idea Australia was so beautiful. So much of what we see on TV is about the Outback region. I hadn't envisioned it being so tropical.

Well, so much for the travel update. We love you all and will see you soon.

Shhhhhh - Don't tell

2007-04-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

Thought I would share this one with you ~ Gary was muttering that the photo's that had been taken of him would all have to be deleted cause his belly was too darn big - so the next photo I took I told him to "suck it in" - but when he did that - he got a huge double chin - the next instruction was to "suck it in" and "lose the chin" ........ this is the result!! Ain't he great.............

And FYI - the blog always looks great from here - and then when we go "publish" it all goes wrong so hope you can end up reading the strange bits!

The Adventure Goes On

2007-04-26T23:21:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone.

Well, we're back at home base again this evening. We've spent the last two days driving, laughing and seeing some incredible country. Our hosts Mike and Sandy have a timeshare on Australia's Gold Coast at a place called Burleigh's Head. It's a beautiful place right on the beach with pools, spas, saunas, steamrooms,etc. Very nice!!

Mike & Sandy and their

new "little" car.

Wild "Bush" Turkey

The Gold Coast is like the Miami Beach of Australia. Huge highrise apartments and timeshare rentals. The largest city is called Surfers Paradise.

Surfers Paradise

the "Miami Beach"

of Australia

The water is so warm,

kids surf before going

to school. This pic was

taken about 7:30 AM.

Beautiful sunrise over the

Gold Coast Australia

Yesterday we traveled to a very cool place called O'Reilly's. It's a beautiful place high in the rain forests where they have an elevated walkway where you can literaly walk at the treetops through the rain forest.

This suspended walkway runs several hundred feet through the tops of the trees in the rain forest. Very beautiful although it made Marylin a little nervous. They move quite a bit while you're walking on them.

There are beautiful tropical birds that although wild, have become so acustomed to people that they will eat from your hand. The green ones are Parots and the red are Lorikeets.

(Notice the "authentic" aussie hat)

These birds are called Lorikeet's

We then traveled to a wildlife preseve called Currimbum. There were many birds as well as other Australian wildlife. Wombats, Dingos, Koala's etc. (We'll bring home lots of pictures)

These birds are Parots

Today we spent some time at Surfers Beach, then traveled to a beautiful mountainous area above the ocean front. We visited a very unique cave which has a waterfall flowing into it. There is also an incredible fudge shop on the way there! This quaint little shop on the top of a mountain had about 30 varieties of the most amazing fudge you've ever seen. Who's ever heard of bubble gum fudge? We'd love to have brought some home to the grand babies but didn't think it would survive the trip and may not make it past customs. As is we probably bought 2 pounds of the stuff and will wear it home I'm sure. (If you know what I mean).

This is a cave where the water has eroded though the top of the cave and the stream now falls into the cave.

Very beautiful.

They have an incredible plant here called a "Strangler Fig". The seeds blow into the top of the huge trees in the rain forest and the fig begins to grow and attaches itself to the "host" tree. It then sends vines or runners down around the tree until they reach the ground and root. Over time it completely encloses and destroys the host tree. I have some really cool pictures but couldn't figure out how to rotate them 90 degrees. Took them with the camera turned. Will figure it out and send them later.

Can't tell you what a great time we're having. We'll have hundreds of pics to share with you when we get back. This is such a BEAUTIFUL country! Mike and Sandy are terrific hosts and great fun to be with. I told Marylin (Mally as she's called here) that I would love to bring you all here at some time. It would be such a great trip!

Well, I have several pictures I want to post and they take about 5 minutes each to download so I'd better stop typing and start posting.

We miss you all (but not enough to come home yet) and love you tons! Dad & Marylin ( Mally )

First few days ...

2007-04-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

Well, believe it or not, this is Dad, not Marylin! Thought I'd try my hand at this "blogging" thing.

We are having an incredible time. Running ourselves ragged, crashing by 8:30pm but absolutely loving it! Needless to say, Marylin is doing ALL the driving. The photo below has not been reversed! I would get us all killed if I tried to drive in traffic here!

Monday we drove down to a little town about 3 hours south of Brisbane called Kyogle. Marylin's friend Brenda (the girl who came and stayed with us shortly after Marylin and I were married) lives there. We took the inland route down through some very pretty country and portions of the rain forests. Somehow I hadn't realized that this northern part of Australia was so tropical. We traveled on very small country roads and crossed about about 20 bridges too small for two cars to pass! At one point we stopped within the rain forest (Marylin needed to pee) and we had a little mishap. More to the point, Marylin had a run-in with a very nasty bush. While seeking a secluded place to do her business, she brushed against this bush which imediately resulted in an agonizing burning senstation and ugly rash. We took pictures of the bush in hope that someone could identify it for us. Turn out Brenda's boyfriend's mother is a botanist and knew what it was. Can't remember and couldn't pronounce the technical name if it could, but they call it the "Shinny Stinging Tree". Her hand and arm are still a little tender where she brushed it but getting much better.

We spent the night with Brenda and her boyfriend Stewart then headed back up to Brisbane taking the coastal route. We stopped at a beautiful beach called Evan's Head and at the eastern most point on the Australian continent; A lighthouse at a place called Byron's Bay. The sea and coast line were breathtaking. While at the lighthouse, looking over the high cliffs into the sea we spotted a pod of 10 or 15 dolfins playing in the surf. They would wait for the waves then actually ride them in just like a surfer! We also spotted sea turtles and a sting ray.

We started the day today by putting flowers on Michael's and Matthew's graves. It is the 14th annaversary of Michael's death and twelve years since "Mattie" was killed. Mattie was Michaels best friend and was ironically killed on the same day two years later. Michael's ashes are beneath a rock in this beautiful and quiet memorial grove.

After visiting the boys, we drove up to the Australia Zoo. This is the animal sanctuary owned and operated by the Irwin family. IE: Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. It was a beautiful place. All of the animal enclosures were large and very natural. Many you could enter and interact with the animals.

Well, that pretty much brings you up to date. We have already taken tons of pictures we'll share with you when we get home. These are just a small sampling. Love ya all and wish we had every one of you here with us!

PS - We'd like to post many more pictures but it's taking about 5 min. per pic to download them into the blog. Mike, help! ... Is there any way to speed this up!

Sunday Adventures

2007-04-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry - have to get used to this "blogging" - next time I will type first and enter pictures later! The first photo is the view of Brisbane City, then the Temple, and the next (if you can't work it out) is Gary & I at Southbank - lovely warm weather!.

Had a quiet Sunday - went to Church (my old ward) and it was wonderful to surprize everyone ~ and excellent to catch up with old friends.

This afternoon we went to Southbank - which is a public park on the Brisbane River and took a long walk to work out the kinks in these tired bodies (love the new found respect Mike ~ I can feed off that for years!!) I didn't mention that when we finally went to bed last night there was a party next door complete with bagpipes, and the family we are staying with had their children over who were all playing in the pool - Gary said "not likely to get much sleep with this noise" and no more than 2 seconds later we were both gone!! You have to know how tired your dad was to sleep that hard that quickly!! Today has been much better ~ still a little lagged, but still awake.

Bumpy Bits

2007-04-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

We have arrived and, although the flights over were not bumpy, getting our luggage was a big bump! We arrived at 8.30am local time here, with a very small window to get back to the house we are staying at, take a quick shower (much needed after about 30 hours travel!!) and then get down to the Brisbane Temple for the last session before it closed for 2 weeks maintenance - so our only opportunity to go! But our luggage was left behind in Auckland we were stranded with no Church or Temple clothes (Brisbane is a mini) - a major frustration bump inthe road! But we will still go down to the grounds and take some photo's later today.

Air New Zealand has not won any points with either of us - the seats for the long flight were just plain hard & uncomfortable! Flying time from LA to Auckland is close to 13 hours - so our ~ hate to admit this Mike~ "old" rear ends were really tired of sitting. The breakfast was cold and uninspiring, and then the luggage! They have the chance to redeem themselves on the flight back, but at this stage not happy!

OK to back up a little - we spent most of our first day here sitting in the back yard waiting for the luggage to arrive - and enjoying some time with Mike & Sandy (My old, old friends from Zimbabwe days) - it is still quite hot and humid here, so the time on the back deck in the afternoon breeze was most pleasant. We had a BBQ with all of their family last night and it was great to catch up with them all. And then around 9.00pm here Gary & I hit the wall, gave up and went to bed - but that was after being up and at it for over 50 hours, so I don't think we did too badly!!

Today is off to Church and then some time at the Brisbane River - I will take some photo's today, but for now just words sorry!

I did want to mention that I might have given out the wrong phone # for here - the correct one should be 011 617 3290.... ( I am in 2 minds about the wisdom of posting the full # so you will have to work out the rest ~ or let me know and I will email it to you) We did call Grandma yesterday ~ Roger is found and in Evanston. Please keep in touch with her - she needs family support!

Love you all.

My test ................

2007-04-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well now lookie here ~ with the help of Mike I have posted my first blog complete with a photo! Amazing!

Hopefully I will now a) remember how to do this and b) find the time on vacation to keep you posted!

Watch this space..............