Late November - Early December

We’ve done a few walks over the last few weeks, in spite of the awful weather. The first was around Hunter’s Hill, to see how the other half live. And let me tell you, they live pretty well! This is one of the houses there – not sure what the meaning of the cow is, but Joy is quite taken with it.

There were also some lovely stained glass windows.

But some people really should do something about the rubbish in their front yard.

From Hunter’s Hill, you can see the tents where you can stay on Cockatoo Island. There are so many of them! And they are all a bit too close to each other in our opinion.

Late in November we visited our friends in Maitland, and also went up to Muswellbrook to visit the spot where the ashes of Les’ Dad and Mum were scattered. Now, in case you have been on a different planet, you should know that there has been a bit of rain lately. We sure knew about it when we got to the Hunter River at Muswellbrook. Normally we wander down to the river, which is maybe 5m wide. This is what we encountered this time…

That bushy thing top left is normally on the same side of the river as we are!

After our trip to Muswellbrook, it was back to Maitland, then off to Newcastle for dinner with our friends Wayne, Margaret and Michael. Les had booked a restaurant (Mangrove Jacks), which is on the Honeysuckle Foreshore. We were all looking forward to a lovely evening, eating seafood and enjoying the view and ambience. What we found when we got there was that the restaurant had been booked by a transport company for their Christmas party. But because we had booked before they had, and the company were happy for us to be there, they kept our booking. So it was us, in a corner table (we did still have a view), surrounded by 100 people at their Christmas party! Not sure why they didn’t call us to check that we were OK with that. Food was good, view was good, company at the table was good, but ambience left a bit to be desired. And because it was noisy, it was difficult for us to chat to each other easily. Oh, well – it gives us a good story.

Our next walk was in the Lane Cove National Park. Joy was in heaven – flannel flowers AND grass trees!!!

The walk took us through a variety of vegetation. Some beautiful angophoras

And lots of flowers still out. Just from looking at the surroundings, it is hard to imagine we were in the middle of Sydney. Unfortunately, the sounds of Sydney can’t be left behind – cars, planes, people.

We had a couple of encounters with wildlife on the way. We had a drinks stop at an oval, and there were heaps of magpies all over the oval, feeding. Lots of them were young ones, whinging at their mothers to feed them. There was also a kookaburra (sitting in an old gum tree).

And at lunch, we were joined by a few cheeky water dragons.

At one stage, one of the dragons chased another dragon directly towards us. Both of us are wimps, so quickly lifted our feet off the ground (didn’t want the dragons mistaking us for trees and climbing us), and they ran straight under us and our table!

Lately, Joy has been on a bit of a health and fitness kick. As well as the walks to places like Hunter’s Hill and Lane Cove, we try to walk around Henley Park each morning. But in an attempt to push herself a bit more, Joy has taken on the challenge of the Kurnell sand dunes. She has done them twice now, and in spite of almost throwing up the first time, seems to want to keep on doing them. The dunes are massive (well they seem that way when you know you have to get up and down them). This should give you a bit of perspective.

Les goes with Joy, but while Joy is on the dunes, Les goes for a more sedate walk and takes lots of photos.

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary of retirement on the 9^th December and went to Sydney Rowers Club which is right on the water at Abbotsford. It was very busy and we parked about ½ km from the club but we got a little table with a view up the harbour to the west. Les had originally booked us in at “The Cove” at Drummoyne where we had our retirement lunch a year ago but they screwed up the booking and had a private function on but only let us know 2 days in advance. Les has decided that Joy should do the restaurant bookings from now on.

Canberra – for Joy’s Birthday

Not that we really need an excuse, but we like to go away for the weekend to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Now that we are retired, it doesn’t have to be on a weekend, but we still think of them as weekends away.

For Joy’s birthday, we went to Canberra. We hadn’t been there for quite some time, so were looking forward to seeing what, if anything, had changed. And there was a reasonable bit, as it turned out.

We left Sydney on Sunday morning, down the M something (I can never remember what number goes where), heading south-west. Lunch was at a rest stop (Black Bob’s Creek, near Sutton Forest) that had lots of eucalypts that were still in flower – heaven for Joy.

As usual, we were staying in a place that is self-contained, so would be cooking for ourselves for some of our meals. So, before we could go to our accommodation, we had to do some grocery shopping. We did that at Belconnen – the shopping centre there is pretty impressive (or at least it is bigger than Joy was expecting).

  As we were sitting in the lounge relaxing, we saw we had some visitors.

Les cooked hamburgers for dinner the first night, but not on the BBQ, as it looked a bit dodgy. But that was really the only problem with the accommodation, as long as you don’t mind décor with character.

Next morning, we walked up the hill to the main house for breakfast – cereal, juice (freshly squeezed orange juice), bacon and eggs, toast, coffee and tea. It always tastes better when someone else cooks it!

Then our first tourist attraction for the day – Cockington Green.

Cockington Green itself is now much bigger than last time we had been there. It was fun to walk around and try to find the little “clever” things they have put in.

And to see the international area.

After Cockington Green, we went back to Belconnen to have coffee with a mate of Les’ from when Les lived in Canberra. It was good to catch up with him, as we hadn’t seen him since our wedding! If you think you know someone who has a coffee problem, get this – Paul gets his coffee in a milkshake container with 4 shots of coffee!

After coffee, we wandered down to lunch, which we had at a restaurant on the banks of Lake Ginninderra in Belconnen. We needed some sustenance, as we had more touristy things to do in the afternoon.

It was back to near Cockington Green (there are many more things in that area now), and to the Walk In Bird Aviary. We both love trying to spot different types of birds when we are on our trips, so this was great, because the birds were everywhere! We had some apple slices that we could use to tempt the birds nearer. What we found, though, was that the birds know you have food, and you get mobbed as soon as you go inside!

Some of the birds were really taken with Les – they started preening his hair and beard! I’m not sure Les liked it much – or maybe it was just ticklish?

There were the usual suspects (rainbow lorikeets and other parrots). But also some finches and a white parrot of some sort.

That was enough for the day, so it was back to the train for resting, and a light dinner since we’d had a good lunch.

Next day (after another cooked breakfast – yum), we went into the centre of Canberra to Questacon. This was Joy’s only essential tourist attraction, as she had never been there. We spent a few hours there, and had great fun.

Lunch was a picnic on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin. We were lucky enough to see the water jet start up.

We wonder how they decide when it works and when it doesn’t? And also, where are all the people? Canberra looks empty.

Our last tourist attraction for the day was the National Zoo. Now we know that it isn’t very old, and they are still working on it, but it was a disappointment – certainly not value for money. Still, we did see some nice animals, even if they weren’t very active.

The next day was our last – we had to leave before Barack Obama arrived. So, after another cooked breakfast, we headed off towards Braidwood. Just before Braidwood, we turned north to take the back road to Nowra. It was a nice drive. Only problem was, as we got closer and closer to Sydney, the weather got worse and worse. At least we had lovely weather until then.

It was a lovely few days away. Maggie punished us for leaving her alone, though, by jumping up on the tables and benches, and scratching the furniture – things she doesn’t normally do when we are around (we are perfectly aware that she probably does those things when we are not there). For those who might worry, Maggie got visited by a cat-sitter, so we aren’t horrible to her.

October & Early November

Well we are back into the normal mode following our holiday away and Manly won the Footy Finals so all is good. We have spent a fair bit of time in the garden as the plants are growing well and the grass in growing fast.

On the 13^th October we did a walk from Cape Solander (near Kurnell) down to the lighthouse (about ½ way to Cronulla). The walk was a bit of following tracks and a bit of bush bashing as there are no signs in most places. Very interesting scenery with sand, lakes, bushes and sheer cliffs. Stopped at the lighthouse for a rest and then headed back to the Cape for lunch in the shelter shed overlooking the ocean. Saw a few whales on the walk and during lunch but too far out to be able to get a photo.

Joy’s mum came down from Parkes on the 17^th October and stayed with us for a few weeks. On the 23^rd October we had Steven (Joy’s brother) and Helen’s wedding at Marsfield (Sydney).

Great day and Joy wore a dress she made herself (very talented lady is Joy).

On the 27^th we visited Mt Annan and took mum. Lots of flowers out.

We went to an ABBA tribute at RSL Gladesville and as we knew most/all of the songs it means we are showing our age!!

November the 8^th was a special day as Les gave Joy a massage. So what you say but Les has been learning massage and we now have a proper massage table and massage oil. Joy was in heaven and now wants massages every week.