Creeks, Loops and Fighterworld

We stayed in the Hunter Valley from Sunday to Friday.  Andy had lots of activities planned.  There aren't many photos in this post of the actual activities as I was mostly taking photos  of the grandchildren and I don't share those on social media.  There are two exceptions in this post.

Monday morning saw an early visit by the kangaroos - hoping for breakfast.

We visited a special sculpture trail called Sculpture on the Farm.  I don't think we had explained to the children that there were no animals on the farm.  However they enjoyed looking at the various sculptures and choosing their favourite to vote for at the end.

I liked this one because of the shadow it made against the wall behind it.

Back at the holiday home a Kookaburra came to visit on the decking.

I love this photo that looks as if Andy and C are playing Piggy-in-the-Middle with a kangaroo.

As there was no water supply to the holiday house, the owners moved us to The Carriageway.  We were moving there on Wednesday anyway, so it was only a couple of nights early.

We stayed in one of the cabins in a row that was made to look a bit like a station.

The family stayed in a converted railway carriage.

The train line was very close.  This was the view from the back of our cabin.

We went out to find a creek.  It took 3 goes until we found one with sufficient water in it.  This is Telegherry Creek.  There was lots of paddling and dam building - but obviously not by me!

Wednesday saw us setting out for another creek in Barrington Tops National Park.  This one had plenty of water and a loop walk of 3.5km.  Plus more dam building and some swimming.

And a chance to get a photo of the scenery on the way home.

On Thursday we visited Fighterworld at RAAF Williamtown outside Newcastle.  It's a museum about fighter planes.  

C landing a plane in the simulator

We went to have lunch in a small town called Paterson, where we saw this quirky cemetery.

A full few days with another one to come on our way back to Sydney.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Heritage and Wildlife

The first weekend we were in Australia had two distinct flavours.  On Saturday, Andy drove us to Wollondilly to a small Heritage Museum.

Inside the schoolroom there were books I remember from my childhood.

Admittedly we used the English version not the Australian version of The Happy Venture series

We were the only ones visiting the museum and a lovely volunteer guide took the three grandchildren on a private tour.

Sunday saw the 7 of us set out for the Hunter Valley and a few days away.  Andy took us to the Australia Wildlife Centre on the way where you could walk amongst the kangaroos.

Some of the animals were fenced in but the children were still able to feed the goats and the pig.

After a picnic lunch, we continued our journey to our holiday house where we were met by a mob of kangaroos waiting for us to feed them.

And the view was spectacular

What a great start to a family holiday.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

For my armchair travel lovers

We have just got back from 3 weeks in Australia and over a series of posts I am going to share some of our adventures.  I'm going to post 3 times a week for the next 2 weeks so that all my posts are finished by the end of the month.  Otherwise telling you about my travels takes longer than the trip itself!

We flew into Sydney at 5.10am on a Monday morning, September 25th.  Ours was the only plane to have landed at that time, and we were through security, collected our luggage and transported by our son to his home by 6.15am  Most of that time had been waiting to get off the plane!

We had a leisurely day.  We walked along the promenade to meet Andy & Naomi at the sailing club for lunch.  In the afternoon we checked into our Airbnb - the one we used last year - and later had dinner with the family.

Day 2 involved taking the ferry to Manly - a trip we do every time we visit Sydney.   We wanted to do something different this time and the very nice lady in the Visitor Information Centre suggested we went to the Luggage Museum.  We walked via Shelley Beach

The luggage museum turned out to be much more than that.  It was the quarantine station for people who were ill when the ships arrived in the 19th century.  There was lots of information about how the people were treated.  

On Wednesday Roger went for a walk by himself, Andy went on a retreat with work colleagues and Naomi and I took the children to a LARGE Christian Bookshop where I gave the children an amount of money to spend and they could choose their own books.  It was a very interesting selection.  I felt it was better for them to choose something they wanted than us turning up with presents that they already had or weren't interested in. 

Next day, Roger and I took the train a few stops towards Sydney and then walked along the Cooks River from Tempe to Canterbury.

Friday was the last day that Roger and I spent doing our own thing.  Firstly we went to Pyrmont, an area southwest of the Sydney CBD.  It was quite a hot day.  

I had picked up a leaflet about Pyrmont's historic walking trail and as we hadn't visited the area before thought it would be a good idea.  Not really!  I wish I had read the leaflet before we got there.  It turned out that most of the historic buildings had been demolished.

We took the light rail to Rozelle which was the nearest station to Balmain - another area we had not been to.  It was much further away than we thought.  At one point a kind lady took pity on us and gave us a lift up a steep hill for about a mile in her car.  She took us to the main street in Rozelle and then we walked another mile - which seemed like about 5 to a pub where we had lunch.

We walked down to the ferry and went back to central Sydney and back to Andy's house on the train and bus.  Naomi and I went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner and Andy & Roger had a Thai takeaway.  I loved having time with Naomi on our own.

We had moved out of our Airbnb to Andy and Naomi's and Andy had an exciting weekend planned for all of us.

Come back on Thursday to find out what we got up to.

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice