Members Chat
News from Australia
Tuesday 31st March 2009
Doreen's news from Australia (originally posted 15 February, part held over from March)
Since I last wrote the weather has been exceedingly hot almost everywhere I have been, with temperatures in Sydney reaching 44c one day with high humidity and Melbourne had the hottest day ever recorded in an Australian capital city at 46.4c on what is now called 'Black Saturday' while I was on holiday there.
Since returning to Perth a week ago we have 37c, 39.7c and 40.5c. It must be following me around or I'm taking the hot weather with me. I really wish I could send some to you. I had a wonderful 10 day holiday in Sydney with my friends Jenny & Les. They live quite close to the city so we were able to take the bus into Circular Quay to access the Harbour and environs. We spent a quite hot day walking around part of the Harbour on a bushland track with really wonderful views of the harbour bridge, opera house and other lovely bays. We did a fantastic climb of the Harbour Bridge at twilight. WOW!!! it was truly amazing as we watched the sun go down and the lights of Sydney come on. The views of the harbour and Opera House were of course magnificent. We were provided with overalls, hankies, hats, head lights and straps for our glasses and we were not permitted to take anything even having to remove watches, bracelets etc - anything that could fall off. It took an hour & half to do the climb and I was not scared at all, but could not look directly down at the road of the bridge or railway line below us. Another day we went on a coffee cruise of the harbour itself which was most interesting and we followed that with a guided tour of the Opera House. Again another wonderful structure. We picnicked near the harbour bridge and drank copious amounts of wine on a hot Sunday afternoon and Jenny I went on a bus tour to the Blue Mountains (part of the Great Dividing Range that runs down the east coast of Australia) and stayed in the town of Katoomba in a lovely colonial hotel built in the 1880's complete with a ghost who we think paid us a visit during the night. Fortunately I slept through this episode. From Katoomba we went to the Jenolan caves for a guided tour of one of the many fantastic caves there then bussed it back to the Sydney Olympic site where we got a fast cat ferry back into Circular Quay. On my last evening we had dinner at a restaurant overlooking Chowder Bay located a little way away from the bridge but still very beautiful. All very exciting. I then flew down to Melbourne where my friend Cathy picked me up. The temperature that day reached 45.1c Phew!! Cathy and her husband Haydn live on an 11 acre property in Gippsland, about an hour and half drive slightly south east of Melbourne city. We spent a reasonably quiet weekend with a visit to the famous Queen Victoria markets. Cathy & I went down the Mornington Peninsula to Queenscliffe and caught a car ferry to Sorrento a journey of only 30-40 minutes across Port Phillip Bay and we stayed at Cathy's daughter's house for the night before going to Anglesea and Lorne on the south coast the following morning before returning home in the afternoon. Cathy runs a homemade produce business from home and I spent the next couple of days chopping courgettes, bottling produce and labelling hundreds of jars of jam, chutney and marmalade. Haydn creates wonderful things in glass including stained glass and they have a gallery behind the house.
Doreen