Going Home Tomorrow

Well folks, I've come to the end of my long, six week journey to the land down under. I've come & seen, done, shopped, & photographed (three camera cards worth!) just about everything there is to see & do, it's been a busy time. In that time, I've seen magnificent land & ocean views, climbed a bridge span - thanks again Derek it was truly awesome - hugged two koalas, hand fed kangaroos & one elephant, bought a ton of stuff & visited with some really awesome people who've been really fantastic Aussie hosts while I've been here.

Over the last few days, Janine has showed me some really wonderful & fantastic places; Yesterday, I made Janine go do some shopping, not her most favorite thing, but she indulged me, so off we went to Big W in the local mall, in search of some Frangipani car window stickers that I'd become enamoured with, among other things, I didn't leave empty handed. Then we went & grabbed some lunch & went to eat it down by the river which was nice, we even saw a few white cockatoos in the trees. For dinner, we went & had steak again, at a place called Lone Star, which again was a really good meal.

Today, Janine wanted to take me to see some more mountain views in Wentworth Falls. The view didn't disappoint, as far as my eye could see, it was a sea of green trees everywhere, the vistas were beautiful. We stopped by a main shopping area in Leura after that, where again, I did a bit more retail detail & came away with some really nice art pieces. For lunch, we went into the Katoomba area for waffles & ice crean which was yummy. Later in the day, we ended up in the Blue Mountains national park Glenbrook, where we took a long, windy, rocky road down into the valley to see some things; among them the Napean lookout area, & then the Red Hands Aboriginal cave; finally we came upon a camping/picnic area where there were a few kangaroos grazing in the grass. It turned out to be the perfect way to spend the end of my trip here. For dinner tonight, it was Charcoal Chicken which was really good & reminded me a bit of Swiss Chalet chicken, just without the tangy dipping sauce.

Oh, before I forget, I should mention, at Janine's house, she has her own personal menagerie of birds, all kinds like cockatoos, rainbow lorrikeets, kookaburras, butcher birds & probably a few others too. Every day, these birds show up to her back porch & set themselves down on the roof & the railings waiting to be fed; it's quite an extrordinary sight to see! In fact, this afternoon when we got back from our day out, I stood out there with a bucket of seeds feeding these hungry "lorri's" & "cockies" & it was funny to see them chasing each other away from me, competing to get their noses into the bucket first, I even got nipped twice by one particularly pushy cockie. I have managed to get some really cool shots of these birds, which I'll be glad to show off to you when I get back.

I don't think I could've asked for a better trip, it's been really great & a lot of fun, I even managed to get a bit of colour on me without getting too badly burnt too much.

I know I've said it before but, to everyone who took the time to follow the blog as I went along & to those of you who took the tme to leave me comments, I really appreciated it a lot. I always felt really happy when I had some comments & feedback to read, so thank you everyone.

Lisa xoxo