The Israels Australian Adventure

Our nephew Sam and his girlfriend Skye have recently come to Australia on 3 year work visas.  They are currently working in Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast (which is where we celebrated New Year in 2020) and so yesterday we travelled up to see them which gave the car a good run.  We took the scenic route up via Lake Wivenhoe, Somerset Dam and Beerwah.  It was quite hard taking photos driving along at 100kmh but I had a go.  Sadly my phone could not make out the stunning vista of the Glasshouse mountains in the distance - which looked amazing. We got to Sam's early afternoon and it was lovely catching up with him.  Skye joined us later at the Surf Club and we had a lovely Italian meal together before heading back to Brassall.  

A bit of background history For those of you who don't know.  17 years or so ago a lady (Natalie) joined the school I was working at as a maths teacher.  Very quickly we became firm friends and she ended up helping me run the bridge club at the school for the boys.  5 years later her family - husband Rob, daughters - Georgia (now 22) and Madison (now 20) decided it was time to go home to Australia.  We stayed in touch and we did come out and see them in 2019 with Iona for a month.  David and I both loved the country and decided then we needed to go back - hence this trip.  As a lot of photos will have these 4 special people in I thought I had better explain who they are. The one aboriginal word we used a lot is Palya which means - hello, welcome, thank you and goodbye. Sunday 24th cont... Unfortunately the night sky decided to be covered in cloud but we could see Saturn which was so cool.  I have had it pointed out to me many times in the sky but to se...

I (Karen) have never been bothered about seeing Uluru.  It was something David really wanted to do but I am grateful he did.  It is quite a sight and we haven't even been up close yet even though we have been here 36 hours already at the time of writing this.  So what have we done?  Last night we attended the "Sounds of Silence" dinner.  There were just 80 of us rather than the usual 200 or so which was nice.  The main feature was a discussion about the night sky.  We were amazed how bright the stars were when all artificial lighting was turned off.  It was quite magical. This afternoon we attended two of the free seminars which were brilliant.  The first was all about Bush Food and the second was entitled "Capturing the Cosmos".  Totally different in subject matter but equally enjoyable.  The latter is a good prelim for our Astro Tour this evening when we get to look at the night sky through telescopes.

 What a drive down.  I (David) have taken lots of pictures. Not up to Karen's pros or picture editing so here goes on adding some images that show the drive from Alice Springs to here.   Sorry you arrive before you leave.  (she will never let me do another update hehe) view from our room

What a difference in weather.  30 degrees and humid - lovely.  Our hotel is comfortable and cool.  We have a mini kitchen and a Woolworths next door - what more do you need.  Rather than trying to find our way around we decided to book two supervised tours. Wednesday - Litchfield National Park and Waterfalls Beautiful day and 30 degrees by 9am.  The coach was really cool with iced water on tap.  Stunning waterfalls.  Florence Falls in one of the top 5 natural pools in the world.  Whilst we didn't go down to it as our knees and hips couldn't cope, the look out was stunning.  Also the trees were full of flying foxes.  Unfortunately it was too sunny to get photos of them but they looked amazing through the binoculars which is what I spent most of my hour doing.  Tolmer Falls were a trickle whereas Wangi Falls was lovely and David and I both took a dip in the cool waters.  We had to swim under enormous spider webs which stopped qui...

We arrived in Perth and took a taxi from the airport straight to our hotel which was right in the centre of Perth.  It was quite overcast and when we arrived it reminded me of the City (London) on a weekend.  We left our bags at reception and went off to explore.  We decided to head down to Elizabeth Quay and then go to King's Park.  The sun had come out and I wanted to see the botanical gardens.  We came to a sign which said the park was 10 mins walk away but it pointed up a fairly steep hill.  David didn't fancy the hill so opted to stay walking along the road.  We ended up walking 2km past the David Carr Memorial Park and then had to climb the Kokado Memorial Track to get to the Park.  This track was representative of the climb the Australian troops had in Papua New Guinea.  Boy was it a cardio work out and we were very grateful for the milestones telling the troops' story along the climb.  The irony was not lost on me that we could s...