Tuesday, December 13: Travel to Down Under
We arrived at the Shanghai airport for our 7:30pm flight to Sydney, Australia. After a quick check-in as the airport was quiet, we went to the food court for a Burger King dinner. The airport had the feel of a lonely Christmas as scene in a movie – Christmas music playing in the background of an empty airport. The only other people in the food court were four businessmen. The whole airport was surprisingly empty – especially for Shanghai.

We settled into our seats for our 12-hour flight to Sydney. A night flight makes it easy to get some sleep. Eleri sleeps the best since she is still small and curls up in the seat. We landed early to collect our bags and move our watches ahead 3 hours. I said to the family, “Welcome to Sydney”. Eleri commented, “I don’t want to go to Sydney, I want to go to Australia because I want to see Lili.” We had to explain to her Sydney was a City in Australia.

Wednesday, December 14: Meeting Old Freinds
We met Kathleen curbside to begin our adventure. With all the chatting and catching up, we missed our exit and crossed the Harbour Bridge on our drive to their home in Mosman – we went the scenic route. Surprising, Sydney is very hilly. The homes are built into the hills similar to San Francisco and generally close to each other with deeper lots. The Family has a lovely home nestled into the hill. They have a view of one of the many fingers of the harbor. The Sydney Harbor has many fingers to give beautiful views of water throughout the City.

We enjoyed a gourmet meat pie for lunch at the house. After eating these delicious lamb meat pies, the family decided we would have to try meat pies across Australia. After lunch, we drove into Mosman town village. It is a cute downtown with many shops. Kathleen needed to pick up some ornaments for their Christmas tree. A bit odd having a Christmas tree in the summer. The Family is in transition. They are selling their current house, therefore, most of their “stuff” is in storage. Then, it was time to pick up the kids from school. Both kids are at Beauty Point School, a public school, in walking distance from their home. It was so much fun to see Caspar and Mimi. Eleri used to call Caspar “Casbaba” when she was little. The last time we saw the family was in Shanghai in May 2010.

Mimi & Emmy in 2010

Both kids had grown, but Mimi grew and changed the most. She had lost her “baby face” and her face has changed to look older – becoming a teen. She is tall with long, lanky legs. She is growing into a beautiful young lady.

Mimi & Emmy

The schools in the area have a tradition of jumping off the pier at Balmoral Beach on Friday. Since Caspar is in the first grade, his class was jumping today to have a little less chaos for the little kids. The kids put on their “swimmers or bathers” to head to the beach – and we grabbed our “sunnies” to protect our eyes. Balmoral Beach is about a 10 minute drive from their home. It is a lovely beach with a closed in pier with nets to keep the children safe for swimming (safe from the sharks!). Mimi and Emersyn had fun jumping off the pier. Eleri didn’t want to jump, but enjoyed digging in the sand.

We took the kids home for a quick shower before our dinner reservation. We enjoy pizza at a favorite place of the kids in Mosman village. The kids had fun playing outside in the trees after eating. The US dollar is equal to the AUS dollar, but everything costs more. Our pizza dinner was $220 for our two families. Wine was reasonable at $30, but a small pizza that would feed about one and half person was $25 each.

After dinner, we went back to the house to enjoy more wine and the time to catch up. We put our kids to bed after 11pm. Mimi and Casper have school tomorrow – good thing it is the end of the year! It also helps the kids don’t start school until 9am. It makes for a slow, non-rush morning to get to school. Our girls are up at 6:30am and on the bus at 7:05am – there is no dawdling time!

Thursday, December 15: Seeing the Sights of Sydney
Kathleen dropped us off at the north side of the Harbour Bridge at about 10:30am. Tours are offered to walk over the bridge, but the girls are too young. It was a beautiful day for sightseeing the City. It has been unseasonable cool in Sydney. For us, it feels like Northern California weather – jeans and a sweatshirt.

Over the top bridge walkers

Across the bridge walkers

The view of the Sydney Harbour is beautiful from the bridge. The Opera House on the point with the City in the background is an amazing site.

We stopped at the Pylon Lookout Museum to walk up the 200 steps for the view and to learn more about the bridge.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel arch bridge across Sydney Harbour that carries rail, vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian traffic between the Sydney central business district and the North Shore. It opened in 1932. According to the Guinness World Records, it is the world’s widest long-span bridge. The arch is composed of two 28-panel arch trusses; their heights vary from 18 meters (59 ft) at the centre of the arch to 57 meters (187 ft) at the ends next to the pylons. The expansion of the steel structure on hot days can increase the height of the arch by as much as 18cm (7.1 in). Large steel pins support each end of the arch, allowing it to rotate to accommodate expansion and contraction caused by changes of temperature, and avoiding stresses that would otherwise cause damage.

Abutments at the base of the pylons are essential to support the loads from the arch and hold its span firmly in place, however, the pylons themselves have no structural purpose. They were included to provide a frame for the arch panels and to give better visual balance to the bridge. The pylons were not part of the original design and were only added to allay public concern about the structural integrity of the bridge.

Jim found all this interesting. The fact the bridge is not bolted together, but hinged together to allow expansion is an amazing design based on the size of the bridge.

From the top of the Plyon

By the time we crossed the bridge, we were hungry. The first pub we saw was the Australian Hotel. It had meat pies, so we were in. The only problem was all the tables were reserved. But, we could have one if we were done by 1:30. It was noon – not a problem. We ordered two beef and one chicken pie at $19 per pie. They were delicious, but we all agreed the beef was better than the chicken!! Lunch for three meat pies (the pies are large) with drinks was $78. These meat pies have now ranked #1 in our meat pie taste test.

We continued walking around this area, called The Rocks.

The Rocks became established shortly after the colony’s formation in 1788. The original buildings were made mostly of local sandstone, from which the area derives its name. From the earliest history of the settlement, the area had a reputation as a slum, often frequented by visiting sailors and prostitutes. During the late nineteenth century, the area was dominated by a gang known as the Rocks Push. It maintained this rough reputation until approximately the 1870s. Today, the Rocks is a tourist area.

We walked down to the water to get a view of the bridge and a photo, of course.

Eleri “holding” the Habour Bridge

As we were walking, we came upon these OZ Bobbles. The girls really wanted to do it AND we are on holiday. the cost was $15 per person for about 15 minutes – not cheap, but priceless! They had a blast.

We walked to the Sydney Opera House to find the next tour. It was at 3:30pm which was good timing to give us a little time to walk around the Opera House. The Sydney Opera House is situated on Bennelong Point.

We had time before our tour to enjoy ice cream on the steps of the Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957.

We watched a film clip on the design contest for the Opera House. Many of the designs were basic and boring. Utzon’s design was different. However, it was more of a sketch than an architect plan.

A design competition was launched on 13 September 1955 and received 233 entries representing architects from 32 countries. The criteria specified a large hall seating 3, 000 and a small hall for 1, 200 people, each to be designed for different uses, including full-scale operas, orchestral and choral concerts, mass meetings, lectures, ballet performances and other presentations. The winner, announced in 1957, was Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect. According to legend the Utzon design was rescued from a final cut of 30 “rejects” by the noted Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. The prize was £5, 000.

The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, occupying the site at the time of these plans, was demolished in 1958 and formal construction of the Opera House began in March 1959.

The Sydney Opera House is a modern expressionist design, with a series of large precast concrete “shells”, each composed of sections of a sphere of 75.2 metres (246 ft 8.6 in) radius, forming the roofs of the structure, set on a monumental podium. The building covers 1.8 hectares (4.4 acres) of land and is 183 m (600 ft) long and 120 m (394 ft) wide at its widest point. It is supported on 588 concrete piers sunk as much as 25 m (82 ft) below sea level.

Although the roof structures of the Sydney Opera House are commonly referred to as “shells” , they are in fact not shells in a strictly structural sense, but are instead precast concrete panels supported by precast concrete ribs. The shells are covered in a subtle chevron pattern with 1, 056, 006 glossy white- and matte-cream-coloured Swedish-made tiles, though, from a distance, the shells appear a uniform white.

The project was built in three stages. Stage I (1959–1963) consisted of building the upper podium. Stage II (1963–1967) saw the construction of the outer shells. Stage III (1967–1973) consisted of the interior design and construction.

Stage I: Podium
Stage I commenced on 2 March 1959. The government had pushed for work to begin early, fearing that funding or public opinion might turn against them. However, Utzon had still not completed the final designs. Major structural issues still remained unresolved. By 23 January 1961, work was running 47 weeks behind, mainly because of unexpected difficulties

Stage II: Roof
The shells of the competition entry were originally of undefined geometry, but, early in the design process, the “shells” were perceived as a series of parabolas supported by precast concrete ribs. However, engineers were unable to find an acceptable solution to constructing them.

As we learned on the tour, the famous Opera House began with much controversy at the time. The neighborhoods across the harbor thought the design was ugly and it would be bring their property values down. Now, it is the most expensive view in the City. Of course, government politics came into effect. Lastly, which I found the most interesting, is the roof design problems. The building had been built, but engineers had no idea how to make the shell roof design work. The project was about to be scraped (to add more controversy) when the designer came up with the idea of using a sphere. The roof is from the pieces of a sphere all of constant curve.

From 1957 to 1963, the design team went through at least twelve iterations of the form of the shells trying to find an economically acceptable form before a workable solution was completed. The design work on the shells involved one of the earliest uses of computers in structural analysis, in order to understand the complex forces to which the shells would be subjected. In mid-1961, the design team found a solution to the problem: the shells all being created as sections from a sphere. This solution allows arches of varying length to be cast in a common mould, and a number of arch segments of common length to be placed adjacent to one another, to form a spherical section.

Stage III: Interiors
The Concert Hall and Grand Organ
Stage III, the interiors, started in February 1963. However, there was a change of government in 1965, and the new government declared the project under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Works. This ultimately led to Utzon’s resignation in 1966.

The Concert Hall, with 2, 679 seats, is the home of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and used by a large number of other concert presenters. It contains the Sydney Opera House Grand Organ, the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world, with over 10, 000 pipes.

Interesting fact about the organ is it takes 10 days to tune. Our tour leader comment there are only about seven Australians that have the skills to play this organ.

The purple foyer used for parties and other entertainment.

The view from the purple foyer.

The Opera House was formally completed in 1973, having cost $102 million. The original cost estimate in 1957 was £3, 500, 000 ($7 million). The original completion date set by the government was 26 January 1963. Thus, the project was completed ten years late and over-budget by more than fourteen times.

We left the Opera House to meet Campbell as he forgot a photo he needed for the office Christmas party. We walked back to the ferry entrance at Circular Quay (pronounced “key”). At the entrance, there was a street performer and Eleri wanted to watch. He was an American riding a 12-foot unicycle. Of course, he did more tricks before the big finale of the 12-foot unicycle ride. At one point, he asked for a small volunteer. Eleri raised her hand fast and big so he picked her. He said he would give her $5 and she was thrilled. He gave her a helmet (I always think of Mary Major when it comes to shared helmets) and silly glasses to put on. He asked her to sit down on the ground so he could jump over her. She sat right down without hesitation while he jumped over her on his normal size unicycle.

Then, he climbed on to the 12 ft unicycle. He asked Eleri to throw him a light cone to juggle. Hum, he didn’t realize what he was asking. On the first throw, Eleri threw it behind her to almost hit a child. On the second throw, she almost hit a women walking by. On the third throw, she got it to him – whew! But, he felt the crowd did not cheer enough for Eleri and threw it back to her to do again. He had no idea how lucky he was she even got it to him. It took another three tries after a couple crazy throws. The crowd cheered loudly for her…for their own safety. And, he gave her $10 for her work. Of course, we gave him $10 plus more so he came out ahead.

We left the street performer with Eleri all smiles. The next ferry to Mosman Bay was leaving in 10 minutes…perfect timing. We caught the ferry to Mosman Bay. It reminded us of being in Hong Kong using the ferry as transportation. It was a beautiful day and a great way to commute home. We asked a man on the ferry which stop was Mosman Bay. He was a bit concerned we were on the wrong ferry as there were no hotels in the area.

Ferry to Mosman Bay

Opera House from the ferry

Harbour Bridge from the ferry

Kathleen picked us up from the ferry station at Mosman Bay. The kids were home from school so everyone was ready to play. I wanted to get a photo of Mimi in her school uniform. All kids, public and private schools, wear uniforms. The girls have an option of a dress-only!

Kathleen had started a yummy smelling chicken curry for dinner. We cooked, drank wine and chatted while dinner cooked. It was a nice night in. But, we didn’t eat until after 8pm as the sun is still very high late in the evening, kids to bed after 11pm, again. We stayed up visiting and drinking wine until after midnight with Campbell. The kids had school and Campbell had work – everyone is going to be tired!

Friday, December 16: A Walk About Town
Kathleen dropped us off in the town of Manly to catch the ferry to Circular Quay. By the time we get up and get going after our late nights, it is about 10:30am before we begin our day. We walked by the Manly Beach and then walked to the ferry terminal. The public boats were on strike until 1:30pm. Since Manly is a larger ferry port, we were able to catch a private boat. We had discussed being dropped off at Mosman Bay. Good thing we didn’t go to the Mosman Bay ferry, as it is a much smaller terminal with only the public boats.

We walked through the botanic gardens. At one point, Jim noticed the kids needed a break. He spotted a hill and began grass rolls. The girls had fun, but kept going sideways on their rolls down the hill.

Eleri solved that problem by doing forward rolls.

We walked into the financial district of Sydney. The girls had fun seeing the Christmas decorations – even though it is still odd as it is summer time.

After a long walk around, we were ready for lunch. The girls wanted to go back to the Australian Hotel. The only problem was time. The lunch hour begins about 12:30 and the place was packed since it was after 1pm. We waited for a table and squeezed in the corner inside. However, it was worth the squeeze and the wait! The day got away from us and we needed to make are some decisions. We needed to be back around 4:30pm or after dinner. Mimi and Caspar had their big jump off the pier for the end of school. We either went back for the pier jump or after dinner as we didn’t want Kathleen to have to leave the beach to come and get us. Elle wanted to go back and play in the sand, of course. We hopped on the 4pm ferry to the zoo. It took less than 15 minutes. When we walked out of the ferry terminal, there was a bus to Balmoral Beach, the beach we needed to go to for the school jump. We quickly called Kathleen to see if she had left the house. She had not, so we jumped on the bus. Again, it reminds us of Hong Kong where the buses and ferries are timed together. The bus driver was very nice. He waited while Jim called Kathleen. Then, when we got on the bus, Jim did not have enough change. He accepted the change Jim had and said it was fine.

We recognized the beach stop when we arrived. When we got down to the beach, it was crazy. Kids from all the schools in the area were spread out on the beach. The kids jump off the pier in their school uniforms. We were looking for Mimi and her uniform. There seemed to be many similar dresses running around on the beach, but we couldn’t find the right one that matched Mimi’s dress. After about 30 minutes, we spotted Kathleen and Caspar. She knew where Mimi was hanging with her friends so Emmy could find her. Eleri did have fun digging in the sand with Caspar.

For dinner, we did the beach meal of fish and chips takeaway. The chips (french fries) at Balmoral Beach were some of the best fries I have had. Our takeaway food we ate at the beach cost $78…we are no longer in Asia!! Campbell joined us after his office Christmas party. We enjoyed the beach fun until past 9pm. Kids to bed after 11pm again while the adults visit and drank wine until midnight again – seems to be the pattern!

Saturday, December 17: Surfing the Waves at Palm Beach
It was cloudy and cool in the morning. We had decided to spend the day at Palm Beach – about an hour and half drive. By the time we arrived at the beach, the sun had come out. We went to lunch at a restaurant across from the beach. On our quest to find the best meat pies, we ordered beef pies. These were not the best, but the worst and rank at the bottom of the pie list – not fresh and expensive! Caspar had ordered pancakes for lunch. He received two small pancakes and a scoop of ice cream for $11.70!

After lunch, we enjoyed a relaxing day at the beach. The kids had fun in the sand and sea.

At the beaches, it is common to have these swimming pools to allow swimming when there are jelly fish. Concrete formed to make a pool with the sea water. The girls had fun in the pool.

Eleri was having fun burying Caspar in the sand.

When we got home, the girls added decorations to the tree. They had been busy making a garland out of pipe cleaners this morning. The pipe cleaner garland was nicer than the store bought stuff and it was made with love. However, it is still odd to have the Christmas tree with the sunshine, warm weather and kids running around in swimmers.

After tree decorating in true Aussie style, the kids hit the pool for some fun.

Kathleen and I went to the supermarket, Woolworths. Kathleen needs supplies for Mimi’s party tomorrow and dinner tonight. Wine is not sold in the grocery store, but in bottle shops. Wines are cheap compared to Shanghai prices. I chose wine labels that I could not buy in shanghai.

Jim & Campbell

Kathleen & Brenda

Sunday, December 18: A Sydney Birthday Party in the Harbour
The morning began with Mimi opening her birthday presents. She was excited to be turning 12. Eleri and Caspar were excited to “help” with the presents. Emmy gave Mimi a koala Pillow Pet. The Pillow Pet traveled from America to Shanghai to Sydney – I was glad to hand it off.

For Mimi’s birthday party, she had invited a small number of girls to go sailing on her Grandfather’s boat. Mimi’s grandfather, Campbell’s dad, Quack (his nickname), came to get the girls and Campbell at 10am. They went to the boat club to get the boat ready. Kathleen and I took Eleri, Caspar and a friend to the boat club at 11:30am. It made for a rush morning as we did have a time table to keep. Mimi had invited four girls to go on the boat for her birthday – Emersyn, Kaitlin, Maddie and Carolina. Jim said they all had fun on the boat.

Jim at the helm of the boat

Kathleen and I picked up the cake and meat pies for lunch. We were meeting the boat party across the bay at Clifton Beach Park. The girls plus the two little ones had fun at the park playing. Mimi’s Grandma, Campbell’s Mom, came to the park to see the birthday girl. The crew sailed/motored back to the boat club for cake. It was fun to share Mimi’s birthday with her.

Caspar & Eleri

Back at the house, we had the pleasure to meet most of the family. Kathleen’s parents stopped to wish Mimi a happy birthday with a big present. Then, Campbell’s sister, Julie, came by with her kids to give Mimi a present. Next, Campbell’s brother, Andrew, and his wife came by to wish Mimi a happy birthday and deliver a present. They stayed for dinner. It was fun meeting the family.

Monday, December 19: A shop in Mosman then off to Mebourne
The morning was spent packing our stuff since we were off today for our next adventure. Mimi decided to go to school for the last day, but Caspar stayed home to play with Eleri. For Mimi, this is the last time these girls would be together as they all go off to different schools in January. Mimi is going to a private school near their new home. She attended this school as a Kindy before they moved to Shanghai in 2006.

Kathleen, Emersyn and I went into Mosman for a little a shop. Jim stayed at home with Eleri and Caspar as they were having fun playing. I was on a new swimsuit/swimmers hunt. All my suits come from Ozzie Cozzie in Hong Kong which carries Australian brands. I found a suit in the same brand as my other swimmers, Sea Folly. Emmy found one also that was adorable on her. We walked around town hitting a few shops here and there. At lunchtime, we called Jim to see if they wanted to join us. The answer was no and Jim would feed the two little ones. We were thrilled to have lunch with just us ladies. It would have been a perfect day if Mimi had been with us.

We got back about the time Mimi got home from school. The kids enjoyed their last play before heading to the airport. Check-in was long and slow. We had to grab food on the run, which was typical airport food.

We arrived in Melbourne around 9pm. We picked up our bright blue econobox, kind-of fun since we play skittles all the time. Once I found our location on the map, we were able to get to the hotel fairly easily. We were staying at the Marriott. We chose the Marriott because we were using points. Everything about Oz is expensive. We are very lucky as the only hotel we are paying for is at the Reef. It was after 10pm, but the girls were hungry since the airport dinner didn’t fill the tummies. The hotel is located next to Chinatown. We walked to the bottle shop and to find take out. We took dumplings, egg rolls and soup back to the hotel for a late night dinner.

Tuesday, December 20: On the Great Ocean Road
We were trying to get out the door early, as we knew today the drive would be a long one. We did not have time to unpack much last night to get ourselves organized. We loaded into our blue econobox around 9am. We drove to Geelong to pull over for some information at the tourist center. Frank, the helpful tourist man, gave us all kinds of good information. He sent us on our way with maps and places to stop.

Our first stop was breakfast in Geelong. We took a few photos with the ballards. These are at points of interest and fun to take photos with. Frank told us some have a rabbit painted on them. The rabbit represent places after bunnies were bought into Australia. Of course, the bunny not being native to the country has created problems with the natural wildlife.

We found a place to grab breakfast on the go – muffins, coffee and juice for…$42-ouch! The muffins were good, but not sure they were $42 good. We had apple cinnamon, raspberry and blueberry. We ate our muffin breakfast on the road. Elle didn’t eat the muffin so she just drank the juice.

On the Great Ocean Road adventure, our first stop was Torquay. Torquay is a surfing shopping paradise. We hit a few surf shops for some retail shopping. Emmy found the perfect hat at Rip Curl. Elle found a rash guard at Billabong. Then, it was time to get back on the road. We didn’t get far when Eleri got sick. The curvy road and nothing but sugar orange juice is not a good combination for her. But, it doesn’t bother her when she gets sick. She asks for a bag, throws up, a quick clean up and we are back on the road again.

At Anglesea, the golf course is a place to see kangaroos. We drove to the golf course, but it was not our lucky day as we could not see any this day. Back on the road…for Eleri to get sick one more time!

We stopped at Aires Inlet to see the lighthouse and the views. Emersyn with her cool new hat looking very teen.

Emersyn “holding” the lighthouse looks like a photo-shop photo. She has her hand in just the right place and the clouds add to a beautiful photo.

Emersyn wanted her photo taken with this owl along side of the road.

We drove to the town of Lorne to stop for water and a snack. When we left Geelong based on Frank’s advice, the tourist man, the goal was to have lunch in Apollo Bay. It was already 2pm and we were hungry – missed that goal. We picked up some crackers, turkey and cheese to enjoy along the beach. It was a bit breezy and cold eating our snack/lunch. However, there were people in the water!

We walked into a few shops. Jim found a cool hat like Ems. Lorne was a fun beachside town. It would have been nice to have more time to walk around, but we had a goal to make the Twelve Apostles by dark.

We stopped at the entrance gate of The Great Ocean Road bridge for a photo opt.

On to the town of Kennett River to see if we could find the kolas in the trees. We pulled off the road where our tourist information buddy, Frank, told us. There were people feeding the birds. A father gave our girls some birdseed and this was a highlight for them. As we were standing among the birds, I looked up to see a kola hanging low in the trees. He was sleeping in the trees ignoring all the noise from below. We walked up the road to see three more koalas, but the first one was the lowest and easiest to see. We spent more time here than planned, but the girls had fun.

Finally, we reached Apollo Bay at 5pm. Many of the restaurants were closed till 5:30 or 6:00. We walked the town to find a nice fish & chips place. Not being a big fish fan, I ordered a Greek lamb dish. I should have stuck with fish & chips, as they were very good. Eleri had prawns, of course.

We still had to reach the Twelve Apostles before dark. We climbed back into the blue econobox! We arrived at the Apostles around 7pm. The light was perfect.

The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park. The apostles were formed by erosion: the harsh weather conditions from the Southern Ocean gradually eroded the soft limestone to form caves in the cliffs, which then became arches, which in turn collapsed; leaving rock stacks up to 45 metres high. The formation eventually became known as the Twelve Apostles, despite only ever having nine stacks. On 3 July 2005, a 50 metre tall stack collapsed, leaving eight remaining.

Emersyn thinks these signs are funny.

Many people were staying to see the sunset at the Apostles. We wanted to see London Bridge so we drove the short distance to the bridge. Since Australia is having an unseasonable cool summer, it was a bit cold at the last stop.

London Bridge

We left London Bridge at 8pm to begin the drive back to Melbourne. We were taking the main road back. Soon after beginning our drive, Jim almost hit a kangaroo. Luckily, he didn’t hit the “Joey”!! One disadvantage of our econobox is the very uncomfortable seats!! We pulled into our hotel around 11:45pm. Eleri slept most of the way home. It was after 1am before everyone else climbed into bed.

Wednesday, December 21: A Lilli day
We have a Lilli day planned today. Eleri’s best friend, Lili, is from Melbourne. Lilli and family have been in Shanghaiing for over ten years. They bought a beach home last year so they would have a place of their own to “come home”. We are meeting the family at the beach town, Sorrento. Sorrento is located on a narrow spit between the ocean and the harbor.

We had a late start to the morning after a late night on the road, therefore, we left the hotel at 11am. It is about an hour and half drive to the beach. We decided to meet them after lunch, as we needed an early lunch since we didn’t have any breakfast. We stopped in the town of Rye for a quick beach side burgers – the usually $60 later!

We met up with Lilli and family in downtown Sorrento. Another Shanghai family had rented a beach house nearby. Chelsea and Aaron are friends that live in Vizcaya. Small world – their oldest son is in Ms Shepard’s class. Eleri knows Rowan from doing class theme together. Chelsea and I had been emailing about the Christmas party (we missed), but had never met…until now.

After everyone finished lunch, we went to the rock pools. The kids walked on the seaweed growing on the rocks looking for starfish in the pools. After the rock pools begun to fill with water from the tide, the kids had fun wave chasing. The rock pools are on the ocean side.

After the rock pools, we went to their beach house. The kids played while the ladies did a bit of a shop back in town. We had about an hour before the shops closed. We also hit the grocery store for dinner tonight. Aaron made a butcher run for meat for a good Aussie meal on the “barbie”.

When we got back from town, the kids and Dads had walked to the beach on the harbor side. The waves were calm and the kids were having fun shell searching and jellyfish searching.

We decided to have dinner at Aaron/Chelsea’s home since it was a beach rental set up for entertaining with a ping pong table and foosball table for the kids. The kids all had fun together. It was 11:30pm when we began getting ready for our drive back to Melbourne. As we were getting ready to go, Morgan asked if Elle wanted to stay with Lilli until Friday – a two night sleepover. Of course she did. We left Eleri with a plan to wine taste on Friday and reclaim our daughter. We didn’t get back to our hotel until after 1am…another late night in Melbourne.

Thursday, December 22: A Melbourne City Walk
We wanted to get a good start to the day, as this was our only day in Melbourne. We enjoyed fresh fruit for breakfast in the room and then hit the city around 10am. We walked to the Victoria Market about 8 blocks away. Melbourne is a very easy city to walk. We also are moving faster without our favorite little dawdler, Eleri. The Victoria Market is a large covered market with all kinds of goods to sell. Some of the goods were China stuff we walked by very quickly. We found a nice Aussie leather store. Jim was in need of a new computer/work bag. He found one he liked, but we had to check out the Crumpler bags first. The Crumpler store was about 8 blocks from the market. The Crumpler bags are made in Australia. Karin and Stefan had Crumpler bags this summer and love them. Sure enough, Jim liked the Crumpler bag better than the leather bag. I had wanted one, but couldn’t decide because the bag seems big for my short body. Karin loves her bag, but she is much taller than me. We left the store with just Jim’s new Crumpler computer bag.

Emersyn was hungry for pasta so we found a pizza/pasta restaurant down the street from the Crumpler store. It was just after noon so we were able to get table in the back. All the other tables were reserved for the lunch rush, which begins at 12:30. It was good pizza and after filling our tummies we were ready to walk back to the Victoria Market before it closed at 2pm.

We left the market to go the tour of the old Melbourne Gaol – or prison. I decided to go back to the room to take care of a few emails. Jim and Emersyn enjoyed the tour together.

The Old Melbourne Gaol is a museum and former prison. It consists of a bluestone building and courtyard, and is located next to the old City Police Watch House and City Courts buildings. It was first constructed starting in 1839, and during its operation as a prison between 1845 and 1924, it held and executed some of Australia’s most notorious criminals, including bushranger Ned Kelly and serial killer Frederick Bailey Deeming. In total, 135 people were executed by hanging.

When they returned to the room, we walked to the river. It was beautiful day. The riverside was full of people at 4pm. It was the beginning of the Christmas Holiday. Many people were enjoying the sunshine with a drink. We found a cute bar on the river called Cloudy Bay. We enjoyed a drink and the sun with the locals. After our drink, we walked along the river.

Flint Street Station

We decided we should grab dinner because it was already 7pm. We know it is best to go early, but with the summer daylight, time just slips by. We walked to a Mexican place that had good reviews – booked till 9pm. We walked back near the hotel as Ems was done walking. We found a very nice Greek place two blocks from the hotel. We all ate too much very good food. Emmy had a slight fever and she was ready for some downtime by the time we got back to the hotel.

Friday, December 23: Wine Country Touring
I wanted to hit the Victoria Market this morning for a few last minute items. Emmy was still sleeping, so I went shopping on my own. Jim was happy to stay at the hotel to miss the shopping and I was happy to shop without my family. I picked up some t-shirts at the market and a few small items.

When I got back to the hotel at 11:30am, Emersyn was just getting up. Morgan had just called about a meeting time and place. We drove over an hour to the winery area. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at the Tuck Vineyard. Of course, it was expensive at $120 per family.

Eleri had a wonderful time with Lilli on her 2-night sleepover, but she too had a slight fever yesterday. Lilli’s grandfather, Morgan’s dad, Bob, had arrived from the States yesterday afternoon. Since Eleri was the first one up this morning, she played board games all morning with Bob. She loves to play board games.

Eleri & Lili

We needed a photo of our bright blue econobox.

After lunch, we enjoyed wine tasting. We could not buy any wine as we were back on a plane tomorrow and we have two bottles in the room. We left the winery about 5pm. When we pulled into the City, I asked Jim if he could drive by the Crumpler store because I decided I wanted a bag…just to be a pain, as always. Sure enough, the shop was open and Jim found a parking place in front. Then, I had to decide on which bag to get with my impatient family giving me the eye. They had a fun ice-blue one that was designed to the original bag…but it didn’t have all the pockets inside that I liked. Elle liked that bag the best, but I went with the one like Karin’s with all the bells and whistles.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we ordered expensive room service for a nice quiet night in. We were watching a music countdown of the top 50 songs. The tops songs were all bands and songs from the 80s. Jim and I had fun seeing the band members look so very young. Emmy had fun seeing and hearing our music. And, well Eleri had moved on to a movie on her iPad. We only made it to number 12, as we needed to get up early in the morning for our flight.

Saturday, December 24: To the Reef
We were up early with a 7am depart from the hotel. We had planned on an hour drive to the airport, but we were there in half the time. We dropped the car with a very quick check-in at rentals. We were feeling good as we had more than enough time…until we walked into the airport. Oh, wow…Christmas Eve! The line was down the hall, but no worries as we had plenty of time. It took over hour to get checked in. We grabbed breakfast of a delicious sausage roll…and a Krispy Kreme donut.

Cairns is one-hour time change moving our clocks back. We picked up our “boring silver hire car” to drive to our hotel. We arrived at The Sanctuary at Palm Cove. Our place was more than we expected. The Jenkins had stayed here on their travels. We had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, living and dining areas plus the lazy area (the name Eleri gave the lounge area off the kitchen with opening sliding doors). We had apartment #18, which was overlooking the water pound and trees. We dropped our bags to feed our kids after 2pm…again!

The lazy area

We walked the half a block to the beach promenade to enjoy fresh fish, nachos and a burger…all for $86! The nachos tend to cost about $10-$14 which is very overpriced for what you get. Our next stop was to stock up on food since we had a full kitchen. We went to Woolworths for our one stop shopping. $386 later, we had a very full cart. We did have to hurry as the stores were closing at 5pm for Christmas Eve. We did a quick run to the bottle shop for wine and beer to complete our Christmas meals.

Jim and the girls went for a short swim while I unpacked our bags. Having a little space is always nice and this is a great place to spend Christmas as a family. Upon returning from their swim, the girls showered while Jim and I made Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Eve dinner was chicken satays and salad. The mangos are cheap and delicious for a salad topping.

Christmas Eve dinner

After dinner, we watched a movie as a family. We found the Hannah Montana movie to watch – cheesy, but a family movie! Eleri and Jim fell asleep, but Emmy and I stayed up for the late movie – Blue Crush.

Sunday, December 25: Christmas at the Beach
Everyone slept in after many late nights and early mornings. I did bring a few small gifts for the girls to open, but we had already opened our presents before we left on our adventure. The girls were happy to open a few small items. Eleri was hoping Santa arrived last in night in Shanghai.

After breakfast in the lazy area, we slathered on the sunscreen to head to the pool.

I usually take photos of the girls in their Christmas dresses before going to Aunt Nancy’s for brunch. I took a photo of the girls in their Christmas swimmers before going to the pool! Eleri had a new swimmer Emmy and I picked out in Mosman – a perfect Christmas candy cane swimmer!

We had the pool to ourselves for most of the morning. Later, another family living in HK arrived for a Christmas swim. The girls had fun with the new underwater camera I gave Jim for Christmas.

We left the pool for our lunch of cheese, crackers and lunchmeat. It is nice to have a full kitchen. The restaurants on the beach were serving set lunch/dinners. It would cost our family around $500 for a Christmas meal! After lunch, we walked along the promenade. Most of the shops were closed, but the ice cream shop was open.

We went to the beach for a swim. Because it is jellyfish season, you must swim in the inclosed jelly nets. The jellyfish in this area are the box jelly, which can be very dangerous. The girls and Jim swam in the nets before heading back to the pool.

At the pool, the cannonball competition began. Eleri has good form, but she is too little to make a big splash!

Eleri’s dive need a little work – she has a belly dive.

The day seemed to slip away, but it was a very nice slow slip. Time to hit the showers. Eleri has a bathtub so she is happy to bath for about an hour. Jim and I prepped Christmas dinner of kangaroo steaks, prawns, beefsteak, bake potatoes and green beans (Emmy’s favorite).

Christmas Dinner

Monday, December 26: Exploring the reef
Up early to be in Port Douglas by 8am. A 7:15am depart from our door with everyone slathered in sunscreen for a day on the Reef. I did take half a seasickness pill. I don’t like how lethargic it makes me, but better than being sick.

We had a beautiful day for our reef adventure. I booked our adventure with Wavelength Tours. It is a small boat holding only 30 people with a marine biologist on board. The crew was small with John, the captain. Tim, the deck hand, and Emma, the biologist completed the boat crew of three.

On the way out to the reef, we geared up with snorkel mask, fins and a sting suit. We all are wearing a jelly sting suit. The jellyfish out in the Reef are less dangerous, but best to be safe. It took about two hours to reach the first reef dive. I slept while Jim sat up front with the girls.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system composed of over 2, 900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2, 600 kilometres (1, 600 mi) over an area of approximately 344, 400 square kilometres (133, 000 sq mi). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia.

We geared up in our sting suits.

Jim had planned to take Eleri and I would go with Emmy. We got in the water and Eleri didn’t want to do this! We switched and I took Eleri. After about 5 minutes, I convinced her to put her head in the water (we all know how stubborn Eleri can be). Once she put her head in, she was fine. We did see a jellyfish, which she didn’t like. But, it was next to me and not her. The prettiest fish we saw on this dive was the blue parrotfish. It is truly an amazing place. Eleri was ready to go back to the boat which was just before the captain called in the crew of snorkelers. Our timing was good.

Back on the boat, we drove to the next reef about 20 minutes away. Eleri had said she wasn’t going in and took off her sting suit. Once we arrived at the reef site, she changed her mind. I put her sting suit back on (not an easy task) to get us ready for the swim. This reef was more beautiful than the first one. Tim and Emma were taking guest on a snorkel tour at this reef dive. Emma took a large portion of the snorkelers on a longer swim around the reef. Jim and Emmy went with Emma. Tim took a smaller group on a short swim. Eleri and I went with Tim. Tim and Emma were explaining various plant and animal life we could find on the reef. The reef was massive and changed with so many varieties of corals. I was glad Eleri came out for this reef and she did great.

Emersyn

Brenda & Eleri

As we were leaving this dive site, we saw dolphins swimming next to the boat.

We returned to the boat for lunch. We were a hungry crew after swimming with the fish. Lunch was sandwiches and fruit. While we ate, we drove to the last reef site of the day. The current was stronger as we were on the very outer edge of the Reef. Eleri decided to pass on this site, which was good. I had a had a hard enough time swimming back with the current on my own. The crew had put out a rope to use to get back to the boat. This site was amazing as it was full of fish. I felt like I was part of the aquarium. Some of the fishes would swim right up next to you. I had a little purple fish checking me out eye to eye.

I came in a bit early to check on Eleri on the boat, but she was fine…of course. She had taken on the duty of helping snorkelers coming back to the boat to put their snorkels and fins in the correct bucket. She was helping them to hang up the sting suits all with a big smile.

Now, we had over two hours back. The people on the boat were all nice. One older couple from Canada had gone on a boat yesterday with 75 people. They said this was so much better. The big boats of Quick Silver take over 400 people. It took time to get just 30 people in the water – I would not want to manage 400 people.

On the trip back to Port Douglas, most people slept on the way home. Emmy and I slept on the main boat area. Jim had said Eleri was face down asleep on the front of the boat. It was an amazing experience. This was the girls’ first real snorkel trip – nothing like doing the best!

It was close to 7pm when we got back. Our showering routine is working perfect. The girls shower while Jim and I prep dinner. Jim showers while I wash Eleri’s hair and get the girls ready. I shower while Jim cooks. Everyone is clean for dinner. Tonight’s dinner is simple chicken and broccoli.

Tuesday, December 27: A Rainforest Walk About
We were up early again for our Daintree rainforest tour. We booked with Daintree Safaris with Nickolas. The Jenkins had used another tour guide, Pete, which was more of an all day forest walk they loved. However, Pete was not touring during the Holiday. We chose Daintree Safaris based on the recommendation of Pete. It was a small tour with a total of 6 people – the other two guests were from Norway. We saw many large vans with 10-20 people.

The Daintree is the largest continuous area of tropical rainforest on the Australian continent. Along the coastline north of the Daintree River, tropical rainforest grows right down to the edge of the sea.

The Daintree Rainforest contains 30% of the frog, reptile and marsupial species in Australia, and 65% of Australia’s bat and butterfly species. 18% of bird species in the country can be found in this area. There are also over 12, 000 species of insects. All of this diversity is contained within an area that takes up 0.1% of the landmass of Australia. Part of the forest is protected by the Daintree National Park and drained by the Daintree River. The roads north of the river wind through areas of lush forest and have been designed to minimize impacts on this ancient ecosystem. The Daintree Region is home to a number of rare and endangered species, including the Southern Cassowary. Approximately 430 species of birds live among the trees.

We started off with a drive to the rainforest across the river on a car ferry. Once we reached the forest, we walked on the designated path. You could walk it on your own, but Nick provided the wealth of information. He told us about the various plants, the spiders and the lizards we saw along the way. He is very nice and knowledgeable. At one point, Nick showed us the ant with the big green belly/butt. When you lick the butt, it taste like a sour lemon or a sour starburst. I had to laugh. Before we began our tour today, Eleri had a bathroom run in nature. There was a small lizard I was eyeing during our nature potty break. Eleri was eyeing the big, green belly ants. When Eleri finished, she pointed to the green belly ants and said, “My friend, Callie, said you can lick their butts and it taste like a lemon”. My reply, “we aren’t licking any ant butt!”. So, of course, Eleri was the first to lick the butt!

The tree trunks, buttress, are an important ecological part of the rainforest. The buttress keeps water and soiling from eroding away.

The (marattiaceae) king fern behind the girls helps to date the rainforest. The Daintree Rainforest is one of the oldest trypical rainforest dated by plants of this sort.

Nick pointed out these are the vines used by Tarzan. The only problem with Tarzan using them is they are attached to the ground. When they are not attached to the ground, the vine dies.

Swinging like Tarzan

A lizard trying to “blend” in to hide from us.

After our hour walk, we went to an area for tea and muffins. We saw this rather long guy at our picnic table.

This is a baby huntsman spider – also near our picnic table. Nick said it will grow to the size of the palm of a hand. That would send me screaming!!

We continued our drive through the rainforest. Jim got the most out of the trip as he had front row seat asking questions all day. Our lunch stop was a delicious meal of steak for Emersyn, chicken for Eleri and barracuda fish for Jim and I. The meal included many fresh rainforest fruits. The owner gave us a presentation on all the fruits. Eleri tried them all, of course. She was eating a lycee when she lost a tooth. She was excited about losing this tooth in Australia. Now, she has lost a tooth in South Africa, Egypt and Australia. I think she is trying to see how many different countries she can lose a tooth!

Our next stop was the Daintree Ice Cream Company. It serves four different flavors each day. All the favors are rainforest fruits. Today the flavors were banana, passion fruit, pineapple and wattleseed. The wattleseed was a favorite. We shared two bowls so the girls also wanted to try the ice block of mango and passion fruit. A thumbs up was the report between bites.

The view of the Daintree River flowing to the ocean.

The next stop on our tour was a boat cruise on the Daintree River looking for crocodiles. It was a nice boat ride. We saw one crocodile in the distance under a bank of trees.

Our last stop on the tour was the Mossman Gorge for a swim. I usually have all my gear in order, but missed this one. No swimmers for this crew. However, I had the girls start the day in their safari pants for the rainforest walk. I had extra clothes if they wanted to go in with their clothes on. Jim had his excise shorts on under his shorts. Emmy wanted to go in. She took off her top to go in her bra and shorts. She loved it. Eleri got in all the way to her shorts, but didn’t go for a swim in the end.

This was the last stop on our tour. We were home around 5:30pm. This gave us about an hour to enjoy some down time in the lazy area. We had cheese and crackers, a beer, sodas and diet coke before our next adventure.

Eleri really wanted to do the Cairns Night Zoo. The zoo was only 15 minutes from Palm Cove. The Night Zoo time was from 7-10pm, including dinner. We thought this was a good night since we are full of bug spray from the day activities in the rainforest.

We arrived at 6:50 to start with drinks. Jim enjoyed the beer while I had red wine. The girls had soft drinks, of course. Dinner was beefsteak, chicken, sausages, potatoes and rice. The brochure had said prawns. Eleri was looking forward to grill prawns, but they were cold on the salad – not the way she likes them. She ate sausages instead. The food was better than I had expected.

At 7:30, the staff began taking photos with the koala. The girls were second in line. The staff was so delightful. Eleri was too small to hold the koala, but they put her in the photo with Emmy. She could pet Harold (Harry). They also took a photo of all of us with our camera. We only paid the $16 for the photo they took of the girls with the koala. The staff was very nice about it all. Emersyn washed her hands about 5 times, but she still smelled. Koalas are quite smelly…and so was Emersyn.

After everyone who wanted to take a photo with Harry was done, the guest all grabbed a torch (flashlight) for the tour. They divided the guests into two groups. Again, not oversold with people to make it enjoyable. We walked to a tent in the dark of the night zoo with our torches – it was fun. We learned more about kolas, frogs (not native and causing a problem) and other Aussie animal.

As we were leaving the tent, two staff members pulled us aside. Our photo of the girls with Harry, the Koala, was too yellow. They wanted to take another photo. The staff gave Emersyn a different Koala to hold for the photo. She had smelly hands again!

Then, with our torches we walked to the snake house – not my favorite. But, Emmy did hold the snake at the entrance. After the snake house, we had a tour of the crocodiles. The Zoo has various types of crocodiles. There were a few very large ones. The staff feed them chicken heads.

One more stop in an area with kangaroos jumping all about. The girls had fun feeding the little Roos.

Then, it was back to the main area for dancing and drinks. The staff made the dancing fun by doing group dances they taught us. A Japanese tour group was at the Night Zoo. I went on the dance floor with Eleri, but a Japanese tourist wanted to dance with her. I dance with another Japanese tourist. This dance had you changing partners, so it was fun. The last dance was a variation on the hokey pokey. We turned ourselves around like an Aussie black turkey with one hand on top of our head for feathers and one hand behind the back for tail feathers.

All in all, it was a fun night zoo tour. If Eleri hadn’t wanted to do it, I don’t think we would have gone. We were home just after 10pm for quick showers. Tomorrow, we can sleep in!!

Wednesday, December 28: A Dive and a Swim Day
Jim was up checking his emails when he got a notice from Jet Airways regarding our flight at 9:30am. Jim thought he booked the 6:00pm flight. When we pulled the paperwork, he had booked the 9:30am. Good to know, as we would have missed our flight. A change in plans for the day was required. We had planned to go dive shopping in Cairns tomorrow on the way to the airport since we had all day. Now, we needed to go dive shopping for Emersyn’s trip to Thailand today. Emersyn is going on a school Marine Ecology Research Project to Thailand in June. The students will be doing research on the reef while living on a boat for 10 days. The samples and research are sent to an University. She will do three to four dives a day. When she completes the trip, she will be dive certified…at the age of 12! Therefore, it is important she had proper dive equipment.

We had a late breakfast of cheese and crackers. The girls are loving the cheese that is too expensive to buy in Shanghai. We drove to Cairns to find the dive shop Tim and Emma recommended on Wavelength. We googled the shop, Pro Dive. Following the directions from our google search, we found ourselves at the dive instruction site. They sent us back to the town center to the retail shop. The dive staff was helpful to find a mask small enough for Emmy’s face. She had the chose of blue or yellow. She went with blue, of course. A blue snorkel and blue fins to complete the color scheme. It took longer to find dive booties that she found comfortable. We added a dive bag for her gear and two rash guards on sale for total of $450. The gear was on sale when purchased as a set. It was a better than we excepted. In Sorrento, the dive shop was much more expensive.

We went back to the apartment for lunch. We had food so no sense in paying $80 for lunch. Gourmet hamburger patties were cooked up by Jim for lunch…in the lazy area, of course.

After lunch, we had planned to go to the crocodile farm. It was between the crocodile farm and Kunadra Village. Nick had thought the girls would enjoy the crocodiles more and it was a better value for the dollars. We saw crocodiles last night, therefore, Emmy wanted to go back to the Gorge for a swim. We stopped in Port Douglas for an one-hour shop. Eleri found a nice boomerang as she has been looking for one. The painter had signed this boomerang. It was nicer than the ones in the tourist shops.

When we arrived at the Mossman Gorge, we changed into our swimmers to walk down to the river. The water is cold, but not as cold as Lake Tahoe. Jim and Emmy were in first. It took Eleri time to get in, but once she was in she was ready to go. I had brought water safety rings for the snorkeling trip. Eleri was wearing the safety rings, which was good with the river current. Jim and the girls had fun playing in the current stream. They would swim across the river downstream, walk up the sand shore, across the rocks and jump into the river to flow down with the current. I was on the rock below to catch anyone who missed the rock. The best part of the river current play was that after my rock post, the river flowed into a still bay. It made for a safe, fun play in the current stream. It also gave the girls an appreciation for the power of the river. When Emmy missed the rock, she would try to swim upstream into the current stream, but found herself not moving.

We drove the hour back to the apartment for showers and our last meal. Tonight’s dinner was chicken, sausages and kangaroo with potatoes. We were using up our food supplies. After dinner, we packed and watched Fear Factor, a US show the girls have never seen.

Thursday, December 29: Meeting Old Friends
We were out the door at 7:30am for our 9:30am flight. The girls are great at getting up and going in the mornings. We arrived in Sydney at noon, but had to move our watches ahead an hour. We picked up our rental car…another boring silver one. The family now wants fun skittle cars!

We drove towards Vanessa and John’s home in Lane Cove. We made a wrong turn into a downtown area – perfect, as we needed some lunch. Again, it was after 2pm and we haven’t fed our kids. We found a local bakery to see if they had meat pies. Thanks to Kathleen we know to look in a bakery for the meat pies. We all enjoyed our meat pies at 3pm in the afternoon. We hit the bottle shop to take wine to our hosts. Drinking with friends has been a big part of this holiday. We found the house after a few miss streets in the neighborhood.

It was good to see old friends. The last time we saw the family was in 2006 when we left Hong Kong. We did see Vanessa and Angus in Hong Kong in 2009. It is fun to see the children and how much they have grown. Jemima was a toddler the last time we saw her. Now, she is 10 years old. She is dedicated to gymnastics to train 40 hours a week – before and after school. Angus has grown tall and into a handsome young man. Charlotte was a baby the last time we saw her. Now, she is 6 and a big girl. Vanessa and John look the same, as if time has stood still.

Jemima, Emmy & Angus in 2003

We sat outside in their garden to enjoy the beautiful weather while the kids ran off to play. Charlotte and Eleri were a perfect match all weekend playing and giggling. Vanessa had planned an Aussie “barbie” for the night. We enjoyed steaks and sausages with an added treat of beans from her garden. Dessert was pavlova, a must with an Aussie barbie meal. We drank too much and enjoy the fun of catching up with old friends.

Friday, December 30: A Blue Mountain Walkabout
We loaded the gang into the cars for a trip to the Blue Mountains. It is holiday time with most people off from work. Traffic took a bit longer with sprinkles of rain. We stopped for lunch at a cute cafe in Katoomba, as the crew was hungry.

After lunch, we went to the lookout at Echo Point to see the Three Sisters rock formation. It was busy, but Vanessa had said it is always busy.

The Three Sisters Rocks

John, Vanessa, Angus, Jemima & Charlotte

We decided to take the bush walk down the 900 steps. Vanessa thought it would be best to stay at the top with Charlotte. John is an outdoor adventure man. He loves the outdoors and the sports. He bikes to work on nice days, which is an hour one-way. Angus wanted to go to Scenic World as he remembers the fun from a class trip. We worked our way down the 900 steps. At the bottom, we had to make a decision to go back up the 900 steps or walk around through the rainforest to Scenic World. The vote was the walk to Scenic World which was good as I would be huffing and puffing going back up.

The walk was beautiful through the rainforest. The sign indicated the walk would take 1-2 hours to reach Scenic World. The last tram up was at 4:50pm. No worries as it was 3:15pm.

We reached Scenic World to take the tram to the top…much better than walking 900 steps up! The tram was fun.

We then had to walk back to the parking lot of Echo Point. The kids were promised ice cream when we reached Echo Point. The ice cream was vey good and only $5 – cheap for Australia standards. Vanessa was a trooper sitting in the car and hanging with Charlotte while we enjoyed the beautiful walk.

We piled back into the cars for our drive back to Sydney. Angus and Emersyn were in our car with the three girls with Vanessa and John. A one point, Angus wasn’t feeling well. We always have bags in the car for Eleri. Angus, not the expert carsickness child like Eleri, vomit all over…not enough time to get the bag open. Vanessa had said the last time he was car sick was 2005. Eleri seems to know when she is hitting that point and asks for a bag. We pulled over for the clean up. Being the parents of a carsick child, we weren’t bothered by the mess. In fact, we just jumped to our usually jobs – I have clean up the child duty while Jim has clean up the car duty. We were back on the road in no time. John had pulled over when he realized we were not anywhere in sight.

We pulled into Lane Cove close to 7pm to get dinner at the local pizza place. John ran Angus home for a shower and clean clothes. The pizza was delicious. Eleri ordered lasagna and it looked tasty. Jim and I kept eyeing the lasagna throughout dinner asking Eleri if she was done yet. It was a large piece and we were just waiting to finish it off for her. The pizzas had gourmet toppings. Chicken with avocados pizza for the adults and Hawaiian pizza for the kids.

Home for showers and clean up. Eleri and Charlotte climbed into the bathtub to enjoy a long bath playing together. After tucking in children, we enjoyed more wine and conversation.

Saturday, December 31: Fireworks Over the Harbour
Jim and I wanted to go to the Rocks shopping because we wanted a didgeridoo to take home. Vanessa’s Mum, Suzanne, is visiting so she decided to join us. The kids all wanted to come shopping with us, which worked well as it gave Vanessa time to prepare for the nights’ celebration. John and Vanessa dropped the three adults and five kids at the ferry stop to catch the 9:50am ferry to Circular Quay. Since we were coming from a different area, we went under the bridge this time. People were all ready staking out a place for the fireworks tonight.

The Rocks area was so different than the last time we were here at the beginning of our trip. The City was busy preparing for the fireworks tonight. Barriers were up all over and port-a-potties were being brought in to handle the flow of people. The Opera House point was already closed because the area was full to capacity.

Our first stop was a shop we visit on our last trip to the Rocks – a shop near the Tourist Information with nice didgeridoos. We had a hard time choosing the didgeridoo as we had two we liked from the same maker. We decided on the didgeridoo in the D key. The C key is easier for beginners, but the didgeridoo also needs to be an art piece. Custom allows only men to play the didgeridoo. Therefore, only Jim could try the various didgeridoos to see if he noticed a difference. The girls can play it when we get home! After wrapping up our didgeridoo for travel, we went to the Australian Hotel for our last meat pie. It was noon so our timing was good to get a seat outside. We enjoyed our meat pies while having fun with the kids. We walked around a bit more before heading to the pier. An ice cream run for the kids before catching the 2:10pm ferry back.

Vanessa and John had been busy packing a picnic dinner for this gang of 10. They had booked tickets at the Sydney North Olympic Pool under the bridge. Vanessa took Jim, the kids and me to the site at about 4pm. When we walked over to the pool, a queue had already formed. We joined in to be at the front of the line. Jim and I tagged team the gang of kids – taking the kids to the water and the playground. Vanessa drove back home to get the last of the nights supplies. Vanessa, John and Suzanne took the bus to the pool. Vanessa said our timing was good as they were closing streets off as she drove back to the house. We were also meeting their neighbors at the pool.

Since we were at the pool early, we were able to get a good spot at the top of the grand stands when the doors opened at 6pm. The kids stripped their clothes and ran for the pools.

There was an outdoor pool and an indoor pool. Since the pool is a competition swim pool, floating slides and fun toys had been added for the kids. There were plenty of lifeguards on duty that the adults could sit back and enjoy.

Vanessa had spent the day preparing for the night. Vanessa had made falafels to make falafel wraps. She packed cheese and crackers, chips, ham, rolls and more. Dessert was homemade brownies to finish the meal. In addition, no glass was allowed in the pool. Therefore, we poured two bottles of wine into a milk jug. No photo as I always think about it after the fact. We drank our wine we called the “lite milk juice” and a cranberry & vodka premix. The kids dropped in for food between pool runs.

Our girls finished about 8:30pm to changed into dry clothes for the fireworks. Eleri wanted to find the face painting, but we were too late as it finished at 8:30pm. The weather was beautiful for an evening pool adventure. It had been sprinkling rain earlier in the day. The fireworks began at 9pm. The fireworks were fabulous over the bridge. They lasted about 10 minutes.

Then, it was time to pack it up for home. When we walked out of the park, there was a long queue to get in for the midnight fireworks. We walked a few blocks to the bus. We didn’t have tickets for the bus, but the driver said to just get in as he wanted everyone to get home safely. Again, another very nice bus driver in Sydney.

We put the kids to bed and went next door to the neighbors. They are a delightful couple with young children. We watched the midnight fireworks on tv – fabulous!! Before we knew it, it was 2am and time to go to bed. We were drinking champagne while we watched the fireworks.

Sunday, January 1: A River Kayak Trip
No one was moving too fast this morning after champagne, vodka and “lite milk juice” all night. We fed the kids breakfast at 10:30am and began preparing for the days’ adventure. John had organized a kayak trip for the crew. We drove to the river about 30 minutes away. Angus has his own small kayak. Emersyn and Jemima shared a large one-person kayak. They displayed good teamwork skills to paddle together. Vanessa and I took the Eleri and Charlotte on their large “family” two-person kayak. Jim and John both had their own one-man kayak.

We headed down river on a beautiful afternoon. We saw all kinds of birds with the help of Vanessa. It was quite on the river with few people out on this day. We stopped for lunch, as everyone was hungry. Vanessa had packed rolls, ham and fixings to make sandwiches. While we were eating, Angus spotted a stingray just gliding up the river. We were back from the riverside so it didn’t hear us. When we moved closer, it went under. We had learned on our reef trip that sting rays would not use the stinger unless it feels very threaten. Once he uses the stinger, it falls off. It will not grow another stinger and will be defenseless.

We went back to the open river where the kids played in the water. Eleri, Charlotte and Emersyn all took turns taking Angus’s boat for a spin. It is a kids boat designed to be easier to use. They all have big smiles.

We decided we should head back as it was upstream against the current. Everyone did fine and we were back in no time. The kids continued to play in the water and with the kayaks. Jemima was standing using her as a paddleboard.

We loaded the boat and gear to go home. At home, we did a gear clean and put away following by a people clean up. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant sitting outside. We enjoyed our last evening with the family.

Monday, January 2: Travel back to Shanghai
We were out the door at 9:00am for our journey back to Shanghai. It was a fun trip spent with friends and seeing a new country. We really enjoyed our time in Australia. We will be back to see more of the country and to see our friends.

Meat pies rankings by the Lyon family:
1. Australian Hotel – holds the top spot for the best
2. Kathleen’s gourmet pies
3. Mosman bakery with Kathleen
4. Mosman bakery for Mimi’ birthday
5. Bakery near Lane Cove
6. Palm Beach-by far at the bottom

Santa arrived while we were gone…except for Emersyn. Andy had sent her gift from Santa since she wanted a Logitech speaker for her iPod. It didn’t arrive before we left. During the holiday, I was joking with Emmy that she wasn’t getting a gift from Santa because she had been naughty. I scrambled to write a letter from Santa. I had thought about doing it at Vanessa’s and then forgot. The girls began with their stockings…the paper stockings they made, as we can’t find the real ones. Eleri was excited about the “Zibits” Santa brought her.

Roxi got a “stocking bone”. It may take her until next year to finish this bone!

As we begin a new year, I count my blessing to have a terrific family to share life’s adventures from the grand trips to the every day life. Looking forward to the year 2012 with my girls and Jim.