Blogs from New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 22

Day 3. Was a bugg** covering 83kms split roughly into two halves over 8.25 hrs & a brutal 1156 mts of assent for the day. Yesterday’s bad weather had cleared to a brilliant cloudless blue sky. The morning stage was to The Entrance & started with some nice bike paths but soon changed to a very busy main road with some narrow shoulder that required total concentration not to wobble while ascending hills up to 13%. Terrigal was only half way to The Entrance & I was already spent. The beautiful outlook & morning tea at the surf club revived our spirits. Shelly Beach & Long Jetty were were memorable view stops. The afternoon stage was to Swansea & we seemed to get a second wind with riding mainly on cycle paths. A slight diversion to ... read more

It was sad saying farewell to Chris, Natalie and Mikey before they left for school at about 8.15. Our family is so scattered around the world, so these times together have made our holiday really special. We packed our cases, tidyed up and finished writing our diary/blog. Wendy was working from home so was there to wish us farewell when our taxi arrived. We used an Uber taxi to get us to the airport, in good time, for our Quantas flight at 16.50. We are much better at working out how to use the high tec self service units and bag check. We had time for a tasty lunch before boarding out Airbus 380, a huge double decker aircraft. There is a staircase Nancy! We stopped over in Singapore for about an hour and a half. ... read more

18 - 19th October Family days and relaxing at St Ives We needed to take some time out to relax and get our minds around all we have seen in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, so Friday was spent doing things around the home and catching up on the blog until the family returned from work/ school. Saturday was cricket day for Mikey and Natalie. We missed going to see Mikey play as it was earlier and in a different place from Natalie's mtch. They both did really well for their first cricket games with Natalie taking a catch and bowling well to take a wicket on a catch. Unfortunately she and her friend Jamie were seconded to the other team as they were short. We dined at home, outside by the pool, although too chilly ... read more

Hi, my readers….I'm back in Australia again. Archie and I came to Australia to visit our family and celebrate Archie's niece's birthday. We had such a great time with the family. We got our niece a personalised baby blanket from Blankids, who does custom blankets in Australia. She LOVED it and we are so happy for her. The party was great, the food was delicious and we were so glad to be back in Australia. As I mentioned in this blog before that Sydney is one of the cities in Australia I want to move to (and yes, I'm now in the process of url=https://infinitemigration.com.au/services/family-migration/partner-provisional-visa-subclass-309-partner-migrant-visa-subclass-100/applying for a partner visa). I just spent a week there (how cool?). It was a trip full of fun, good food and great ... read more

We awoke to another sunny day and after breakfast set off on our second Sydney touristy day with our super guide Karen. We walked to the local bus stop in Lane Cove and caught the bus to McMahons Point and then the ferry Bungaree, under the Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay and then another ferry the 'Golden Grove' from there to Mosman Bay. We had a coffee stop waiting for the next bus up to Georges Head (part of Sydney Harbour National Park) up a long winding road. The view there is spectacular. This is a quote from John White, Surgeon-General, First Fleet on 26 January 1788. "Port Jackson I believe to be without exception, the finest and most extensive harbour in the universe, and at the same tIme the most secure". There remain numerous canons, ... read more