Blogs from Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 12

Some photos from our weekend in the Blue Mountains.. :)... read more

Lorenza and I had a lot of laughs over the weekend, thanks to Rob’s distant cousin Jean-Frédéric who came to visit. He shared his stories of his tour in Australia and New Zealand, plus a few jokes … like “Did you know there are two types of Kiwi fruit in New Zealand? One is yellow and the other is green. Do you have any idea why the French do not like the green one? It’s because there are green pieces inside”. Yes it is corny, but it got a laugh from us! I gave J-F a tour of our house and garden and he inspected my micro-mini-vineyard. He gave me some very specific advice regarding how I should have pruned my vines. He seemed confident that I could correct the problems before I get into any ... read more

On the day my “petite cousine” Juliette departed Australia to return to France the saying on the calendar in our kitchen was a Gypsy proverb … “We are birds of passage, tomorrow we will be far away” or “Nous sommes des oiseaux de passage, demain nous serons loin”. It seemed it seemed so fitting for the day! Alternate Realities Lorenza and I were so excited that Juliette was visiting. We did comment that it seemed “odd” because we associate her with our “alternate reality” rather than our “normal reality”. By that I mean that we would normally see Juliette when we are travelling, not here in our home. We also mentioned this to Juliette when she arrived and said she had a similar feeling. Tenuous Connections When Juliette and I describe ourselves as distant cousins the ... read more

The Blue Mountains So today we went on a tour to the blue mountains. We had to have an early breakfast and then get ready for an 8:30 pick-up. We were driven out of Sydney in a coach with lots of other people to a wildlife park. It had only native Australian animals and had kangaroos and Emu roaming free that you could stroke. They also had Koala which you could have your photo taken with. They also had lots of other animals. We each had a passport which you could put stamps in when you had seen the animals. After five minutes the bus drive stop and went into a field to demonstrated boomerang throwing. After that we drove on to lunch somewhere on the way to the blue mountains. After lunch we went up ... read more

Waking up looking outside I see a fat man slightly balding looking back at me. After several obscure and slight obscene jesters I come to the depressing realization that the fat bloke in the window is actually me in a mirror!!!!! Motivation session over, I am pumped and ready to run our daily walk to Manly. Fortunately Kimmy agrees to do the run with me so I am not lonely while trying to shed a few of the holiday pounds. We make the run and manage to pick up the last of our 35 mm photos we will ever have developed (slightly sad). Our main task for the day remains to make a pack lunch for our trip to the BLUE MOUNTAINS (AUSSIES say BLUEYS). We pick up basics at the large corporate monster store in ... read more