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Published: January 28th 2010
DAY 445
Well today is Australia day, what is that we hear our British chums announce? Well its when Captain Arthur Phillips, landed with his first fleet in 1788 at Sydney Cove, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignity over the eastern seaboard of Australia and subsequent white settlement on this island continent. I think I read somewhere that is was originally a holiday in New South Wales but eventually it was made a national public holiday.
Well I was up at 6.10 and sat quitely in the sitting room doing some blog work and having my morning cup of tea and my “quiet time”.
Jan and Ted are “Tea Buffs” and use loose tea with a tea pot and a strainer, which I haven’t seen for ages, it definitely does taste better than “bagged tea”, though there is a bit a faffing around just making a single cup.
When everyone is up we sit and have breakfast, today is going to be a busy day as we are off to Jan and Ted’s daughter Natelie’s house to spend Australia day with the whole family which includes their other daughter Jenny.
Unfortunately “Nats” husband Justin has had to fly to Western Australia, as his mum is in hospital and he needed to be with her, so we will not get to meet him today.
When we were all ready Ted drives us around to where my interview will be tomorrow which I appreciate, this will be helpful as we are not familiar with this part of Sydney.
Once au fait with where I am to go tomorrow, Ted continues to give us a whistle stop tour of the area and we find around the corner (literally) the Sydney Olympic Village, which is now all residential apartments, and a little further on we suddenly find the landscape change into the Sydney Olympic Arena, which all looks quite spectacular.
As it is Australia Day and a bank holiday it is just like a Sunday it is not busy with traffic but there are plenty of people walking about, kids are playing under a fountain which we find out that is in fact the original structure that held the Olympic flame, others are sat having picnics in the shade picnic areas provided, people are jogging, walking, cycling, sightseeing just like
us and pretty much enjoying the day for relaxation.
We find that we are on one of Ted’s Tours again as he drives us around the area, we see offices, hotels, and very much a thriving community, there is even a train station here, which was especially built to bring people right up to the stadium.
Jan and Ted explain how they both volunteered to help with the Olympics along with 46,998 others yes, that is a grand total of 47,000 volunteers, each one of them kitted out with t-shirts trousers and jackets, Jan could have sold the jacket over and over again, one American even offered her $1500! Jan declined, they only had one jacket and I am sure they would not have given her another one. Jan worked in spectator services while Ted worked in IT, possibly on the electronic scoring for the Table Tennis.
Bright coloured flags adourned the straight avenues and look pretty spectacular, especially in the Sydney sunshine.
It is nice driving around as the roads are quiet and I am sure fairly deceptive from the traffic that we will see tomorrow morning.
We find that it is hot and fairly humid
The Olympic Stadium
Where the 2000 Olympics were heldhere a little bit different from the dry heat we have experienced in Canberra.
After a short while of sightseeing we are off to Natalie’s house in Stanhope Park for our Australia Day Celebrations, we are excited and looking forward to the day.
We arrive at their lovely house,we all troop in side and unload our bags of stuff that Ted and Jan have brought over.
Ted and Jan's other daughter “Aunty Jenny” was there it was great to finally meet both Jenny and Natalie who we have heard much about and never met, although we have had e-mails and a previous conversation with Jenny as she helped us while we were sorting out details for our Tasmania trip early last year. Nat’s children Erin and Adam, absolutely love Aunty Jen and she can’t do any wrong and they always do as asked, so always a useful ally to mummy!
Well all the girls were busy preparing the food for the day and we had spied some unusual “burgers” under further inspection they were the shape of Australia how cool is that? So it was just a natural progress to suggest that we were “Eating our way
The Torch Fountain
This is where the Flame originally was around Australia”.
The bbq which was as big as big as a grand piano was working away and soon our mega Australian bbq lunch was ready, we all sat around eating, talking and just having a great time, such a lovely family and we were pleased to share it with such nice people.
The funny thing was, and Caroline and myself did not remember this but it was the day after Australia day last year that we had spent with Jan and Ted in Leura in the Blue Mountains, when they were celebrating their Wedding Anniversary there.
How bad did we feel? Nat, Jen and the kids were just walkiing out from the kitchen with a cake with candles and being carried very carefully and placed on the table, it had been Jan and Ted’s wedding anniversary yesterday, the day we had turned up and we had not remembered, nor was there any inclination of the pending important celebration.
Apparently Ted doesn’t like cake,”What!” that’s like saying I don’t need oxygen to breath, so he had a very small piece with the cream and the icing taken off specially. But it does not stop there because
Jenny and Nat have prepared a huge pavlova, we have to succumb to a slice of each, it would be rude to refuse either of them, they were both delicious, we could not possibly eat any more.
With lunch done and the Anniversary cake presented, all the fantastic efforts of the lovely food was cleared away ready for battle.
Now Caroline and myself love a board game and the table was set for a game called “Razzo” a game where you have to shake a dice and move your piece around a map of Australia, whilst trying to buy four strategic Australian items, which are a BBQ, a Ute, membership to a Footy Club and a Blue Heeler Dog, all with a certain amount of money which could also be topped up or given away at the throw of the dice.
We haven’t had so much fun for ages and what a laugh, it was a fantastic experience and definitely a game we are going to get.
I know I am 46 but never to old to be amazed, the children have a product called “Aqua Sand” which is a dry product just like normal sand and is
coloured and when put in a bowl of water can be fashioned in to different shapes and sculpted, but when it is taken back out of the water turns straight back to the dry sand substance, it was truly astonishing, it worked like it just repelled the water.
Poppy Ted, as the kids call him, got on to the Piano which is a Pianola, you put a rolled paper cassette in and it plays its self, when I heard the music without investigation I didn’t know he was that good, but I soon realised that the Pianola played its self.
We leave Nat’s house at around 8.30pm Jenny is going to look after her kids as Nat is going to pick her husband Justin up from the airport as he has decided to come back after seeing his mum.
We jump in to the car and head back to Jan and Ted’s house as being Australia day there will be fireworks. We had just been in the house about 3 minutes and manage to get a cup of tea on the go when we see fire works in different directions over the different parts of the city.
We
stand on the balcony and watch for a while then eventually go inside and sit for a while, soon it is bed time, we have had the most fantastic day today and have thouroughly enjoyed being welcomed in to an Australian family who have made us really welcome.
So until tomorrow we will say good night, we retire exhausted, but it is up early tomorrow to get ready.
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Tony & Wendy
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Olympic Park
Oops! A bit behind again guys... Hope you see this message. These photos remind us of the time we went to the park. It had been p----g down like a monsoon the day before and we decided to take a coach trip out to Blue Mountains to stay a bit drier. The day turned out to be a scorcher and the coach came back via the park. Very impressive. We were so hot and exhausted by that time, we decided to get a cab from there straight to our hotel rather than faff about dropping people off all over Sydney. Good choice as we had a bit more time there. Will endeavour to catch up with you over the next week. It's busy as Tony over at the new workshop quite a bit now and I've been buried in Patsy's books. Last weekend we went to Le Touquet for the beach race. Boy was it busy - 250,000 people they reckon. We got a good spot up high to watch from and the bike race on Sunday was amazing to see, 1050 of them scream down the 5 mile straight! Take care T & W xx