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Goodbye Australia and New Zealand

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After 12 wonderful weeks it is finally time to say goodbye! My bags are  packed and I am ready for the off. It will be hard to return to my quiet life after so much activity but I know I have lots of friends to catch up with and I already have more travels booked for the Autumn. Not quite so dramatic this time!! My thanks go to all my hosts. Louise in Annerley David and Joyce in Wellington, New Zealand Alex, Clare, Ruby and Archie in Sydney Rhonda and Dennis in Cairns Cheryl in Bundaberg  Jae, Tristan and Ollie in Moorooka Without their generosity and kindness this trip could not have happened. Also a big thank you goes to all friends and relations who have supported me through the last year as I have put this trip together. Your trust in my ability to manage this trip on my own has been invaluable. I never dreamed that I could tackle so many adventures alone. Of course the main reason for this trip was to spend time with Richard, Kerri, Josie and Elliot. After six years since...
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Final day

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How do you spend your final day in Brisbane? Well, you start by watching Elliot's swimming lesson at 8.45am. This is followed by breakfast at the pool - nuggets and chips. The chips are of course 'the best chips in the world'. Must admit I am still not sure if the nuggets were fish or chicken!          Then while Kerri completes a 10K fun run (?) and I prepare sweet and savoury pie fillings, Richard takes Elliot for a bike ride. Josie is busy too making pink icing  toppings for ginger biscuits she intends to make later in the day. A final visit to the dog park. Then back to the house where I have been staying to complete my packing while Richard and Elliot make Biscoff brownies and Josie makes here ginger biscuits. Richard had a pie maker for his birthday so he then put together 1 sweet and 3 chicken and mushroom pies for our supper. They were so good and he pronounced it the best birthday present he had had. Now they could have proper pies with proper...
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A morning by the river, School assembly, Brisbane Open House weekend and the dog park.

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Elliot's school celebrate NAIDOC each year with a full school assembly. NAIDOC is National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee.  'This theme for 2025 is: The  Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy'. This theme  celebrates the 50th anniversary of NAIDOC  week and focuses on the achievements of the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders. It also acknowledges the guidance of elders and the legacy they have built.' Each class had decorated a door in their classroom representing what they had learnt about the indigenous culture and 2 children from each class explained what they had learnt as a class. The assembly ended with a full school 'dance', all 700 children and their teachers.          Elliot's classroom door.               He painted the black and red picture on the            left with the sun in the middle. As Kerri wa...
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upholstery experts at work, final visit to steel band practice, quiet walk with birthday boy for birthday number 3, an amazing sunset, more daft cat

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Kerri and Richard have a lovely old bench on the front deck but the covering was wearing very thin. Kerri's mum had bought some fabric, chosen by Kerri, and we set about recovering the bench. Now neither of us had ever done anything liker this before but after four lots of upholstery pins (most of which just didn't work and a lot of laughing (what was that about a bad workman always blames his tools!) we think we made a pretty reasonable job of it! We now consider ourselves almost experts!                           Before                                                                      After Final visit to the steel band practice tonight before I leave at the end of the week. They sounded great. I am very im...
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A Concert, a cruise ship, an American ship, garden cinema, a fire pit and birthday number 2.

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  Josie's first classical concert with me and Richard. We chose a Candlelight concert in the Cathedral of St John. The concert was called the 'World of Joe Hisaishi who is a Japanese composer, music director and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Josie loves the Japanese cartoon films for which he wrote much of the music so she was very familiar with some of the music played by a string quartet in the magical candlelit setting. The concert was about 75 minutes so not too long as her first experience of a live classical concert. She had been a bit apprehensive but actually really enjoyed it. We completed the evening with McDonalds burgers and chips!!        Kerri's mum had read about an American ship docking in Brisbane so we drove down to where it seemed it was docked but were unable to see it. The news reported the 'following: 'BRISBANE, Australia – The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) and embarked U.S. Marin...
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Daft animals and birthday number 1!

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It seems Richard's animals all decided to have a mad half hour this week. Dusty with her bottom in the air and Oreo with his feet up! As Elliot had been reminding us every day for 10 days he celebrated his 10th birthday on 10th July.   His big present was a new bike which everyone had managed to keep a secret up until the day. Unfortunately it was dark by the time he received his present so it would be the next day before he could take it out for a proper ride. His day wasn't entirely quiet as he had asked to visit Tom's Confectionery Warehouse. Here they sell mainly American sweets and claim to have the world's biggest pick and mix. It was certainlky the biggest I have ever seen. For $35 (about £17.50) he could be placed in a harness and lowered into a pit full of lollies (sweets in the UK). He would then have just 3 seconds to grab as many sweets as he could and hang on to them while he was hoisted out again. He managed 1.8kg of lollies and Josie, on her turn, managed...
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The big Winter weekend. Is it really Christmas already!

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     Well! This is it! The big weekend in the snow of Corin Forest near Canberra! It is machine produced snow but plenty of it to provide areas for snow boarding, skiing, tobogganing and snowplay. First an early morning flight to Sydney where we collected our hire car. Only just over an hours flight then the 4 hour drive to Canberra to our home for the weekend.  First job, start a 1000 piece jigsaw. A bit ambitious in 3 evenings but you never know unless you try! We all loved the house. The thoughtful owner had put the heating on for us as it was very cold. There was a whole street of takeaways to suit all tastes. I've never seen such a variety all in one place. We could have had McDonalds (of course!) then fish, chicken or burgers and chips. Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Subway, Turkish, Cheesecake shop, frozen custard. We all chose something different so we were going from one shop to another for about 20 minutes. A really cold (-2C), misty, early start Saturd...
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