Day 18 - Canberra

Canberra is perhaps the lesser well known capital city of Australia and mainly consists of government buildings, museums and wide open green areas.

A tour of Parliament House is a must. Parliament had not got back to work after the long Christmas-summer holiday

And who should be up on the roof of the Parliament building but the Queen herself pictured here with our very good friend Myriam and us.

And here we are inside the House of Representatives - notice I am wearing a patriotic baseball cap!

Margaret relaxes in the hotel lobby.

Also staying in the hotel while we were there was the former Australian Cricket team captain Ricky Ponting and he generously posed for a photo with Lauren and Nathan after autographing their paper table place setting mats.

The Sculpture Garden is so interesting. Above we have Aristide Maillol's La Montagne,...
(Click HERE to find out more.)

...a smaller version of Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North,...

...Rick Amor's The Dog, which seemed quite friendly,...

...Auguste Rodin's nude study of the burghers of Calais posing with me, (with my clothes on!)...

...and Bert Flugelman's Cones stand making the seemingly impossible into reality.

All the buildings are architectural delights set in plenty of space making this a very pleasant capital city indeed.

Day 16 - Australia Day!

We flew from Ayers Rock to Sydney in the afternoon and in the evening went along to the Australia Day celebrations in the local park. 

There were thousands of people there and the food stalls were doing a great trade.

Many of the stalls were being run by local organisations...

...providing a wide variety of food...

...but everyone was keen to celebrate.

There were plenty of very colourful costumes too...

...and lots of sideshows for the kids - the queues were enormous though!

To see the main event at the event, the brilliant firework display, click HERE.

Day 14 - Ayers Rock and the Sounds of Silence

An early start to catch the coach to take us to the viewing point for the sunrise at 5.45 am at Uluru.

And yes, it is a good sunrise...

...which is witnessed by us this morning.

The colour of the rock changes as the sun falls on it and it becomes red again.

After the sunrise we are taken on a tour of the rock to see various features such as very old cave paintings...

...and various indentations, shapes and other features in the rock which each have their own stories in legend explained.

Further around the base of the rock, this time to the start of the climb up the rock, which is not encouraged, then finally to the cultural centre where taking photos and video is prohibited.

In the evening we are taken by coach to the site of the open air "Sounds of Silence" restaurant for a very special evening meal which starts with sparkling wine and hors d'oeuvres consumed to the sound of the didgeridoo. Click HERE to hear the guy playing the didgeridoo.

We are not the only guests to be in the area!

A great meal in the company of new friends...

...brings another great, but rather long, day to a close. And yes, there is kangaroo steak on the plate!

Day 13 - Kata Tjuta

Everyone has heard of Ayers Rock but not everyone knows that it is also called Uluru or has heard of Kata Tjuta which is just as wonderful and only 25 km to the west.



Kata Tjuta was first on our list of places to visit on the afternoon that we flew to Uluru for our 3 night stay.

As the temperature was around 44°C we had to keep sipping water to prevent dehydration as we walked across the terrain up a gorge.

It's not called "the Valley of the Winds" for nothing. It's a good job my hat had a chin strap!

Sunrise and sunset are the best time to observe the rocks as this is when their colours change along with the colours in the sky...

...and we had the opportunity to watch the rocks change colour while drinking sparkling wine and trying a range of hors d'oeuvres.

Day 10 - A night at the Opera

Everyone knows what Sydney Opera House looks like but not everyone has seen it up close... 

...or from the inside.

We attended a performance of "Great Opera Hits" in the Joan Sutherland Theatre which was a wonderful experience.

Inside the theatre we had a very good view of the stage and the acoustics were perfect.

The performance was most entertaining and finished off with audience participation so we can now truthfully say that we have sung at the Sydney Opera House!

After the performance it was time for a walk along the front...

...and to take in the great views on offer.

What an experience!

Day 8 - Sydney

We spent 3 days in Sydney but I have put photos from each of them on this one page just to keep things simple.

On each occasion we got to the heart of the city, Circular Quay, on the ferry from Parramatta, a great way to travel. 

Around the harbour were a couple guys dressed, (or undressed?) as aborigines playing a didgeridoo and selling their CD which we bought. "Didgeridoo disco with sounds of wildlife" is how I would describe it. Great stuff! It is called "Spirit of the Land". Highly recommended. Click HERE for more info. (Not available in the full 10 track version from Amazon.com for some reason.)

The Opera House is a major landmark.

And yes, we have walked on the Harbour Bridge!

We had to eat Kangaroo steak - the sauce was terrific so we asked for and got the recipe.

Darling harbour is around the corner from Circular Quay and is worth a visit.

Just a short distance away from all the hustle and bustle of Darling Harbour is the Chinese Garden where they did a great pot of tea and scones with jam and cream. I didn't realise they had a Chinese connection - I thought they traditionally came from Devon or Cornwall.

The gardens were wonderful and you could have spent all day wandering around.

Although in a relatively small area, the gardens were designed so that there was something of interest around every corner.

Bondi beach was also on the list of places to visit...

...although the shops were generally the ones you could find anywhere on a busy sea front .

So here we are on the beach although the surf wasn't quite right so we had to give that particular experience a miss!

Also on the front was a skateboard area. This guy was brilliant. I can't wait to get on to the video I took which I shall probably publish to YouTube. And to see the video, click HERE.

Another quiet and peaceful retreat from the city was the Royal Botanic Garden...

...along with the gorgeous plants...

...exotic wildlife...

...and fascinating sculptures.

On this particular day the temperature in Sydney broke all 
previous records with a high of 45.6°C

I thought gold was non-magnetic but Margaret is always attracted to it!

 We made our way up the Sydney Tower Eye, the tallest building in Sydney at 300 metres...

...to get a good panoramic view of the city.