Travelling Tuesday: Koala, Giraffe & Monkey
Reply
Tag Archives: Australia
Travelling Tuesday: Australia Day
Australia is a place that means a great deal to me. It is the one place I’ve felt truly ‘at home’ while being away from home. I remember how contented and at peace I felt when I was there despite some very crazy circumstances…like getting your passport & credit card stolen, or having a skin cancer scare, or being completely alone in an unfamiliar city thousands of miles away from family & friends.
I’d dreamed of visiting and even living in Australia growing up amongst many other places. Usually when I get to those places, it doesn’t meet up to my dreams. Australia exceeded those dreams.
Maybe it was helped by the fact I didn’t meet a single shark or spider while I was there. 
And so today is Australia Day. Australia’s very own ’4th July’. For a former prison it sure is a beautiful place.
I hope I make it back there one day.
Especially as I didn’t make it to Uluru or Palm Beach (known to us as ‘Summer Bay’)
Where the heck is my Jesus-lovin’ Aussie surfer dude?
I miss you Australia!
yes, of course there is a story behind this picture.
More Australia Day posts:
Travelling Tuesday: Sunshiney Cape Byron
Sunlight didn’t exist in Edinburgh all of yesterday. Just clouds. Dark greyness. Cold. Rain. Wind.
So I think I might need to make this my desktop background once again, to remind me that sunshine really does exist. Even if it is just in beautiful Cape Byron. Ahhh.
Travelling Tuesday: 12 Apostles, Australia
And this is what we travelled down the Great Ocean Road to see (in addition to the wild koalas and kangaroos)
And as the sun was setting, a procession of penguins (little ones) were coming in from the water, up the beach below into caves where I presume they nest…but my photo didn’t come out because it was too dark.
And my friend had changed the settings on my camera, and to this day I don’t know what she did!!
I know that Carolyn has her Travelling Tuesday post pre-scheduled to appear today, so do go check it out. She’s in Cambodia at the moment.
If you want to join in with Travelling Tuesday, either with pics from a place in the world or a memory of somewhere you’ve travelled to please feel free. You can leave a comment with a link to your post here.
Travelling Tuesday: Great Ocean Road, Australia (Part 2)
More pictures from our road trip down the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.
that's me attempting to cartwheel, in case you're wondering....
Travelling Tuesday: Great Ocean Road, Australia (Part 1)
So we’re working on the going back to our regularly scheduled blogging. Only 2 more days of South Africa blogging too. Sniffle.
These pictures are from one of my favourite days in my trip to Australia. While we were staying in Melbourne, Kate, Vikki and I hired a car so we could drive down the Great Ocean Road. We were really blessed with a guide of places to stop and check out by the woman who managed the youth hostel Vikki and I stayed at in St Kilda.
I love the Aussies - they get straight to the point...! Ha ha!
Kangaroo on a golf course
Travelling Tuesday: Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Australia
I was going to do New York City this week, but Connor already beat me to it and I didn’t want to seem like a copycat.
So since it was ANZAC Day at the weekend just past, and ANZAC Day just happens to be the day I hugged another koala (a real one, not a stuffed one), I thought I’d show you some of the pics me and my Brisbane friend, Pippa took while spending the day at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, on the outskirts of Brisbane, Australia.
Some of the same pics and my blog post about that day can be found here. (It’s not really that interesting a read though…)
April 10th Reflections
2 years ago today I was landing in Sydney International Airport in this plane…
…and greeted by my two very excited friends who just about made me throw up on the spot when they mentioned the word ‘champagne’ as I was already feeling sick from the sleep deprivation (4hrs sleep in 48+hrs will do that to you) and weirdly timed (& gross) plane food.
1 year ago today I was sitting at home dosed up on painkillers when I got a text from my friend’s husband to inform me that Elastababy was born, he was a boy and they hadn’t decided on a name yet! This was a birth that had been much anticipated, and we were so excited. I probably annoyed the snot of Carrie by texting her asking ‘have you started getting contractions yet?” I don’t know how many times. I can’t believe that little baby boy is 1 year old. But can I just say I can’t wait until he is 3? There are so many cool toys and books you can buy once they are 3. On the same day I got asked if I’d be able to sing at a city wide youth event…it did mean I missed out on seeing the newborn baby boy in hospital which I was less than pleased about but did find it ironic that the topic for that night was sacrifice. ha ha!
This April 10th is Good Friday.
Apart from the fact it means I’m off work, I have to say it’s not a huge day for me. Easter has never meant that much to be. Maybe because there’s always so much else going on this time of year. Maybe because Christmas is really the only time I think about the birth of Jesus, but I kind of think about Jesus ‘last supper’, death and ressurecction on a pretty regular basis. So it makes Easter less ‘special’ because aside from the days off work, and chocolate egg it’s not really all that different from any other time of year for me. I don’t ‘feel’ it any more this weekend than I would any other weekend.
On a side note though, I noticed a TV advert that they are showing Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. I still don’t understand why they went to all the bother of making them speak in Hebrew/Aramaic and yet pretty much everyone in the film is white. I wonder if Jesus is blonde haired, blue eyed, wearing a white nightie and levitating around the Middle East too. Interesting. Mind you he was born in the cleanest stable to a very old looking teenager wearing a halo and blue nun outfit. Hardly what you’d call ‘normal’ during that time. I wonder if he had a baby bouncer too?
Travelling Tuesday: Blue Mountains NP, Australia
Possibly my favourite place I visited in Australia. The most annoying part about having my passport stolen was it meant the day I was going to be doing a rock climbing trip in the Blue Mountains I spent getting my new passport at the British Consulate at Circular Quay instead.
I got a print of the Blue Mountains which I want to get framed and hope to have hanging when one day I might have my own space to live in once again!
Australian Bushfires Appeal
Earlier this week, I woke up to the radio news headlines. I usually don’t pay a great deal of attention to them, but as soon as they said ‘Australia‘ I was listening.
You probably have all heard by now about the bushfires that have claimed the lives of at least 180 people - many are people are still unaccounted for, and many are injured. People have lost literally everything – even some villages have completely disappeared.
Firefighters are still trying to contain some of the fires.
Several of the fires are in places my friends and I drove or trained through while travelling in Australia 2 years ago. Somehow it makes it more real, but it doesn’t make it any easier to imagine what it must have been like for the people who live in Victoria.
As everyone who reads this blog will know, I have a real fondness for the land downunder. I wanted to do something so some of the money I’ve been saving for South Africa, I confess went to the Australian Bushfire appeal.
I also had my heart warmed when I read this article. People who’ve lost so much (maybe also everything) and wanting to share what they are being given with those in great need also. It is that kind of news which gives me hope for humanity.
If you would also like to donate to the appeal to fund the much needed work that Red Cross are doing to help those affected, you can do so by going to the Red Cross websites that have appeals specifically for this purpose:
