G'day folks!

We arrived in Canberra on Friday 4th after giving Beth a sufficient 1hours notice. We had spoke to Beth 2 weeks previous and we were supposed to give as much notice as possible but as it happened we drove out of the Snowy Mountains and checked the harvest website for the apples we were supposed to be picking in Batlow and found that most of their crop had been damaged by bad weather and so the work wasn't available for us. We called Beth who was out with her friends for end of week drinks and asked if it was okay to come on by. We drove to a suburb called Kingston and met up Beth and her friends drinking cherry beer. (it tastes much better than it sounds). On Saturday Beth gave us aguided tour around Canberra taking in sights of both Parliament houses, the National library, the lake and we even got a birds eye view from Mt.Ainslie. The sky has been clear blue and the temperature warm. Makes pleasant for wandering round places anew. That evening we stocked up on goon (wine) for an evening ofgames and general mischief ness.We got to go to a 40th birthday celebration with Beth and Janand took home the shiny 40 confetti and used it for betting and paying pontoon. Us kids and our games! There are plenty of you out there familiar with the card game s***head or as some of you know it as ribarschio, well Beth asked if we could play it only she said can we play f***head, so that's what we have started to call it now. Shaun taught us how to play a card game called blackb**ch and after several bottles of wine and one broken glass (Danny!), Shaun retired at 1:30, Vicki followed at 2:30am and Beth and Danny stayed up until 4am. Sunday was recovery day and was spent going to an Aussie Barbie at Shauns parents house (Lindsay and Carmel). Tasty Tasty.There was enough food to feed NSW. Hangovers cured all round. That Sunday was all about the eating as in the evening we went over to Jans house for dinner and did the whole eating because it was polite although we were all really stuffed from the BBQ. (Sorry Jan). For the next week we done absolutely nothing. Just took advantage of having a bed, a toilet and shower or in Vicki's case a bath. Plus watching TV on a sofa. Lazy lazy lazy. It was fab. By the weekend we had our sightseeing hats on and with Beth went to the War Memorial. On the walls they have lists upon lists of all the names of people who died. WWI on the left side, WWII on the right, and by the side of many of the names there sticks out a red poppy. The story goes that several years ago an elderly couple were visiting the memorial looking for their sons name and asked if by the side of it they could stick their red poppy in remembrance. This was permitted and within a few hours several others had been placed alongside the names of others on the walls and so this carries on today with family members coming to pay their respects and placing red poppies in the walls alongside their respective family members. Only now though, the poppies are fake and can be purchased from the memorial for a $. (it seems to me that its typical that the war memorial would find a way to make money out of this act but on the other hand you can clearly see that this service is clearly important to the public). Our tour guide informed us that the wall dedicated to victims of WWI was consistently more visited and poppyfied than the wall dedicated to the victims of WWII. Not because they were any less missed or loved but just that WWI still holds dear to many people. The War Memorial was very interesting and enjoyable to walk around.We picnicked on Aspen island facing the National Carillon which was a gift from Britain on Canberra's 50th Anniversary in 1963. The tower has 55 bronze bells weighing from 7kg to 6 tonnes and are played every other day by carillonists and can include anything from blues to jazz to classical pieces of music, this is aside from half hourly chimes echoing that of Big Bens. Aspen Island is situated within Lake Burley Griffin. The lake is named after Canberra's architect and35km around it. Me and Dan took a $5 boat trip which included free cups of tea. Woohoo! That Sunday we all went to Jan's house for lunch and beer and Jan taught us all a new card game called 500. It's a little bit like Bridge but much more fun apparently. it's a team game and so me and Beth partnered up as did Jan and Dan. Shaun was watching footie. Sorry!…Aussie Rules. I'm sad to report that Jan and Dan did indeed kick our ass. it's a good game though. Need to play more.The weekend that just passed we thought there was a balloon festival on but itsnext weekend so we decided to head down to the coast and drive the Sapphire coast. Sheila has been parked up outside Beths house and was feeling neglected and wanted to stretch her tyres. We drove down on the Monday to a place called Tathra and spent the following four days driving up the coast. The Sapphire coast is very beautiful with beaches made out of white white sand and clear turquoise waters. Nick and Ali have been here and recommended we visit these parts. Being able to see things that they would have seen and visiting places they may have been to is very special to us and is super cool. Unfortunately we drove past Pebbly Beach, probably the only beach we did drive on past but we later found out that when Nick and Ali were here there were kangaroos actually living on the beach L . We spent the first night in Tathra, it was dark by the time we started to look for camp so decided to book into a caravan park. This was right on the beach. The following night we had free camping but not because we didn't have to pay, we have a map book pinpointing all the locations around Australia detailing which ones are free and what facilities are available. Some of them are in National Parks in truly beautiful locations. This one though was in a forest area with about 8 bays and was just off the side of the road. We pulled in and there were already 4 other campers there. All oldies J . Everyone was friendly and waved us off in the morning. We hadn't even really spoken to them. The night after this though we also had a free nights camping but this time it was because the lady forgot to charge us. Danny's convinced it was because of his good looks and his witty charm he used and therefore distracting her from the act of taking money from us. We drove through towns with names like Narooma, Moruya and Nowra, visiting bays like Batemans and Jervis and Malua and Moon, with beaches called Hyams Beach, Murrays Beach , Pretty Beach, Pebbly Beach and Depot Beach. Filling our days with walks on the Beaches, eating and drinking, wildlife spotting, lots of talk about how tomorrow we will fish but knowing that we actually won't even get our rods out. (yes we have fishing rods in our van) (no we haven't used them yet) (and yes you can all place your bets on whether we actually use them at all). We did though have a spontaneous game of what us Brits call crazy golf and the Aussies call putt putt! I did actually enjoy it. It was fun and not just because I beat Danny. Ha Ha!!!!!!!! Heading back in land we drove Kangaroo Valley, known for its spectacular views and scenery. We can't confirm this as it was shrouded in clouds of mist and fog with rain round every corner but yes you can definitely see that it would in fact be extremely beautiful. Kangaroo Valley and not a single kangaroo. Yep, that's right. Fitzroy falls lies north of Kangaroo Valley but we didn't get to see these either. The man in the Tourist info said we wouldn't be able to see anything because of the poor weather. Although we seem to missing lots we are also experiencing plenty ofwhat Australia has to offer in terms of wildlife and scenery and we are not disappointed. Its so beautiful and the landscape constantly changes around us as we drive along. We arrived back at Bath and Shaun's on Thursday. Friday our tourist hats went back on. This included The National Library, (yes, sounds boring but the building on the outside looks great and we have been to the New York Library which is an amazing building so we were intrigued and wanted to compare the two), Old Parliament House, Parliament House, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy which is situated on the lawns in front of Old Parliament House. Parliament House is dug into what is called Capital Hill so to fit in with its surroundings. The roof is covered in grass and accessible by lift to the public, and topped by a 81m-high flagpole with a flag the size of a double-decker bus. The Parliament has 15 flags in total each costing $4000 and these are rotated in turn when one flag gets damaged by high winds and needs repairing. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy consists of a few lop-sided tents, a smouldering log fire, a small portable cabin painted with the colours of the Aboriginal flag and in the middle of all this a small flag pole with a small Aboriginal flag hanging limp in the windless afternoon air. The story goes like this. The Tent Embassy was established on Australia Day, 26 January 1972, as a protest against the denial of land rights and self-determination. Through official condemnation and destruction, followed by revival it quickly became a symbol of resistance and is where the Aboriginal flag first gained prominence. The Embassy seems to be consistently under threat and the most recent was to replace it with another static museum or memorial. We came back to Canberra for the balloon festival so on the Saturday we got up at 6am and drove with Beth into the city. There had been lots of excitement and talk on the radio and TV with regards to the balloon festival so we were happy to be there. But this turned into a bit of a giggle as there were only 3 balloons in sight, 2 of which were not even out of their envelopes ( the sack the balloon is stored in) and the remaining balloon was actually inflated but was to be remained tethered to the ground. The reason being high winds leading to unsuitable weather for flying. Their words not ours. The trees nearby were hardly moving and we made sure to tell to the Aussies in our presence that had we been in England and namely Victoria Park the balloons would have been up, up and away. Ha Ha! So we decided to drive to the supermarket and buy ingredients for a cooked breakfast. We were with 3 of Beth's friends and Jen is the chef amongst them and who has worked all round the world cooking for some very rich people, the queen included, so we felt very honoured to have had our breakfast cooked for us by Jen.Thanks Jen. Oh yes, Jen is returning to the UK next week for work so if you bump into her, be kind and say hello. Other talk on the TV and radio this week has been revolving around the Beijing Olympics. Canberra is the only Australian city that the Olympic torch will pass through and there is lots of excitement around it. The excitement will come to a head on the 24th of this month. Unfortunately we will miss it as we will be in Sydney.We got invited to another birthday celebration at the weekend, this time $27 was the theme. We were to dress up and our outfits were to amount to no more than $27. So the three of us went to an "op shop" and bought ourselves some charity clothes. I think we looked great and the party was great. On arrival we were given an envelope with $27 in fake money and this was for us to buy, sell or sway items of clothing with others at the party. We even made price tags for our clothing and pinned them on. We managed to change outfits several times throughout the evening and we met some lovely interesting people. A really fun night. OH MY GOD! We have waffled on for ages. So to wrap it up…

Creek of the week - OLD HAT CREEK

This week we have been mostly saying - We need an esky full of ice for all the stubbies.

(Esky = coolbox)

(Tip, if you want free ice, go to the local fishmonger and ask nicely and they will fill up your esky for free)

Riddle of the week - What is black when you buy it, red when you use it and grey when you throw it away?

We are off to Sydney on Monday. The next chapter! Lots of love to everyone xx