Weekend

Just a short post to wish you all a good weekend and to say Happy Birthday to Dale!! Hope you celebrate in style back in Medicine Hat!

My friend Alexis from Melbourne and her Irish friend Eoin who is visiting Australia are coming to see us for the weekend.  Alexis and I worked together in Ireland and I haven't seen her in almost two years, so I'm really exited!


Anyway, will see if I can catch some of the royal wedding on TV... and see if I can spot our Swedish royals, presuming they are invited? (I should probably ask Veronica who is an expert and have unlimited access to "Svensk Damtidning" the no 1 Swedish royal magazine!)

                        Alexis and I in the good old days!

Have a good weekend och Trevlig Valborg till er i Sverige!

Bondi Beach

During our visit to Sydney we took a trip to the famous Bondi Beach!  The beach in itself was nice, but not as nice as our Nobby's Beach here in Newcastle:)  

We had a nice lunch at the Bondi Pavilion and since the weather was sunny and warm for a change,  we decided to walk between Bondi and Bronte beach, a 2 km walk along the rocks with spectacular views.  

Scary...

Great view of Bondi beach from the walk

Mamma, I finally got a sun hat!!

Sydney Part 2

Australia's Convict background is quite well known but is hard to appreciate until you see the faces, hear the stories, and walk through the buildings of this time. Once again i will re-interate that the real suckers in the deal were the folks who never got onto the boat in the first place and stayed at home in the dreary rain confines known as the U.K. As a new arrival to the convict outpost (Sydney) you were afforded increased freedom to work out your sentence among the normal population. In fact we were suprised to  learn that the most wealthy new Aussies were in fact prisoners who had served their time. Anyhow, most of the area that surrounds the Sydney Harbour (bridge/opera house) were constructed out of the rocks via  prison labor and are preserved to this day for silly tourists to poke and prod. 

 This is the area known as the "rock" which holds Sydney's oldest buildings including the oldest pub in New South Wales, "The Soldier of Fortune." In the background you can clearly see the Harbour Bridge.

 One of the many narrow alley ways where sailors spent their hard earned coins. Apparently now only Swedish tourist live here.

 The Convict museum.........

A clever and handsome person playing around on the steps...

 Make note of this original building, how small must the people have been? Clearly Jo has an interest in the elves that may still take residence.

 The Online records of every convict ever shipped out to the outback. I was pleased to find that one of my distant relatives had made the journey. Thanks for the genes Dad!

Don't feel left out mother because there were 2 members of your side who made the trip aswell. Good to know i come from excellent stock. I know that everyone in Sweden is wondering...and yes there were some Swedes who made the trip. Mainly small time thieves who had moved to London, but no Koping's or Lindh's.

Finally Mrs. MacQuarie's walk and stone. The first lady of the first Governor of NSW. She had the convicts cut out a 1km walkway along the coast ending of course with a custom cut stone chair for her to enjoy. No common folk or prisoners were allowed...oh how things have changed.....(they let me in).

Sydney part 1

Happy Easter to everybody who does so, happy long weekend to those who do not. Those in Australia are also celebrating ANZAC Day which is a time to remember those who served and may or may not have given their life for those of us who enjoy life today.  The week end started on friday for us taking the 3 hour train ride to Sydney. A very slow train that you Swedes would find very inefficient as it is only 150 kms between the two cities. The answer is no for those wondering, we did not go to the suburb on the below picture but it would have been cool to say that we had. The first day was spent settling into our hotel and then strolling through the beautiful city center and its botanical gardens.  We capped the night off with dinner and a drink on the rooftop of an old hotel that was converted into a restaurant/bar. The peak of the roof went either way so when you got up after a few drinks it felt like you were a little more blitzed than you actually were. Check out the beautiful scenery.

 

Jo enjoying the botanical garden's "Herbs"

A Giant possum that could easily be taken for a large cat. This fella was after a nest o birds eggs.

Sydney Opera House at the sunset and from the roof-top pub....

The same scene at night and a mysterious blonde stealing the picture..

The famous Sydney Harbor Bridge...

The sun is back!

The rain has stopped, the sun is back and we're enjoying some beautiful autumn days with clear blue skies.

Wyatt has a few days off over Easter and we had planned to go to Canberra. Everything turned out to be booked out this busy weekend, so we had to change our plans to Sydney instead. We're heading away tomorrow and are coming back on Monday. I'm really looking forward to another trip to Sydney although we've been there twice. The first time was when we'd just arrived to Australia and we were pretty jet lagged and overwhelmed, the second time was just for a day, it was over 30 above and I had a splitting headache for half of the day....so, third time lucky! 

Here are some pictures from Newcastle I took on my stroll today!

                                Downtown Newcastle

                                Our apartment complex

Happy Easter! Glad påsk!

Rain, rain and more rain...

It didn't stop raining all day yesterday so we had to cancel whatever outdoor plans we had and stay indoors instead... It resulted in two lazy people who had time to bake, nap and watch some films! A bit boring with rain but it was pretty cosy to snuggle up inside for a change after all the heat and sun!

We're hoping for better luck today when we're heading out to watch Newcastle Knights play rugby.

Thanks mamma for the Anzac biscuit recipe, they turned out delicious!

Muswellbrook

Jag har efter en del om och men fått tillbaka min dator som drabbades av ett virus. Jag har på senare tid varit utan antivirus program och klickade dumt nog på "scan" när en ruta som var väldigt lik Windows dök upp, vilket spred viruset till hela datorn....Tack vare en datorkunnig vän fungerar den nu åter, men med ett helt annat program.  Jag har numera Lixus Ubuntu software istället för Windows Vista! Fungerar alldeles utmärkt!

I helgen som gick, gick en stor galopp tävling av stapeln i Sydney. Vi var kvar i Newcastle, men var hembjudna till en av Wyatts kollegor där vi tillsammans med ett gäng kollade in loppen. Vi hade satsat en blygsam summa på de flesta loppen, vilket såklart gjorde det extra spännande! Jag vann tillbaka mina pengar genom två vinster, Wyatt förlorade alla sina! I övrigt var helgen lugn.  Matthew och Chris, två vänner från tiden när vi bodde på Cambridge Hostel, var här i lördags och på söndagen var vi iväg på utflykt.  Vi hade tänkt ta en tur till Muswellbrook, där de enorma kolgruvor som är huvudindustrin i Newcastles ligger.  Efter ca 1,5 timmes körning insåg vi att det inte var så mycket att se... Vi kollade in de från vägen och körde sedan vidare. Däremot stannade vi till vid ett litet reservat vid en sjö vilket var mycket fint! Lite picknick blev det också!

 Newcastle, sett från färjan till Stockton

 

Galoppdag!

 

                   Wyatt o Chris                      

Random Happenings

The catch of the week, by far the most meaty of the fish so far Jo and I were extremely excited while we were rock fishing during the night. Finally a tasty large enough to eat fish that Jo looked up and appeared to be a type of Cod! Sweat bejesus my mouth began watering in the tasty anticipation of not  only a dinner but a free dinner. To sum up the disappointment, only after this fish was humanely put down did we learn that she was not a cod but known as the "Old Boot." Why was it known as this you may ask? Because its skin is tough as leather and it has the table qualities of the name. Sad story i know but the fish was put to good use as future bait.

We are entering the overcast and slightly cooler fall. Along with the rain there is a nice array of colorful rainbows that dot our sky, one on my way to work at the lights and the other off of our balcony in the harbour.

This friendly little guy had hitched a ride on my shoulder when we were outside at a Barbie. I believe that this is a praying mantis. Although we have only been living in OZ for 4-5 months you somehow forget that you are living in a truly exotic place. It takes the appearance of some animal or insect to remind you that you are not in Kansas anymore, nor the prairies of Alberta or even the sleepy town of Lund.

And finally the finale. I figured that Johanna would leave out some pics from our trip to Brisbane. Although there are way too many to put up i was certain that she would leave these beauties out. Just so that everybody knows that yes Jo did have a few sparkling drinks to celebrate the entry into the 30's. As you can see here below Johanna proudly shows off the bottle of white sparkling wine that she has demolished. In addition you see that we have taken the others out on our walk through the city, of course we played it safe and had them covered with a bag. Happy B-day Jo, i hope you had some fun because i sure did...xxx!

Brisbane!

First of all, thank you so much to friends and family for all your birthday wishes through phone calls, email, SMS, cards, facebook etc!

We had a great weekend in Brisbane, what a city! It didn't feel as congested and busy as Sydney and since it's a pretty compact city, we managed to get around by walking.  We spent the 3 days there walking, eating, drinking and being generally touristy!  The city is a great mix of old and new and there are so many beautiful old sandstone buildings hidden amongst the skyscrapers.  There were some places of the city where damage from the floods in January was visible, but it's amazing how fast the city has bounced back considering the scale of the floods.  All the riverside restaurants were open and the city was buzzing!

Southbank

Birthday drink and dinner by the river!

Subtropical garden in the city centre

River boat cruise

I had the best breakfast ever, pancakes at       the Pancake Manor, an old church made into a   restaurant


                                                          
                                                                                                    

A great view from the Wheel of Brisbane

An afternoon beer break to write some cards

Brisbane Casino

Amazing trees in the Botanic Garden