Pit stop

Sydney is our first pit stop on our way to Canada.

We stayed in Kings Cross last night, a pretty cool but different part of Sydney and today has so far been spent strolling around in the sun! We're both really exited about going to Canada and see everyone and get wait to get on the plane!

Yard work

We spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up our front yard and the driveway and I continued the work this morning. Tje house being a rental property with no long term tenants, our yard has been neglected for quite some time judging from the look of it. Our small effort has so far resulted in 8 bags of dried leaves, dead branches and other green waste. That doesn't include the whole back yard which is 5 times bigger and all the massive dead palm tree branches... Where will this end?

Midsummer

We didn't get to celebrate a proper traditional midsummer over here but we had out good friends Lauren, Jarvis and their little Jayda over. At least we had meatballs (Italian style a la Jamie Oliver, but still a bit midsummery!) and a nice relaxed evening with some Canasta. They stayed over night and we went for a nice walk along the bay yesterday morning.

Koala Rescue.

On Saturday, Jo and I had the opportunity to visit with one of my patients who claims to have the best job in the whole world. What would this job be?? Well Sue is a retired dental nurse who now is in charge of Hunter Koala Rescue. This organization is involved with the capture and release of injured and orphaned Koala Bears in Port Stephen's. Below is one of her patient's named Tallimba. This young gentleman is a repeat visitor to the rescue. Originally as a Joey (infant), Tallimba's family was caught up in a bush fire about 8 years ago. He was found with horrific burns and without any sign of his mom. Sue raised him as her own before releasing him with a clean bill of health. However, just 4 weeks ago This old timer was found drinking water out of a puddle and with dual eye infections. His problem was a Chlamydia infection, the one that causes the sexually transmitted disease in humans. He has been nursed back to health with a purree mix of pumpkin/Wheatbix. Next week he will be re-released. As it stands Jo and I have been recruited as the Nelson Bay volunteers to gather injured Koalas (at any hour) and bring them to the main center. This should be fun!!

Nice bibb!!

mmmmmmm...pumpkin pureee!!

Now time for so cuddles from Jo. Curiously, Jo had pumpkin colored nail polished and Tallimba slowly grabbed her arm to have a taste/smell. Good thing these animals are slow and deliberate so that we could free her arm just in time!

Tasty Eucalyptus!!

Dinner

We had a lovely dinner with friends at Quintin and Sal's in Newcastle last night. Little Harry has grown so much and weighs in at over 6 kg at six weeks:)

The Capital

Some more pictures from Canberra. A different and interesting city that did not grow from being a trade- or port town but was purposely built as a Capital City in the middle of nowhere. Long straight avenues and a very thought through design. It's nice with the avenues and all the parks and green areas respecting the surrounding nature but a bit stale and square for my taste...

The Government held an open competition for the design of the national capital.  An American firm won, but a Finnish architect came second. 

A view of the War Memorial (closest), the Old Parliament and furthest away with the spire, the New Parliament.

Aboriginal art outside the parliament

Canberra

We're spending the long weekend (Queens birthday on Monday) in Canberra. We've only been here for a day but what we've seen so far of the city is pretty different from the other major cities here. It's a lot smaller and seem very quiet without loads of tourists, skyscrapers and traffic. Being the capital, it has a lot of national museums and galleries. We spent today visiting the War Memorial which was really good, the National Gallery of Australia and walking on the lovely walkways around the lake seeing the International Flag display and the High Court. It's pretty chilly here with -5 C at night, but with a lovely sun and +12 C during the day we get buy with our summer coats!

Cleaning

Wyatt has a pretty laid back attitude to cleaning. Ice-cream in one hand, vacuum in the other:)

Canasta

We had a great girls-against-boys battle last weekend playing Canasta with Lauren and Jarvis! I love playing cards, but apart from playing Cribbage with Wyatt, we don't get to play a lot of cards. Last time around was with my parents in Sweden when Wyatt and I visited.

Canasta turned out to be a really good game to my surprise. I thought it sounded a bit boring when I had it explained to me but I was wrong! There's way more strategy to it then I thought. We had a great night and luckily the teams won one game each...