“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Third Leg: Australia

My dear Aunty Helen and her family live in Perth, WA, and I've been promising to visit for the last three years. Very slack that I am, I didn't get there till now. I had a lovely quiet, chatty week, there, though, and finished my assignment (late, but with extension). We even went to see the Kiev Ballet's performance of Sleeping Beauty. They do their lineups well, but the rest was just average. I'm going to the land of ballet! I wonder if I'll see some in Baku!?

Perth's climate is wonderful. Despite being winter and having a few cool, rainy days, it was warm and sunny and clear. Perfect. I know their summers have ghastly levels of heat and dryness, but right now it was gorgeous. Just to prove how cold NZ gets, its winter was just like a NZ summer, but more predictable!

Helen and Jeff's boys, Daniel and Rory are all grown up (from the last time I saw them, anyway!!), and there was lots of car talk because of accidents, car swapping, insurance, etc. I can't wait to get a car! This is Rory's new car: a 2000 Honda Civic.

I do feel a close affinity with Australia, and just like when I spent a week in Brisbane and NSW, I am seriously considering moving there one day. Ah, but when!! What would I do!?
June 12, 2008:

Just added some photos. Jeff and his brother were cleaning a wood pile and found some hibernating blue-tongued stump-tail lizards. We woke them up to move them and they hissed at us. They looked like snakes and would certainly have given me a fright if I'd seen them without knowing what they were. The Bennett dog, Banjo (from the Australian poet Banjo Patterson, whose poetry is on the $10 note!!) was very curious about them!!

These are some pictures of the Cunningham family.

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