Our trip to Australia

Day 41     Sunday   January 18th A little jet lagged today after a long flight. Spent most of day in hotel. There was a lovely pool on the hotel rooftop and we relaxed there for the afternoon.  Fionnuala ordered afternoon tea and we enjoyed this while trying to find some shade from the sun. Went for a walk through the city later. Like Hanoi, Colombo is a busy city with all kinds of small enterprises but quite poorly developed. After many years of civil war and corruption it is slowly making economic progress. Again the traffic is chaotic and crossing the street is perilous. Instead of motorbikes, as in Hanoi, the most common form of transport is the tuk tuk. The air is filled with the noise of honking horns as drivers try to make headway on the busy roads. Came back to hotel and had an early night’s sleep. Day 42   Monday   January 19th  An early breakfast this morning as we are being picked up by our driver at 8am. Ananda, is waiting in car for us. He...

  Day 34     Sunday   January  11 We arranged to meet Padraic Maher and family today. He lives in a place called Newcastle about two hours north of Sydney. We got the train from Sydney to Blacktown where Padraic picked us up. We are very lucky that our accommodation is just two minutes from Sydney Central Station. Padraic, Angela and their three children, Phoenix, Scarlet and Hunter brought us on a day trip to the Blue Mountains which is a very scenic area. We stopped at Echo Point, a viewing point on the mountain. However there was quite an extensive mist and visibility was quite poor. Later, we went to a dinosaur theme park and had a nice walk and some train rides. They brought a picnic for us and we finished a lovely day with dinner all together in Sydney. Day  35      Monday  January 12  Dee went for a run in nearby park this morning and I went for a wander through the streets of Sydney. Later Aine and Deirdre went out to meet f...