Category Archives: Uncategorized

I think this will definitely class as the weirdest New Year’s Eve ever! This morning was extremely hot with a really scorching wind, and this afternoon the temperature dropped from 37C to 21C in about thirty minutes. We spent a couple of hours on the beach this afternoon in a strange orange light, and byContinue reading “New Year’s Eve, 2019”

Christmas in Australia is certainly different – it feels more like being on a summer holiday! Today we went to Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay. It claims to have the whitest sand of any beach in the world, but I expect that many places make the same claim. It is a wide, sheltered bay withContinue reading “27th December 2019”

Happy Christmas, everyone! Today, we had a most Australian Christmas, and it was certainly very different from our usual traditional English Christmas. After some heavy rain yesterday afternoon – the first for two months – today was warm and sunny (with no smoke!). So we walked to the Christmas service in the sunshine, wearing ChristmasContinue reading “Christmas Day 2019”

Another year, another Christmas Eve – and here, we are all excited about Santa’s imminent arrival, and hoping he can find his way to Wollongong. The chestnuts are roasting on the open fire; the tree lights are twinkling; and outside the world is dusted with frost. Not! Our Christmas Eve has been very different thisContinue reading “Christmas Eve 2019”

Hurray – today saw the safe arrival of James and Daniel, David and Ann-Marie, after 10,612 miles flying. We have already visited the beach, seen the pelicans, and paddled in the water. And we found a surprise on the beach – a dead puffer fish! By 5.30 pm, we were working hard to keep themContinue reading “21 December 2019”

One common tree growing all along the Australian East coast is the banksia. The ones we have seen here have a lovely lemon-coloured flower, almost like a candle, sitting on a branch. But when the flowers die, they turn firstly into green cones, and finally into brown cones, with lots of hollows where the seedsContinue reading “17th December 2019”

I realise I’ve not said much about the food over here. That’s probably because, in general, it is very much the same as we have in England. There are the same fast food chains – Macdonalds, KFC , Pizzahut (and you know how much Nana loves fast food!). And the supermarkets are full of foodsContinue reading “15th December 2019”

We have just been out for dinner in Wollongong and tonight there is a ‘Santafest’. All the young people are dressed up as Santas, or elves, or angels; and there are a lot of reindeer antler headresses. As we walked home through the city centre, every way we looked, we saw a group of youngContinue reading “14th December 2019”

Yesterday I saw my first kangaroos in the wild! I was staying at Bamarang Bush Retreat working with colleagues from Wollongong University. It is a really peaceful place, surrounded by bush, especially gum trees with peeling bark or leopard-spotted trunks. As we were talking outside on the verandah, five kangaroos just hopped through right inContinue reading “11th December 2019”

In my very first blog, I noted that my first experience on arriving in Sydney was to smell smoke; and several other blog entries refer to the bushfires too. Well, the bushfires are still a major problem here in New South Wales, but also in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia too. Near Sydney, four bushfiresContinue reading “7th December 2019”