A week goes by so quickly....

We enjoyed watching the majority of the campers depart from Stuart’s Point Convention Ground on Sunday but by Monday it was our turn to pack up and take our leave for another year.  It is always difficult to leave such a lovely spot – I particularly enjoy the birdsong.  Between us we managed to be packed and ready by a bit after 10am – the first out of our group of three to be ready.  We all left in convoy just after 10.40, and first stop was Macksville for some shopping.  We needed to visit a pharmacy then do some grocery shopping and if you have ever tried to park a car and caravan in a town that doesn’t provide dedicated parking for tourists, then just try to park two cars and caravans!  Our third friend didn’t need groceries  but did need fuel so he waited outside town – smart fellow.  It was a long trek for Peter to the pharmacy and back (I had to stay in the car with Nathan) and he returned just as our friends had finished their grocery shopping so they set off to meet our other friend, and to make a stop in Coffs Harbour for a lead they needed for the caravan.

Grocery shopping done (and lunch brought at the same time) we finally set off, stopping further along the road at Urunga and we had lunch by the river.  So nice.  Then off we went again, to be met with lots of roadworks and variations in speed limits.  In the end the three hour trip took us six hours from the time we left Stuart’s Point, with all the shopping, stopping for lunch, and roadworks but we finally arrived at Broom’s Head.  We don’t have the same position in the caravan park that we had last year because we one of our friends has his little dog with him and we all want to be together so we are in the section where dogs are permitted, and our view isn’t as nice but we don’t have to walk many steps to see the beach and we can see the ocean from our vantage point sitting under the awnings of the vans.

The beach is as beautiful as ever, 

and the weather was gorgeous until Thursday when it rained during the evening.  But we can’t complain can we, we have been spoiled by perfect weather for two weeks now.  I am feeling somewhat better now, just wish I could get rid of this cough but hopefully the sea air will help.  And I’ve started to go for short walks along the beach – making them a bit longer each day, so that’s progress too.  We are leaving tomorrow so of course the wind we've had for the last two days has stopped and the weather has been perfect all day.

Nathan isn’t impressed that we have no phone or internet reception at the campground though.  So we drive up to the lookout on the headland (only a few minutes, it’s at the other end of the caravan park) and get great reception up there.  It gives us time to get our emails in, answer the most urgent, do a couple of phone calls etc.  And if I have the text done for the blog I can just copy it across, and then upload photos that I have previously chosen and have handy in a folder on the desktop.  It’s the photos that take the time when blogging.

It's amusing at the headland.  There are lots of cars - obviously locals - that pull up, people dash out with binoculars and scan the horizon.  Disappointed, they hop back in the car and drive off again.  Whale watching season is about to begin as the whales begin their migration north for the winter but none have been seen while we've been there, at least.  The view is good though.  

This is looking along the shoreline from one side of the headland

It does present an interesting quandary with our new printer though.  We bought it on the morning we were leaving, so we have one for the caravan.  One reason is so that I could do the church Bulletin while we were away and email it to someone at church, who would then print it out.  I do a children’s ‘find-a-word’ on the back cover.  This involves doing the puzzle on the internet, printing it out (can’t save it), rearranging the word clues so they fit better on the page, then scanning it and saving it as a jpeg so I can insert it into a text box on the back cover.  Quite straightforward.  Except – this new-fangled printer prints wirelessly.  Can’t print wirelessly in the caravan park because no reception.  Can’t take it up to the headland to print where we have reception because then there’s no power for the printer.  And of course the printer didn’t come with a USB cord so I could print the old-fashioned way.  Why would one want to do that when one can print wirelessly?  Obviously not the best solution for people caravanning where the internet reception might be less than perfect.  Lesson learned: take the spare connection cord that we have sitting at home, wherever we go J.  And in the meantime, sorry kids, no word puzzle.

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It was also a bit of a nuisance because my friend Marilyn and I wanted to find a pattern for a cowl on the internet.  But having found a couple that we liked, and downloaded them, we cannot of course print them out at the moment.  Not a problem for me because I have other knitting that I am doing but not good for her because she hasn’t packed a printer and will be travelling on further when we all leave here next Monday.  I guess good old-fashioned handwriting will be the way to get a written copy for now.

So technology is a wonderful thing but when its limitations kick in it can really catch you unawares.

On a different note, the birdlife here is nice.  Not as outstanding as at Stuart’s Point but the three men have been on lots of photography walks and taken shots of sea eagles –Peter is still trying for a really good one, he took one that seemed good but when it was cropped it wasn’t what he wanted..

He also took this nice one of a blue-faced honeyeater

After all the effort to get this photo, today at lunchtime we were all sitting under the awning of our friends' caravan when one of these birds sat on their clothesline just three feet behind my head, in full view of us all!  And of course not one of us had our cameras with us.

And this cheeky rainbow lorikeet was looking at us from the tree beside our caravan awning the same day that Peter took the blue faced honey eater, and Peter managed to snap him.  

There are flocks of these, anything from 30 to 50 strong and when you are looking up and they come in low and the sun shines through their feathers as they fly they are really beautiful.  And of course being parrots they are chatterers and you hear them all day long.

And to end off with, here’s what we see if we walk about 20 steps straight ahead from our caravan.  It wasn’t a nice bright day when I took this

(Thursday) but you get the idea……

Peter also knows I like to have photos of seagulls at every beach we go to.  So he took some for me the other day.  I really like them, because they not only have pelicans and seagulls together but they were taken at sunset and although it's not a spectacular sunset, the colour of the sky is reflected in teh wet sand and I think the effect is really pretty.

And for a friend who did an extensive tour of Aus and only saw kangaroos in the wild once, in Western Australia, here is one of our regular visitors.  They come at night all around the caravans and leave their ‘calling cards’ to show that they’ve been there.  This one was just one of a mob nearby during the day and our friend snapped several shots of him.  So this is for you, Julia. 

So tomorrow we up stakes and start on our trip back south.  We will take two days to reach the town where our daughters live and spend some time visiting them and our grandchildren.  Apparently it is predicted to be -2degC on Tuesday night there - quite a change (and shock) after nights of 13 degC or so and days in the low to mid 20's.  Brrrr.  Then head home to Sydney where by all accounts winter has also arrived.  

And yes, Tarnya, I am feeling much improved.  Thanks for caring, 'Mum'.
Blessings
Sandie

Last of Grey Nomads for this year

Sunday 22^nd May

From Tuesday I missed the rest of the meetings, which wasn’t in the game plan.  I will have to make do with the DVDs of the programs that we have ordered.  I came down with bronchitis, probably viral but with a bacterial infection as well so I am on the dreaded antibiotics and going for the world record in coughing.  But if one has to be unwell this is certainly a lovely place in which to be so!

Here are a few photos of the features of the campground.  First of all, there are the usual cabins.  They vary in style a little bit, but here is one.

There is also a motel, I could only fit a small part of that into the photo.

And a lovely feature is the little prayer chapel, which is open all the time. 

The garden is starting to show its autumn mode at the front, but Is still quite attractive and invites you to enter.

It has ‘praying hands’ etched windows

And a striking stained glass window at the front (rear?) end.

It is simple, functional and yet a spiritual place and one has a deep sense of peace upon entering.

Peter drove me down to Grassy Head beach, which is a popular morning walk for many of the Grey Nomads. It only takes about ½ hour to get there.   We had planned to walk there several times this year too, but it can wait for next time. 

Most of today was spent watching the majority of people departing, saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances, and enjoying our last day in this lovely place.  I had intended to walk around with my camera recording the beautiful constant chorus of birdsong but every time I went to do so I was distracted by yet another ‘goodbye’ that needed to be said.  We and our friends aren’t leaving until tomorrow, and the same for quite a few others here so the farewells will continue even then.

So tomorrow we too will pack up and head further north, another 250 or so kms, to Broom's Head, back to the caravan park we went to last year and we will spend a week there as well before starting south again, calling in to see our daughters on the way home.

Blessings

Sandie

And it's full on once again

Saturday14^th May

As always at Camp, Sabbath was a really busy day.  We woke bright and early and went down for the Morning Devotional meeting at 7.30am.  It was taken by the President of the North NSW Conference, Pastor Justin Lawman and he is always inspirational.  This time last year he had been taken in for emergency surgery – his appendix burst as they went to take it out and he was a very sick man. He had been ill for 10 days with what he though was the flu and in his words, with appendix you apparently aren’t supposed to wait for 10 days.  We had a video of him saying hello from his hospital bed last year and it was good to see him in person this year, right back of course after all this time to his usual energetic self. 

After the morning meeting we had breakfast and were relaxing enjoying our hot drinks on our chairs under the caravan awning, listening to the birds and trying to identify which ones we could hear, when Peter suddenly realized we had only 20 minutes to get back for the 9.30 Bible Study meeting so it was a rush for showers and dressing and when we got down to the tent again almost all the seats were taken.  We finally managed to find three right up the back.  It was worth the effort to get there though. 

A fifteen minute break after that gave me an opportunity to catch up briefly with a school friend (how can it be 51 years since we left school?!) and then the church service began, with a pastor we weren’t familiar with but he had a message that truly blessed us.  He is from South American and in spite of claiming that he speaks Spanglish his English is very good and he delivered it with humour and sincerity.

We had pre-bought our lunch tickets when we registered so went straight to the dining room, our friends kept a space for us in the line right at the front and we had a delicious lunch.  As usual on Sabbath the dining room was packed.  The afternoon meeting was all about mission opportunities, either volunteering in person or sponsoring projects, then at 5pm we had a closing Sabbath meeting and they showed the first part of a new movie that has been made telling the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  It is called ‘Tell the World’ and will be released in a couple of months.  We are the first group in Australia to have seen it.  We saw the first hour at this meeting, then the rest from 7.30. 

On the way to the big tent we couldn’t help but notice a blow-up replica of the statue from King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2.  It was on the grass outside the tent and stood something like 5 metres tall if not taller so wasn’t exactly easy to miss.  I meant to take a photo of it but didn’t get the chance and they were taking it down by the time we went down for the 5 o’clock meeting.  It was there to let people know that it was available for when churches were putting on a prophecy seminar.  It would certainly grab attention from passing traffic, that’s for sure!

Sunday 15^th May

I love the theme of the camp this year, it is ‘Even at the Door’.  It is based on Revelation 3:20 where Jesus says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and sup with him and he with Me.’  There’s a famous painting of Jesus standing at the door of our heart and knocking.  The door has no handle on the outside – it can only be opened from the inside.  An artist on the Central Coast is painting more modern versions  and he has done this one of the famous scene with Jesus knocking and he gave permission for it to be used as the backdrop for the stage at Grey Nomads this year.  It’s beautiful.

I was up twice to rub Emulgel into my hip last night, and we all ended up sleeping into 7.40 which meant we missed the first program unfortunately.  But we really enjoyed the 10.30 meeting.  The speaker is from Texas and has lots of stories to tell of church planting and his adventures overseas in different capacities.  His message today was that as retired people, we achieve more for God with our time in just a few years than we were able to in many years when we were tied down with full time work.  I can tell that he is going to challenge us as he speaks to us each morning this week.

Lunch was delicious again – rice balls with a cube of cheese in the centre which of course was melted with the cooking; the choice of vegetables from carrots, potatoes, corn, broccoli and cauliflower; a bean salad and a green salad that looked really scrumptious.  Desserts were vanilla cheesecake with two kinds of topping: either raspberry or  what looked like maple syrup; or another dessert that I can’t remember. 

After lunch we went for a bit of a walk down to the river behind the camp.  

There were a couple of pelicans down there but not many. Apparently if you go down there around 6am there are lots of them around the pontoon but they must be off attending to other business in the afternoon.

 . 

 There was an egret right over the other side of the river, it looked huge even from the distance so it must have been a Great Egret which can grow up to 1metre.   There was also a heron nearby

 and a sea eagle took off from a tree on our side of the river as we were walking along.  It was interesting that the birds we heard down near the river were quite different from the ones we hear at the campground even though it’s not far away. 

I was fighting the temptation to have a sleep all afternoon and even having the walk didn’t help.  I did some knitting but couldn’t concentrate, then Marilyn came by and we went for a walk around the campground.  She has had surgery on her knee and can't walk as far as she used to but we managed to do a circuit of the whole ground before her knee had had enough.

Later on we did another circuit with Laraine, a slightly longer one this time.  Laraine and Bob were members of our Ryde church back when we were all young parents together and then again later on when they returned from interstate so we've all been friends for over 40 years.  Rick and Marilyn see more of them now than we do, but they are dear friends.

Monday 16th May
Slept better last night, with less pain in the hip and didn't wake until Peter got up at 4am to go with Bob and Rick to take photos of the sunrise around at the beach at Grassy Point.  He left at 4.30 and I went back to sleep but the other two men didn't show so Peter walked around there himself and got some lovely photos of the sunrise.  It turns out that because Peter hasn't seemed that keen last night Rick and Bob took his response as a 'no' and went to take some photos of the stars last night instead :).  So they were really surprised that he had gone out today, and chagrined that he got some very nice photos - it was a glorious sunrise.  These are just 3 that I like from among them.

I woke up again at 7.05 and Nathan and I were getting ready for the 7.30 meeting when Peter came back,  Once again it was well worth the effort of making it down in time for the morning service.  A young Tongan pastor gave his testimony of how he came from a background of non-Christian upbringing, time in gangs and crime, to finding Jesus and now living for Him.  It was very moving.

Marilyn and I went for another walk around the campground then remembered that our friend Bob had asked some of us to meet at the Prayer Chapel at 9.30 for prayer for his sister who is having a very tricky surgery tomorrow over in the US.  So we went to join the group there.  I will take a photo of the chapel during camp, it is a lovely place to go for quiet prayer or to meditate.

The 10.30 meeting lived up to the promise of yesterday, with Pastor McDonald pointing out how we are no longer following the Biblical model of pastors planting new churches and teaching them to the stage where they can maintain themselves, freeing the pastor up to keep ministering to the unchurched, but have become an organisation where the pastor is expected to keep feeding spiritually those who already know Jesus and who should be maintaining themselves.  It is certainly a thought provoking concept and one that makes sense.

Lunch was (vegetarian) parmigiana with a choice of vegetables: sweet potato, plain potato, beans, carrots, pumpkin; green salad; bean salad.  Dessert you could have a custard tart that looked really delicious, not the bought kind but an oblong one.  I admired from afar since I managed to resist temptation.  So for tea we will once again just have something light.

I'm afraid that Peter and I did give in to the urge to sleep this afternoon.  He was very weary after his early start to the day and I think I am catching up after all the poor sleep I've been having, now that I've relaxed.  So now it is tea time and we're looking forward to hearing Dr Hammond this evening.
Blessings
Sandie

Overwhelmed with birdsong

Thursday 12^th May

We were awake bright and early – surprisingly since we were so very tired, I woke early and didn’t sleep well after around 3.30.  That’s been happening a lot lately and doesn’t make for a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed start to the day.  We breakfasted, packed up and were back on the road by about 7.45.  It was another gorgeous day and just so good to be travelling.  Traffic was light and we had plenty of time to get to our destination so we looked for the turnoff to where our friends stayed overnight but couldn’t find it so kept going.   They stayed by the river and didn’t leave until 11. 

We left the highway and stopped at Taree so we could do some shopping and were still early (registration didn’t begin at the camp until 12) so we stopped further on and had some  morning tea in a nice little rest area.  Lots of birds were singing their hearts out in the bush around us and the sun was shining, it was just lovely to stop and enjoy it all. 

Looking further down to the end of the rest area

After that there were lots of road works and the trip slowed down somewhat but we still arrived in good time at the Adventist Convention Centre at Stuarts Point and registered.   To our disappointment we hadn’t been allocated a site with our friends (again!) but were several sites up the road.  One advantage is that we are opposite the amenities so Nathan finds it easy to get back to the caravan without getting lost, which he tends to do if we are down the road a bit.  Another advantage is that we have to walk a little bit further to get to the big tent where the meetings are held and that’s good because it’s just that few more steps each time we go to meetings, and every bit helps in getting the number of steps up each day.  Also visiting Rick and Marilyn, and also our friend Ian who is beside them, means walking a bit so that’s more steps too J.  The disadvantage of course is that we’re not all together so it’s not as easy to socialize.

We set up and greeted familiar faces from previous years, had a look around and felt right at home.  Another early night was in order.  There are no meetings until tomorrow night at 7.30, the official start of camp.

Friday 13^th

Peter bought himself a new phone on the morning of the day we left.  That’s good, right?  It is surprising how inconvenient it has been since his other one broke.  Somehow it didn’t appreciate being thumped on rocks when he fell while we were away in January.  Funny that.  But now of course instruction manuals aren’t provided with phones.  So while we were driving on Wednesday the phone kept ringing and we couldn’t work out how to answer it.  Finally I got that worked out, and told the person who kept ringing every hour and a half that Peter was driving.  He said he’d ring back – and hasn’t rung since.  Then last night the phone started beeping at 3.30am.  Just one, very loud, beeeeep.  Every quarter of an hour.  Peter couldn’t work out how to turn the phone off.  So the phone kept beeping away, every quarter of an hour until 5am then it went to every hour until 7am.  Finally at 7 Peter worked out how to turn the darn thing off and we went into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until 8.55. 

The day has been perfect weather-wise.  It was still 24 degrees at mid-afternoon.  We always choose to be in the very last row of sites, so that we just have the bush to look out on behind us.  The sound of birds is constant, so many different species, and we can hear the sea in the distance.  It is a gorgeous place to be. 

I took a wander to have a look around this morning.  The ‘big tent’ where all the meetings are held is set up ready to go.  The sound technicians were just doing last minute things when I was there.

"Big Tent' where all the meetings are held

Inside the 'Big Tent', from the doorway

This year there is a smaller tent beside it, called the Family War Room. 

Family War Room

This is a place where people can  go and pray for their family or friends  One side is set up with a mock up of an old-fashioned kitchen, and has tables and chairs where you can  spend time reading material on the importance of family worship, protecting our families in this digital age and other helpful things.

On the other side there’s a banner at the front with a play on the signs we see everywhere on the roads in NSW ‘Stop. Revive. Survive’.  Instead of being applied to stopping and reviving to survive on the road, it applies to stopping and reviving through prayer and surviving the trials and problems that we can encounter here with our families, I guess.  What a neat idea. This side is set up with large tables and chairs, as though for discussion groups.  I’ll find out more during camp I’m sure.  

I had a quick look at the book and food shop and there are lots of great things on offer there, must go back and have a better look around in there.

Also caught up with some other friends who had arrived.  And some other familiar faces that we see each year.  One of the lovely things about church camp is that everyone is so friendly and you see the same people each year.  You catch up with old friends and make new ones.  And you feel very safe.  I also really appreciate the large number of people who remember Nathan from year to year and bring him ‘home’ if he wanders off and gets lost – which has happened before on a couple of occasions.  It’s difficult to balance his need for independence with keeping him from getting lost but at least we know he’s safe.  He is by far the youngest person here and everyone knows him.  And people tend to know us as ‘that young man’s parents’.  Oh well!  

On the move again .....getting ready anyway

Wednesday 11th May.  Well here we are off again to Grey Nomads.  How blessed we are to be able to attend this great camp each year.  I hadn’t planned to blog about it but our lovely neighbour asked me to, so that she and her family could keep track of what we are doing, so here goes just for you Tarnya!  And anyone else who is interested of course J.  I have been doing the posts daily and taking photos but the photos took so long to arrive from my phone to my email on the computer that there's been this delay in posting.  

We started getting the caravan ready last week, with Peter giving it a thorough wash outside.  At home it is parked under a large gum tree which gives it quite good shade but boy does it ever get dirty!  Sunday was Mother’s Day but we began sorting clothes ready for the trip and putting what was ready in the van.  Because it is autumn and the weather can be changeable we take both summer and winter clothing – the one year we didn’t take any winter clothing it was freezing the whole time and we had to go into town and buy things to keep warm, so now we take both.  As a result our cupboards are bulging.  I like to take enough clothes for 10 days for each of the three of us.  That way if we get a spell of wet weather we have a bit of leeway for getting things washed and dry.  After all, in a camp with 600 odd people, there is a big demand on the washing machines and dryers J.  And if the weather is nice, with a bit of luck I only have to wash at the end of camp, for the week we then have at the beach at Broom’s Head.

As we’ve been getting ready and had the caravan open, and things being prepared to pack in the lounge room, our three cats have been very interested and restless.  They’ve repeatedly come into the caravan and investigated every nook and cranny, as well as investigating anything we put out in the lounge room.  Put a pile of jackets ready to go into the car?  Well, I’ll just sit on them Mum, and make sure you know I’ve been here.  Some shoes out ready to go?  Better lie on top of them too.  Or better still, I’ll wrestle with your lambskin slippers and chew on the lining.  Packing some knitting to take?  Let’s see if we can get some of the wool out of there.  What do you mean, it’s not for us to play with?  And every time you sit down we’ll sit on you too, just so you know how much we love you and you’ll feel really guilty about leaving us!

I do miss the three terrors when we are away.  I know they will have company because our nephew who lives at our place is there and he feeds them and makes sure they are locked inside at night.  In fact he keeps them company at night because he’s up playing his x-box all night just as he always is.  And my brother makes a point of coming for a while too, which the furbabies think is wonderful because he lets them sleep with him (daddy doesn’t let them in our bedroom).  Plus our wonderful neighbours keep a good eye on our house and on the cats.  So they are looked after.  But they are my babies and I miss them.

Having made a good start on our preparations, we were still late leaving today – we didn’t leave home until nearly 4pm.  But we were so fortunate with the traffic.  Usually it takes a good hour or more to get to the freeway that takes you north out of Sydney, and even on the freeway it can be really busy.  Today in spite of a detour to get air in the caravan tyres which delayed us even longer, for the first time ever we had free-flowing traffic all the way to the freeway and then a really great run.  We stopped for a meal after the freeway ended, at a service centre and then drove on looking for our usual truck stop near Karuah where we planned to stop for the night.  No electricity or water, but there are toilets there and you feel quite safe because there are others around.  However for some reason we missed it, and the first rest stop after where we usually stop was full with several cars and caravans already parked there for the night so we continued on further and found another rest stop just 30km or so south of Buladelah.  We were the only ones there and there was a sign coming in that said no camping so I was rather nervous about staying the night.  But it was 8pm, we were tired and didn’t want to drive on the further 30km to the free camp on the river where our friends were already camped.  They had arrived around 4pm and said it was already quite crowded.

It didn’t take too long to get settled for the night and by 9.30 we were ready for bed.  The traffic going by on the highway is quite noisy but we were tired – it had been a really full day.

It is always so good to set off with the caravan attached behind and feel the stresses and cares of every day just start to fade away. 

Here's the photo I took the next day.  Sorry it's not a good one.

Blessings
Sandie

We climbed 'Mt Everest' today ....

.... well, not quite lol. But we caught the chairlift up Mt Kosciuszko and then walked the 2 kms to the lookout.  My breathing at that altitude wouldn't let me go the extra 4 1/2 kms to the summit.

When we arrived at Thredbo where the only chairlift that is open during summer is located, it looked quite a climb just to where the chairlift goes, and we couldn't see beyond that.

It was quite busy, with a fair number of people catching the chairlift, and quite a few riding their mountain bikes at breakneck speed down the track that zig-zags down the side of the mountain.  Now I am not good with heights and when we caught the chairlift up 'The Nob' in Tasmania I had to reassure Nathan all the way up (and down again) that we were fine even though inside I was quite scared coming down.  So I wasn't sure how I'd enjoy this part.  But it was fine and I did indeed enjoy the trip up.  It was fascinating watching the bike riders zoom down the track underneath us.  I was surprised at their speed and wondered how often riders come a cropper on the track.  Afterwards our friends told us that when they went up the mountain the previous week one of the riders had indeed come off his bike and the mountain rescue team had to bring him down to the base where the ambulance was waiting. 

In some places you can see a track where people can actually walk up the whole mountain. There are little steps on the track, which make one realize that it is steeper than it looks in the photos.

 It was a pleasant ride up, travelling at a sedate pace.  The temperature certainly dropped the higher we went, and the wind was really strong too.  I had to hold on to my hat with both hands or it would have gone flying.

 
Where the chairlift stops is Eagles Rest Restaurant, at 1937 metres (6355feet) it is Australia's highest restaurant.  We left a visit there until later though, and started off on the track towards the summit.  We knew we wouldn't reach that far, we aren't fit enough for a 13km round trip with my breathing the way it is but we did aim for the lookout which is a 4km round trip.  

The track starts off as paving stones for some distance.

 Then after a while it is a mesh grid, built 20 years ago to protect the fragile alpine environment after the previous track became extremely eroded and damage to the flora was quite bad.  Now this grid allows passage over the boggy, marshy places and lets sunlight pass through to the ground, with some of the delicate plants growing from below right up to the grid.

After being sunburned twice during the previous week to the extent that I had blisters, I was wearing a proper hiking shirt over my t-shirt,to protect my neck and arms.  It was very cool and windy and I had trouble keeping my wide-brimmed hat on my head but that did make it easier for me to walk even if my breathing wasn't great by any means.

The landscape was typically alpine, lots of rocks and low-growing plants.I loved the little alpine flowers, again most of them just the size of a fingernail.

There were quite a few of these tiny butterflies too.  Each wing is also the size of my littlest fingernail.

There were lots of boggy areas under the grid, and many little or larger streams wending their way down too.  I really love the sound of trickling water, it is so relaxing and soothing.

Sometimes water appeared from the tiniest cracks and disappeared just as quickly too, but it was just one part of the many streams that eventually join together to make the river that we crossed and drove beside, down at Thredbo.  I found the going pretty tough after a while, because it was harder and harder to breathe but I kept using my Ventolin and finally got there.  Here is Peter at the lookout, elevation 2000metres (6562 feet).

From the lookout we could see several hardy souls on the track going up to the summit but had no desire to follow their example.  We will have another go sometime when we have been walking a lot more before camp.  I'd really like to reach the summit some day.  After we returned we were told that we had actually done the steepest part of the climb, it is only another 228 metres (748 feet) to the summit, but it is a long distance, another 4.5 kms 2.8 miles).  

The return 2kms didn't take nearly as long as the walk up -- strange, that lol.  By the time we were on the return trip there were lots of other people also returning, but they had done the whole trip to the summit.  We stopped at a stream near the end where a couple of guys were standing watching a red-bellied black snake among the rocks at the side of the water.  That's the distance I prefer snakes from me - several metres at a minimum.

We stopped at the Eagles Rest Restaurant for some lunch.  There is a really nice brass eagle in the restaurant, I'm sorry the photo isn't very good but the light coming in through the window made it hard to get a good one.  

By the way, they serve delicious meals and the best hot chocolate ever.  This is the view from the side door where the fire escape is.

We took a few more photos then set off for the trip down via chair lift.  As I said before, I was nervous about this but to my pleasure and surprise really enjoyed it this time.  It seemed a long way down at first

but it was a pleasant descent and over too soon.  We passed quite a few people with their bikes attached to the ski holder at the back of their chair lift.  I joked to one couple that they were cheating - they should have ridden up the mountain as well as going down but they weren't convinced for some strange reason!

Down in Thredbo we paused a moment to admire a life-size sculpture of an emu and his baby (yes, his - it's the father bird who raises the chicks)

- again, the sun made it difficult to get a good photo.  And next to the emus there are a couple of boards with large chess pieces and draughts (in America you call them checkers) pieces.  The chess pieces were about a metre tall.

We had quite a walk to where Peter had parked the car once we reached the bottom but again that was pleasant, a lot of it was beside the Thredbo River.  

And there were nice flowers as well, growing wild.  Again, because of the altitude each flower was tiny.

We certainly achieved our 10,000 steps today!!  And that's without the ordinary walking around before and after our visit to Thredbo.

On the way back from Thredbo to Jindabyne we stopped to have a look at this interesting sculpture, just sitting there in the middle of nowhere.  We had passed it before but there were people climbing on it so we didn't stop that time.  It is huge - I photographed Peter standing beside it for perspective.

Altogether it was a really good day and I'm glad we did it even if we didn't attempt the summit.  Next time maybe ;).  Maybe.