Travels Down Under 2015

Thought I would keep a record of my travels as it’s the first time I have taken such a long trip since I opened the shop 9 years ago.

Many of you know that we lived in Singapore for 18 years before coming to Devon in 1997. Our 3 children were all born there and consider it a home base, especially my middle daughter, Christina who now works in Singapore.  My husband’s family all live in Australia and New Zealand so it seemed a good idea to make Singapore our stopping off point on the way to and from Australasia.

 We arrived at my daughters beautiful new ground floor apartment in River Valley Road and went out for brunch at Raffles shopping arcade only an hour later to meet up with old friends – one of whom was Christina’s friend from school who I hadn’t seen since she was 14 years. Now she is married and expecting her first baby. Made me realise how many years have passed since we lived in Singapore. 

David had lots of meetings during our first week so I had a relaxing week catching up on knitting by the 30 metre apartment pool and enjoying swimming lengths. First length was a bit strenuous but I did improve as the week went by.

AUSTRALIA

At the end of April we flew to Brisbane with Christina to spend 5 nights in a beautiful penthouse apartment on the Gold Coast of Australia. This was our joint birthday present from Christina. We landed in driving rain which became heavier as we travelled from the airport. In fact a cyclone hit the coast just after we got into our apartment. It was a fairly spectacular storm as we were near the top floor of the block. Photo was taken at 3.00pm when it was black as night and the wind was howling around the apartment. 

The weather during the rest of the week was perfect. It was late autumn in Australia and the temperature was less than 30 degrees during the day and cool at night. Sadly we had to break with Christina after 5 nights.

She headed back to Singapore and work while we drove slowly down the coast to meet up with David’s younger brother Robert and family.

We enjoyed 3 nights on our own before meeting up with Robert, Jenny and their children Jo and Stu on the beach at Hyam’s Bay. First night we drove to Coff’s Harbour via Byron Bay and stayed in a comfortable little motel at the “Big Banana”. (didn’t visit!). Second night we stayed in the Hunter Valley at a very comfortable hotel in Cessnock, a very strange town . We felt we had gone back 20 years in time. We then drove up to the Blue Mountains where it was very cold. We stayed at a massive but weird hotel in Katoomba ….. a bit tricky carrying our luggage along corridors and up steps. (We did have to dress for 3 climates and carry my knitting!)

Then back to the coast to meet up at Hyam’s Bay as arranged. The holiday house was right on the beach with this beautiful view. It was winter but even I was brave enough to jump in –abeit briefly!

Sadly leaving Hyams Bay we all headed for Robert & Jenny’s house in Canberra for a week.

Canberra is a surprising capital city full of gardens and few large shopping centres. It’s very peaceful and quiet for a capital city and we loved the statues of sheep in the Civic Centre.

We were extremely impressed with the War Museum. Amazing how many lives were lost in the 1^st World War, especially during the horrendous Battle of Gallipoli. This is remembered with respect as ANZAC day by the New Zealanders and Australians.

By this time I was desperate to find some Merino sheep after reading about them at the Big Merino, with its rather grotesque statue. Wool production is one of Australia’s largest and most important forms of land use with some 30,000 wool growing properties. These are spread in a continuous crescent from North Queensland to the mid-north of Western Australia and Tasmania.  All these properties are many miles from Canberra of course. It was interesting to find out that the original merinos were imported from Spain.

I had to content myself with visiting the lovely yarn shop in Canberra called “The Woolshed@Manuka” 

I couldn’t resist this beautiful 2 ply Misti Alpaca and have already written to the distributers to see if it is available to buy for Spin A Yarn. The lovely blue/green fine merino is from the Ella Rae brand. Again I have been making enquiries!

HOLIDAY PROJECTS

I just realised that I ought to mention my holiday projects. It did take me a long time to choose out of my 10 (at least) WIP. I decided that I should take easy ones which would not be damaged by too much driving and chatting. I chose a Mirasol Sulka Legata sweater which just needed 2 sleeves, a Rowan kidsilk haze scarf, an easy Colinette twisted wrap stitch Wrap and the inevitable sock. I’ll let you know if they were good choices at the end of the Blog.

From Canberra we swiftly drove down to Sydney Airport via the Bradman Museumat at Bowai. Donald Bradman; according to my husband was the greatest batsman in the history of cricket. It is an interesting museum even for someone like me with no cricket knowledge. It was a good lunch spot and wasted just enough time for us to arrive at the airport at exactly the right time to catch our late afternoon flight to New Zealand.

Tune in for the next installment, coming shortly!