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 1st 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!
