Christmas in Australia

Winter has arrived in Nancy so we are off to Australia to spend some time with family and friends. We left Matilda about 12.00 pm on Wednesday 11^th and travelled to Paris by train. Our plane was leaving CDG airport about 17.00 and as the train trip was only one and a half hours we had plenty of time to make our connections. The French train system is considered to be amongst in best in the world and the train we were on was typical of the system. All the inter-city passenger trains are electric and ones like this TGV we were on are capable of some pretty high speeds.

The information screen in the coach followed our progress and displayed the train’s speed.

 From Paris, we flew in an Airbus A380 via Dubai and arrived in Sydney 24 hours later. We found the A380 a great plane, quiet and comfortable. A long time in the plane but we were able to relax and doze and by 09.00 Friday morning we were with Peter’s sister Pamela and husband Geoff, in their home in Pymble.

Pam and Geoff enjoy entertaining and we appreciated time with their friend Judy and Peter’s daughter Alyssa.

     

We spent some time in Sydney looking at the city through tourist eyes. We travelled on the Red Bus and saw parts we had never seen before. We spent some time in Bondi, the Rocks area and Darling Harbour.

Off to Melbourne and we met Marg’s brother, Peter and again met up with many friends and family.

In the Botanic Gardens we came across this garden of drought resisting plants. Plants for a changing climate.

We wandered around the city looking at all the regular Christmas things but we must say that we thought the Myer windows were not up to their usual standard.

We did find this great display of scenes in the Town Hall – all made from gingerbread!

We were very pleased to see that Melbourne still has many of its beautiful old buildings still nestled amongst the modern ones.

Christmas was close and we were off to Horsham to join Marg’s family at Liz and Paul’s farm, Jallumba. For the past 40 years the Miller family have gathered together for every second Christmas. This year was Liz and Paul’s turn.

The Christmas, New Year period was wonderful with family and friends coming and going. Liz and Paul enjoy entertaining and the patio area at the rear of the house is ideal for this.

Notice the beautiful old wood fired range behind Margaret. Liz’s favourite cooking appliance.

Jallumba is about 40 kilometres south west of Horsham in an area called The Wimera in western Victoria. With an area of 4,000 acres – (approx. 1600 hectares) the property is well known in the past as a producer of fine merino wool. Currently they have 4000 merino plus 500 border leister cross on the property with 300 acres under oats for sheep feed. In 1950 the property held a world record of 310 pence (Aust) per lb (pound weight) for fine merino lambs wool. (about $90 per kilo in today’s money)

Paul is a collector. He has a large shed that holds his collections.

There are many old stationary engines and cast iron tractor seats. He says that every engine in this shed can run! Not a bad collection. A real "man's shed"!

After New Year we were off again, now to Perth to see our family there and to do those things we have to do when we come back. We arrived in time to celebrate Emma's fourth birthday but unfortunately missed Daniel’s second by a few days. It was also fantastic that Erika travelled down from Geraldton to join us and celebrate with Emma at her party in Kings Park. 

We must thank Janet and David for their hospitality while in Perth and for arranging our get together at Cottesloe.

It was great to spend time with old friends, some we hadn’t seen for many years.  

 All too soon it was time to re-pack and fly back to France. We arrived on Matilda late afternoon on the 13^th January after a very full month. We would like to wish all our friends the very best for the new year 2014.

There will be more to tell, so we will keep in touch.