March 23--HUGE Joyful Surprise!

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.  --Diane Ackerman

    We had only one rain shower today. I actually had pool time with sunshine!

    There are now two baby turtles swimming in the Indian Ocean named after my grandsons. 

    Cricket told us to be at the beach at 10:30 am. Yes, sir! We arrived to find a bucket of water with 16 excited baby turtles. When the babies hatch on the beach, they are collected by members of a turtle conservation group and kept for three months to grow, so that they have a better chance of surviving in the ocean. At three months old, they are released. We got to do that!!!!!!!!! Talk about wonder!!!!!!!!!!! 

    We were given wooden bowls to scoop out a turtle, then we took them down to the water. There was a line hooked along the sand just up from the waves which we stood at to release the little ones. We were told to name them and give them a blessing. I released two, each one named after a grandson, with the blessing of "live long and prosper." I was in tears the whole time, it was so cool. My first release was the one that made it into the ocean first--the winner! These little ones are about 4" long. Even quite a ways out in the water, we could see their tiny heads poking up for air. I told Cricket that it would be extremely hard to top this experience, and he said, "Challenge accepted!" I would also note that the tour company we are here with is a donor to the turtle conservation efforts. 

    Then I enjoyed alternating between being in the pool and reading pool-side. Cricket and Edi brought us Pad Thai for a late lunch, which we enjoyed on our patio. 

    Lanie and I walked over to the convenience store outside our hotel grounds for snacks and drinks, whereupon we managed to cross the very busy street twice without getting killed. Before we went, we learned from our hosts that the signal to stop traffic is a raised arm, and by-golly, it works! 

    We are well set to read, snack, relax, shower, and get a good night's sleep. 

      Leta

Me in the center celebrating my little one's efforts.
Those little black dots are the babies.

March 22--I Wish I Could Take Some of This Rain Home to KS

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.  --Mary Oliver

    Here's one I didn't expect--playing pickleball in Bali. They play "no rules," so it is a lot of volley practice, never a bad thing. I made it about 45 minutes before the heat/humidity did me in. It was miraculous to have a rain-free morning to play.

    Although Cricket tells me that this is really fine weather for this time of year, I am really struggling with the heat, humidity and torrential rains. I am sitting on our patio, my only movement is my fingers typing, and I am sweating. While sweating is my superpower, I do not like to be doing it every moment I am outside here. This requires huge water consumption, so last night I got up at least six times to use the bathroom, which, trust me, does not make for a good night's sleep. 

    Lanie finally let Cricket take her to the doctor where she was diagnosed with bronchitis and given lots of good drugs, so hopefully she will soon be enjoying the heat/humidity/rain with us. 

    Cricket was a sweetheart and retrieved our clean laundry for us. My huge armful came back as a compressed little bundle. It will be lovely to have clean clothes as I am sweating through them quite quickly. 

    Every time I have felt motivated to take pictures of our lovely resort, it has been pouring rain. Our Aussie/NZ tour spoiled us with only one rainy morning in almost four weeks. 

    I did get in the pool right outside our door during a break in the rain earlier. My body is missing swimming terribly. I was chased inside by rain--the wind causes some sort of quarter-sized nuts to come shooting down from the trees like hail, so one does not dawdle in a downpour. 

    Early on, Cricket told us about his being in the hospital for six days with dengue fever, brought on by mosquito bites. So now I am paranoid about bugs even more than usual. 

    There is much to "get used to" here, and I'm feeling like it is very slow coming for me. 

    Stay tuned...

        Leta

New Zealand road caution sign--
below it is a smaller rectangular sign
that tells the danger, such as
"ROAD WORK AHEAD"

March 21--The Dentist Adventure and Traffic Terror

To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow--this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.  --Elizabeth Gilbert

    Our first full day in Bali... at breakfast we tried new-to-us dragon fruit and snake fruit. I had a made-to-order omelet that was wonderful. 

    Then followed a harrowing ride to the dentist. Traffic is insane here, plus add torrential rain and questionable drainage on top of it. Despite the jokes about me staying in Bali, I could not do it just because of the traffic alone. My dentist appointment was amazing--25 minutes and I had a pain-free filling that cost me just under $50 US. We also got rupiah from an ATM, and hauled our dirty clothes to a laundry service. My huge armload cost me about $6 for wash/dry/fold. We'll pick it up tomorrow. 

    Weary from the non-stop activity of the previous tour, we took the afternoon off to read and relax. I met up later with Cricket by the beach where we had coconut water straight from the coconut, and I had a light salad for supper. Because this spot is so close to the equator, sunrise and sunset are almost exactly 12 hours apart, currently around 6:30 am and pm. Early darkness suits me just fine. 

    We were warned immediately not to drink the water here--bottled water only. Even the "natives" don't drink it. It smells kind of nasty, too. This is truly a case of "water water everywhere but not a drop to drink." 

    Cricket is staying at the hotel with us, but today he took us by the house he rents here. It is a two-bedroom, two-bath place with a pool that is a mansion in this area. His Balinese friends consider him "filthy rich," but he's very middle-class by American standards. Just down the way from his place is a huge pile of trash. Living conditions here are dreadful for the average Balinese worker, whom Cricket says makes an average of $300 per month. There is no such thing as our Social Security. 

    Feeling extraordinarily blessed,

        Leta    

Cricket and coconuts!

March 20--In Bali

The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.  --Marianne Williamson

    We flew yesterday (Mar 20 over here) from Queenstown, NZ to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. It was about ten hours total flying time. This completed 13 of the 16 total flights of this trip. We sailed through immigration and customs much more easily than we were led to believe possible. My friend Cricket, who moved here several years ago from Chicago, and is our tour leader, picked us up with a couple friends. It was raining buckets, which they say is "nothing." It was also dark, so we couldn't see much. The drive to the hotel was exciting with scooters weaving in and out of traffic through the rain. Cricket labeled it "organized chaos." Our hotel and grounds are beautiful, even in the dark. We are on the beach, but we didn't see it last night.

    After a very long day, made longer by a 5-hour time change (I can no longer keep track of my jet lag), it was a joy to climb into bed and go to sleep to rainfall. 

    Leta

The last goofy picture Wayne took:
Kathy, me, Lanie, Kathy, me, Lanie

March 19, Part 2--Last Day of the Australia/NZ Tour

If you are in love--that's a good thing--that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.  --John Steinbeck 

    We slept in on our last day, a glorious treat. After breakfast, we made the trek downhill to town (after getting the full scoop on the bus that would bring us back up the long, steep hill). We walked along the lakefront, then headed back uphill to ride the Skyline Queenstown gondola. I was not all that terrified--it was a lovely ride up with a worker who told us about the other things we could do--ride the luge, mountain biking (the trail is insane), bunge-jumping or even para-gliding. And here I was proud of myself for doing the gondola! Truly NZ is a thrill-seeker's (do stupid, dangerous stuff) paradise. 

Note the bike inside the gondola

Note the parasail in the background between us--
we saw many taking off

Awesome views!

    On the way to the gondola, we passed an indoor skydiving place. Despite the lovely offer, we passed:

    Riding the gondola back down gave us a clear view of how steep it is! We roamed through some shops and enjoyed another Pad Thai lunch. A bit more wandering led us to the last pub visit of this tour, where we capped off our good lunch with a beer. Then we rode the bus back up the hill--we agreed that we would have paid a much greater fare just to avoid that uphill hike. 

    After some much-appreciated downtime, we joined the group for our "Last Supper." It was a lovely meal but much too loud and long. We had a group photo afterwards. Hopefully our guide will post it on the group photo site eventually. 

    Words to live by:

    Tomorrow we fly to Bali!!!!

        Leta

March 19--Mr. Robertson

    This is in appreciation of our guide Wayne. Lanie and I have been on several Collette tours, and he is far and away the best guide we have had on any tour. 

    Wayne gave us the phrase "rattle your dags." Dags are the dried pooplets at the back end of a sheep that rattle when they run. Although I must confess that I have seen literally thousands of sheep on this trip, I have rarely seen any running. Anyway, "rattle your dags" means to hurry up, and I shall think of Wayne every time I use it. You can google it--this one is true.

    Wayne enjoyed pulling out legs. Here's one of the better ones. You can see paths worn into the hillsides where cattle and sheep meander (few pioneers there). Wayne tells us that since they always walk clockwise (?), genetically over time their right legs have become shorter than their left. When an earthquake hits (often here), they get disoriented and turn around. Because their right legs are shorter, they roll down the hill. This is a stock avalanche. 

    Wayne also told us to be on the lookout in Australia for shamels--a cross between a sheep and a camel. Let your mind wander on that for a bit!

    Wayne has an outstanding ability to share history, geography, geology and "Local Culture." He has been especially good at helping us learn the indigenous Maori culture. 

    He has kept us laughing with his great sense of humor. He has been a tour guide for 26 years and is still ultra-enthusiastic about sharing his countries with tourists. Even sleep-deprived, he is fun, maybe even more so. He kindly took several of us, including me, to the medical center as the crud made its way through the group. 

    Somehow he was able to keep us all on time for nearly four weeks of adventure. 

    Wayne truly made this trip through Australia and New Zealand spectacular.    

    Thanks, Wayne!

        Leta

March 18--Waterfall Day

Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.  --Natalie Babbitt

    Another early start took us over the mountains to Milford Sound, which is a fjord, not a sound. We learned that a fjord is created by glaciers and a sound by a river. It seems that for every waterfall we saw, there was an even more awesome one around the next bend. We did a deep-woods walk at The Chasm, where there were many smaller falls coming off of a good size stream:

    I learned a lot about avalanches. Our bus driver, Andrew, said that the road we used is often closed in winter due to avalanches. This confused me since the mountains are not near the road. What closes the road is the amount of debris that the snow pulls down with it, plus the avalanche creates incredibly dangerous high winds. 

    We started the morning in rain and heavy clouds, but by the time we reached Milford Sound it had cleared, and we were quite lucky to be able to see the top of Mitre Peak, highest on the South Island:

    We cruised for two hours on the fjord, enjoying the sunshine and amazing scenery. Waterfalls ranged from pencil-thin so that you could barely see water moving to the big gushers:

    It was a long bus ride back to Queenstown. We don't have to get on a bus again for almost 22 hours! We can sleep in!

        Leta

March 17--Overwhelming Beauty

Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.  --Ann Patchett

    We drove today from Christchurch to Queenstown, the last town on this tour. Once again the scenery was spectacular, varied and incredibly beautiful. Mountains, mountains and more mountains. Gigantic lakes. Our bus driver, Andrew, likes to give us a thrill ride on the curvy mountain roads. We saw a backhoe digging on the side of a mountain where they are building a biking trail. There was no room for error--it was frightening to watch. It would be even more scary to ride a bike along there. 

    A note to my husband---today we drove by the place where the wool for the Smartwool brand comes from, a flock of 20,000 sheep. 

    I have noticed that hedge-trimming appears to be a national obsession or hobby. They even trim hedgerows, some as tall as 30'. It's crazy. 

    There are a lot of vineyards as we drew nearer to Queenstown. These are grapes for Pinot Noir. 

    I am grateful to be feeling much better!

        Leta

The center building is the 
Church of the Good Shepherd 

March 16--Jam-Packed Day in Christchurch

The poets are right: love is eternal.  --E. M. Forster

    It was a huge day in Christchurch. We started with a bus tour of the city, which included stops at the Art Center, a very large complex of old buildings that used to be the University, but have been converted into for-rent artist studios. There were popsicles hanging from the trees and a wire house sculpture hanging from?? 

    Next we toured the Mona Vale Garden Park, a former estate that has been preserved as a public garden. This is my favorite photo from there:

"... while the dew is still on the roses..."

    Our next stop was the Willowbank Wildlife Preserve. We saw two kiwis in a nocturnal (dark) environment where we could not take photos. (That didn't matter, they were quite hard to see.) We also saw the lizard Tuatara and the pig Kunekune, which is too fatty for food and are kept as pets. (I'll stick with my doggie!)

    We had beers and lunch at The Church Brew Pub, literally an old church that has been turned into a hopping pub with live music daily. The organ pipes are still there. They were prepping for St. Pat's Day. 

    This fairly "new" city rebuilt after the 2011 earthquake has a large number of spectacular murals. Here are a couple:

    Closing out the afternoon, we had the opportunity to learn more Maori culture and to paddle a waka (war canoe) on the river. We were told not to bring cameras, and our guide didn't get any close-up of my bunch, but this gives you the idea:

    We did a bit of shopping and exploring and finished off with a Mediterranean meal of hummus, baba ganoush, and fattoush. 
    Tomorrow we head to Queenstown, our last stop of the tour. 

        Leta

March 15--WOW WOW WOW

All my life, my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.  --Hunter S. Thompson

    We left Wellington early today, bus and all on the huge ferry to Picton. Everywhere one turns in NZ, the scenery is stunning. This was from the ferry:

    We landed in Picton on the South Island and headed for Christchurch. Much of the drive was along the coast, so there were magnificent mountains on the right and the ocean on the left. 

    We stopped briefly to get a look at the seals, mostly mothers and babies, as the big males are out at sea. 

    The South Island is the Sauvignon Blanc capital of the world. There are literally miles and miles of vineyards. There are windmills in the vineyards which they use if there is frost danger. Just the air movement keeps the frost from settling on the grapes and destroying the crop. As we got further south, we noticed many of the grapevines were covered. Those are grapes for Reisling wine, left to get extra-sweet on the vines. The covers keep the birds away. 

    Wayne took us on a walk around our hotel area before supper. Most of the town was destroyed in the 2011 earthquake, and the rebuilt city is beautiful. Alas the Cathedral in the Square was severely damaged and they do not have the funds to repair it, so it pretty much sits there as an eyesore at the present time. 

    We had a buffet supper at the hotel and we get to sleep in (woohoo!) after a LONG travel day. 

        Leta

March 14--STEEP!!!

Despite the thousands of years of human interaction, it all begins anew, as if for the first time, when two people fall in love.  --John O'Donohue

    Wellington has many STEEP hills. When our bus driver was motoring us up the windy streets to Mt. Victoria, at one point the back end of the bus drug on the pavement. Since I was in the back seat, that was a bit alarming! The drive was worth it. The views from the lookout are amazing:

    The bus then took us back down into town to the Museum of New Zealand, where we wandered for a couple hours. One section was about immigration to NZ. There were 37 (THIRTY-SEVEN!!!) tiles inlaid in the floor listing human atrocities on other humans that caused a flood of immigration. The first:

    The most recent shown:

    Of the 37 tiles, most of them have been in my lifetime. So depressing. When will we humans stop hurting and killing each other?!?!?!

    We rode the cable car to the Kelburn Terminal high above the city and began the very steep trek down through the magnificent Botanical Garden. We saw a very cool sundial:

14 numbered blocks in the semi-circle

The "figure 8" has the dates of
the year

    The directions tell you to stand on the day of the year with your back to the sun, put your arms overhead with your hands together, and they will point to the local standard time. It works! Very cool!

    The walk down through the gardens was grueling (steep!) but beautiful with a huge variety of vegetation, giant trees hundreds of years old, an enormous rose garden in full bloom, even passing through an old cemetery at the end. 

    We went back to the hotel and rested, then went out for another Thai meal. It is an early-to-bed night because we board the ferry early tomorrow for the South Island. 

        Leta

March 13--On the Mend, I Hope

Where there is great love there are always miracles.  --Willa Cather

    I finally succumbed to the need for a doctor when my patchwork of meds did little after three days. More on that shortly.

    We drove today from Rotorua to Wellington. The scenery here is breathtaking. I saw a lot of trucks hauling logs, as that is the 4th largest industry here. I spent many a happy hour with my dad as a child in a log truck or hauling lumber to customers. We stopped at a geothermal mud pool with bubbling, sulphur-smelling mud, interesting but gross. We next visited Huka Falls, mighty power and beauty. 

    We arrived in Wellington and checked into the Novotel. Once our guide Wayne got the others settled into dinner, he called an Uber to take him and me to the medical clinic. Thankfully it wasn't too busy and I was seeing a doctor within an hour. He said my lungs are clear and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and nasal spray to treat my sinus infection. The total bill was about $400 NZ, around $250 US. If this helps me sleep and stop coughing, it is worth every penny. I'm so thankful for Wayne's help. He's done this many times already for others on this tour. 

    Wayne and I stopped by a Woolworths to get food since we missed dinner. Woolworths here is a grocery store. I am now enjoying my first potato chips since I left home, quite a treat. 

    Time to shower, rest, and heal. 

        Leta

March 12--HOT!!!

Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish. 
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    I actually had a napping opportunity, much needed with my head cold. 

    This morning we started out at the Whakarewarewa Thermal Village, an indigenous village built on top to thermal hot springs. What an interesting tour! The residents have thermal boxes that serve as very fast ovens and a pool in which they cook things that need to be boiled, again, speedy quick. There are geysers in the area, and they use the hot water cooled to feed a community bath. You can hear the water boiling in the pools.

Our guide, this box had food cooking in it.

The food boiling pool

The community bathing pools,
everyone gets naked together

The geysers, and a not-too-hot swimming hole below

    Next we went to the AgroDome where we had a lesson on the many different kinds of sheep and saw one being sheared. The best part of the presentation was the herding dogs. If you look closely, you'll see two dogs standing on top of sheep--that's what the dogs do when they are working a really big herd of sheep. 

    The kingpin of sheep, top center, is Merino. My husband will attest to how wonderful it is. And they are considerably larger than most of the other varieties. I certainly didn't know there are so many different kinds of sheep, and the wool has different uses. For example, one is best in clothing and one is best in carpet. Some wool won't burn. All very interesting. 

    Next we went to a presentation about NZ jade. Of course there was the opportunity to buy assorted jewelry, but there was nothing that really struck my fancy. 

    Three of my travel buds and I enjoyed spicy soup, bread and beer at the Pig & Whistle Pub, then walked back to our hotel for some rest time. 

    The evening was a delightful dinner and presentation by the Maori (pronounced mow-ree, rhymes with how-ree) tribe. We saw the warriors float down the stream in their war canoe chanting:

Then we had probably our best dinner so far, a huge buffet with so many great items. Our host spent a lot of time telling us about the Maori customs. After the super dinner, we went to the auditorium where Maori men and women performed assorted dances for us. They also explained their weapons, which were used for hand-to-hand combat (no guns in the very early days). It was a very high-energy show. Then our host led us back into the woodland path to see the spring that serves the village and the glow worms in the woods, quite enchanting. In anticipation of the glow worm viewing, our guide Wayne taught us this childhood rhyme:

I'd like to be a glow worm.
A glow worm is never glum.
How could you be unhappy
When light shines out your bum?

    Tomorrow we head to Wellington. 

        Leta

March 11--Sore Nose

The earth has its music for those who listen.  --Reginald Vincent Holmes

    I have a Life Is Good shirt that displays Holmes' quote. We have experienced a lot of earth music on this trip!

    Well, dang it, I managed to catch the head cold that has been circulating through the group. So I was fairly out of it today, not much appetite. 

    We drove from Auckland to Rotorua, which included about three hours actual driving time, but with pit stops and snack breaks, got us to our hotel around 4:00. One of our stops was Tirau, noted for its giant corrugated metal figures (below). The NZ countryside is quite lovely. It was surprising to me that we saw many more cattle than sheep. They also have no billboards trashing up the landscape. 

    I was weary and slept much of the drive. I got some meds so hopefully tomorrow will be a more enthusiastic day. My big accomplishment of the day was doing a load of laundry, for which my fellow travelers should be very thankful.

    Perfect weather continues!

        Leta

March 10--High Up Again

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.  --Zora Neale Hurston

    We spent the bulk of the day accomplishing a three-hour flight from Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand. (By the way, this was our 11th flight of the trip; 5 more will bring us back home.) The flight was delayed. New Zealand is extraordinarily picky about what enters the country. They even had an adorable beagle sniffing everyone's luggage. And we lost two hours flying here, so we left the Sydney hotel at 7:30 and got to our Auckland hotel at 5:30. We had a buffet supper, then four of us went up the Sky Tower Auckland, a speedy elevator trip up to the 53rd floor. 

A block from our hotel

    We saw the Harbour Bridge, New Zealand's largest bridge, and the Westhaven Marina, the largest yacht marina in the southern hemisphere. 

    Behind Lanie and I in the photo below is the most recent volcano to erupt in NZ, 600 years ago. 

    The weather here is perfect, and I am eternally grateful for much lower humidity!

        Leta

March 9--"Ladies, You Must Get Off"

Love is like infinity: You can't have more or less infinity, and you can't compare two things to see if they're "equally infinite." Infinity just is, and that's the way I think love is, too.  --Fred Rogers

   Today was a "free day," which I spent sweating. Sweating is my super-power and I've been outdoing myself. 

    I chatted with our guide and confirmed our plans to go to Manly. We walked down to Circular Quay (pronounced 'key') and just made the ferry to Manly. That offered us outstanding views of Sydney and the harbour. A North Head hike had been recommended to us, so we took the #161 bus there and walked the nature loop which gave us outstanding views of the coastline and city.

At North Head

    We caught the bus back to town, but stopped off at a cafe for a beer. While we were there, we got caught in a shower, but soon the sun was back out and we reboarded a bus for Manly Wharf. The bus stopped at the Wharf, but Lanie and I did not realize it, so we sat on the bus waiting for it to go. Finally the bus driver came back and very kindly said, "Ladies, you must get off. This is the end of the line." So now we can add being kicked off a bus to our adventures. 

Manly Beach

    We walked from the Wharf to Manly Beach, where we took a seat on a bench and soaked in the beauty, and watched folks strolling by, surfers and beach volleyball. We walked over a mile down the beach and decided our next move was to return to the Ben and Jerry's store we saw at the beginning of our walk. We enjoyed two scoops (you have to eat ice cream FAST here) and then returned to the Wharf to catch the ferry back to Circular Quay. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and had we been counting sailboats, I'm betting we would have been up to at least 60. 

    From the Quay, we hiked back up to our hotel to cool off and rest. Another recommendation we had was for Chat Thai at the Quay, and I was able to get us dinner reservations. It was a mixed experience. There was a large party right behind me that was incredibly loud. Many of the dishes I would have liked either had shrimp (yuck) or were very spicy hot. So I had crab fried rice. It was bland, and I only identified a few bits of crab. Oh well, the shiraz wine was good. We picked up some chocolate treats at the convenience store across from our hotel and went joyfully to the hotel and showers. 

    Goodbye, Sydney. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand. 

         Leta

A nice way to 
end our time in Sydney

March 8--SOH!

Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it. 
--Rabindranath Tagore

    We started the day with a brief bus tour of Sydney, then went to the Sydney Opera House (SOH) for a tour. We had a super guide who told us all about the building, which was quite controversial, used previously unheard-of geometry, and was completed in 1973. The Concert Hall was the highlight. The carpet, seats and acoustic panels hanging from the ceiling are all purple. We got to see them move the panels into place for our matinee concert. 

    We then went to the National Opal Museum, where we learned about the geology and mining of opals. Of course, that was followed by the opportunity to buy. I think I was one of the few to leave without a purchase. 

    We walked along the waterfront and settled on a lunch place where we had our first mac 'n' cheese of the trip. This required a celebratory beer also. 

    We walked the short distance to the Opera House and headed up to the top section of the Concert Hall. There are no bad seats. The acoustics are so perfect you can hear everything everywhere. The symphony and the guest violinist had no amplification. It was amazing. 

    After that we wandered around the Botanical Garden. It is a huge park with lots of grassy area and assorted plantings here and there. We roamed our way back to the hotel, had a salad at the hotel restaurant, thoroughly enjoyed a shower, and headed to bedtime reading and/or basketball watching. 

    We did 5.5 miles today, ready to rest!

        Leta

The concert hall, from our seats

The very old gum trees seen around the Garden

March 7--Qantas Pilots are Excellent

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.  --Charles Dickens

    I went out this morning to walk along the Esplanade in Cairns by our hotel, and in about a quarter mile, mostly in the shade, I was drenched in sweat. I turned around, satisfied to be able to say I did it. 

    We flew today from Cairns to Sydney. It was not uneventful. The landing gear was down and we were almost landing when the plane went back up in the air. Hmmmm. The pilot got on the speaker eventually and told us that it was an air-traffic-control issue, and there was a plane on our runway. So we circled and landed safely. Whew! All of our Qantas flights have had very smooth touch-downs, unlike Virgin Airlines.

    Sydney is beautiful! 

    We checked into our tiny hotel rooms and went back on the bus to drive to Darling Harbour for dinner. Some went to a seafood restaurant; Lanie and I went with several others to I'm Angus Steak House. I had a lovely dinner of salad, chicken and mashed potatoes. The Harbour is beautiful and vibrantly alive with people. The building on the left in the photo below is a huge convention center. 

    Just as we were getting back to the bus, it started to drizzle. Very shortly it started to pour. This was our first rain of the trip. Given that we now have two full weeks of the trip completed, we can't complain. 

    It's way past our bedtime...

        Leta

At Darling Harbour