Postcards from the other side of the world

The last day

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:07:31 +0000

We went to Singapore Zoo yesterday. It is great, incredibly well designed. Surrounded by lush greenery it hardly feels like a zoo at all, and every time you come across, White Tigers for example, you feel pleasantly surprised and privileged to have such a clear view.

And at the furthest end from the entrance is the Rainforest Kids Zone, with a fabulous water play area which Lily in particular enjoyed. A fun feature was a huge bucket which took three and a half minutes to fill with water, and which point it would overbalence and drench everybody below.

We’ve stayed, these last two night with Pete and Pearl, who’ve been such brilliant hosts, that I don’t want to leave. The weather here has been brilliant too, blue skies and great visibility.

Oh! I don’t want to go home!

Gingerbread

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:25:15 +0000

Today we went to a Gingerbread factory, decorated our own men, then spent the afternoon on (yet another) lovely beach.

St. Kilda

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:26:21 +0000

We liked this fabulous seaside suburb of Melbourne so much we went twice. Yesterday we’d planned to go to an adventure playground built in 1985 following a principle that children should be given the wherewithal to design and build their own play area. It’s been developed professionally since then, with a little more consideration if health and safety. It turned out to be closed yesterday, but we still had a great time, finishing after dinner with a walk along the pier to see St. Kilda’s colony of wild penguins.

So this afternoon we went back, and the playground was, according to Lily, brilliant.

Puffing Billy

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:14:35 +0000

Ten hours on the train to Melbourne was a little boring yesterday, but what did we chose to do today? Get on another train! This time though, we went with our hosts in Melbourne, Rosanne, Santosh, Sonia and Leana.

And Puffing Billy was a lot more fun. A steam driven narrow guage train, with mainly open-sided carriages that explores pretty scenery with an authentic frontier feel.

Koalas!

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:31:56 +0000

Our last full day at Scott and Diana’s. After yesterday’s long day out to Jervis Bay, we took this day more casually. Gathered the kids together in the afternoon to take them to Symbio, the local zoo, where we fed kangaroos and got to pet a koala.

Soft white sand in Jervis Bay

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:45:34 +0000

Booderee National Park, run by the local Koori community, has long white beaches and a gentle swimming sea, as warm in the Australian autumn as the seas of Cornwall in mid-summer.

There’s also an abundance of wildlife, including, brilliant red and blue parrots and these Rosilla’s, which (because many prior visitors have broken the no feeding rule) are fearless in their search for food. Tom and I didn’t have any, but were waiting for the others to return from a walk, when two birds came and perched on my arm.

In the bush

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:29:02 +0000

We just got back from a great day organised by Diana, in the nearby Royal National Park. On the way to a picnic by the beach Tom and I surprised a black snake that slid off into the bushes. “If it bit, would we die?” I asked jokingly, Diana nodded grimly.

Then in the afternoon we met David Wright, an aboriginal National Park ranger, who took us on our own private Bush-Tucker and Bush-Medicine tour, giving us sweet Lillypilly berries, bitter bush currents and Sea Spinach to eat, and Sasperilla leaves to suck.

Back to school

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:32:55 +0000

Despite the fact that we’ve taken her away from school for two weeks, Lily is doing her best to keep her education current.

Today she has gone to school with her friend Genevieve.

Australia

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:33:51 +0000

Diana and Scott did us proud, booking the hotel. They met us on the recreation deck, just above our room on the 23rd floor. Check out the view of Sydney Harbour Bridge, Circular Quay and the Operahouse below.

I’m writing this at their house, having spent the best part of two days exploring Sydney. We took an open topped tourist bus around to get an overview, visited the opera house then took a ferry under the bridge to Luna Park.

In the evening Lily and Tom went to be in Scott and Diane’s room so that Sue and I could explore the Rocks.

The next day, we took the rest of the bus tour, visited Centennial park, and then went to Chinatown to have a Dim Sum lunch with Sue’s old friend Derek and his wife Shelly.

Christchurch

Matthew Tyler-Jones — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 01:32:44 +0000

I found some free wi-fi! The first 15 minutes at Christchurch Airport is free, so here’s a quick post. We’ll be boarding very soon anyhow. Here’s our plane.

Australia’s going to have to work hard to better NZ.