Leaving Australia

Sea plane at Rose Bay

Tomorrow's the day. It felt very odd to be taking out my down mitts, wool hat and Icelandic sweater today. As you can see from these photos (taken yesterday and today) the weather is brilliantly sunny, and we don't really feel like heading off into the stormy seas again ... but sad as we feel about leaving, we look forward to re-visiting beautiful Nelson, New Zealand again.

At the moment, we're anchored in the Lane Cove River - not far from where we celebrated Lauris's birthday on Sunday. We stayed in about this same place in the river ten years ago so it feels 'home-like'. Larry brought me ashore in the dinghy so I could drop a few Christmas cards into the mailbox near the Woolwich ferry. This was our method of getting downtown in those days - we would wade ashore, clean our feet and put 'proper' footwear on, lock the dinghy to a tree and walk down to the ferry. We'd get off the ferry at Circular Quay and go to the opera, and reverse the procedure to get home and to bed. It was at this very spot where I met Debby and Leah so there are many memories here.

Trav at anchor in the Lane Cove River

Passing the Opera House

We had anchored in Rose Bay for two nights near the seaplane docks - I did manage to hear Belle - Debbie's talented clarinet student at the NSW Conservatorium - a musical treat. Yesterday we left Rose Bay, motored past the Opera House and under the bridge and stopped for fuel at Birkenhead Point. It's a terrific place to provision with a Shopping Arcade and fuel dock.Sailors can leave their dinghy tied up (for a moderate price) and bring their shopping carts right down to the dock.

Tomorrow we'll return to Birkenhead, and Customs are supposed to meet us there to clear us out of Australia at 8a.m.

So - Farewell Australia - we've had a marvellous time in this beautiful country.