A happy, sad, short trip

This week, T and I took a quick four day trip to California to attend Uncle Phil's memorial. This was a very different feeling trip from our usual ones. Usually heading out to the airport means that we have exciting adventures or at least lots of fun times waiting on us at the end of our flight. It felt odd to go through all of those same motions of getting ready for travel, but without the happy anticipation that usually comes along with it. Of course, even though the occasion was very sad and there were lots of tears, we still did get to see lots of family. And that can't help but make things better.

And we were also in beautiful Southern California! It wasn't overly hot, so the days were really pleasant for walking around. We managed to squeeze in a walk on the beach and a hike at Torrey Pines around the scheduled events for the week. We were lucky enough to get to hike Torrey Pines with amazing Cousin Megan, who arranged it for all of us out of towners.

We also encountered a taste of second home while walking around the shops in town.

And of course, no trip to the States is complete without a stop at Whole Foods! We have nothing like it in Sydney, so I always try to squeeze in a visit. This time, we were strolling with Dad, so we made a stop at the cookie bar. Pretty hard to beat that!

This trip, while short and sad, made me appreciate how lucky we are to have the wonderful family that we do. And how lucky we are for every mintute we get to spend together.

 

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Maquarie University

On Sunday, it was a lovely day - the best kind of winter day here. The sky was really blue and the weather was warm, up in the 70s. So we decided to get out and adventure a little bit. We took the train up north for a while to the Macquarie University station. We had no real reasons to go there, except that train rides are capped at $2.50 on Sundays and the university is the only interesting-sounding stop on the train route!

The university, it turns out, is just a five minute walk from the station. It was pretty quiet for a Sunday, so lots of cool birds were out.

The school seems to be basically a commuter school, as we saw pretty much nobody while we were walking around. Of course, maybe we are just getting old and our 11 AM visit was far too early for college kids after a Saturday night. 

We both really liked the campus; there was lots of green spaces and lots of artwork scattered around. It was more like a park than a school in some ways. 

The lake on campus 

There was also an actual nature walk on the campus near the biology buildings. It was small and short, but we really felt miles away from the city when were there!

On the nature walk!

Eucalyptus trees shedding their bark

Even though it wasn't high adventure, it felt great to be out of the house in the sunshine!

Bruno & me

There is a new dog in the office. His name is Bruno.

He's still a puppy, so he has spurts of energy when he really, really wants to play.

(Video by my lovely co-worker Ashley)

Bruno has so much fun being at the office that he's usually pooped by the end of the day.

I <3 having such a good office buddy!

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A final post about Vivid and family

I had been putting off writing more posts about Vivid and our visit from Aunt Kaye and Uncle Phil. We were so busy having fun while they were here, I was putting off capturing all our good times until they had left.

Sadly, unexpectedly, and unfathomably, Uncle Phil passed away a few days after they returned to the U.S. We are so heartbroken, and the sadness we feel for Aunt Kaye and their family is hard to describe.

Needless to say, the memories we have of experiencing Vivid and Sydney with Aunt Kaye and Uncle Phil are now bittersweet. So I won't try to share any more pictures or thoughts about it, but will just say that we are so very lucky to have spent that time with them.

There will be places and things about Sydney that will always make me think of Uncle Phil from now on. I hope that, someday, the thoughts will be happier ones than they are today.

Blue Mountains Adventures

On Saturday #1 of Aunt Kaye and Uncle Phil's visit, we grabbed a car and headed out to the Blue Mountains. We didn't have any specific destinations; it was just a beautiful day to get out of the city and see some of the amazing lands around Sydney.

Our first stop was at some of the overlooks to check out the mountains. I like going to the overlooks because it's such a dramatic change from being in the city.  It always amazes me that after just 1 1/2 hours drive, we can be in such a drastically different place. We stopped at Evans Lookout first.

Then we headed over to Govetts Leap overlook to try out the Braeside Walk. The walk looked interesting enough: it went to an overlook for Bridal Veil Falls before descending a decent bit. Then the walk crossed the stream (before it becomes the falls) and then followed the water up to an old abandoned dam. The dam used to store water that was used by the steam trains in the mountains.

The walk was really lovely because we got to see the mountains, a waterfall, a creek, and some surprisingly grassy areas. Lots to look at and take in!

Photo by Uncle Phil

After our morning's hike, we made a quick stop at The Three Sisters to take the standard tourist photos. Of course the overlook was really crowded and full of tourists, but the sun was warming up the day and it was feeling really pleasant.

Here I noticed that Uncle Phil and Toby have an eerily similar approach to dealing with crowded spaces: they head off to the most deserted area they can find and make themselves look generally unapproachable.

After a quick bite for lunch in Katoomba, we headed out of the mountains. But we decided to make one more stop, which turned out to be one of the hidden surprises of the day. I'd read about the Kings Tableland in a hiking guide book, and I decided that we should try to find it. The book was very sketchy on details, with statements like "exact access to the trail changes due to land disputes" and "look for a narrow, overgrown path." But I figured with four of us, we could probably find it.

And find it we did! We parked the car in a questionable spot near someone's house, and headed out through the narrow, overgrown path. Luckily, we came to a sign before too long, which pointed us out toward the actual Tableland plateau. And after walking for just a few minutes, we found this amazing sight!

We learned from the signs and from my guidebook that this plateau has been an Aboriginal gathering place and is a very significant area for some of the groups. It was easy to see why after being there.

Photo by Uncle Phil

It was also quite a change from our previous stop at the Three Sisters, with all the chaos of the tour buses and selfie sticks. We had had the spot all to ourselves.

At one point, we heard a scream from Aunt Kaye. It scared me to death, because I was sure she'd dropped off over the edge. Luckily it was just because she'd almost put her hand on a giant spider. He was a pretty intimidating looking fellow! We used our photos to later determine with a fair degree of confidence that he was a huntsman spider - not poisonous, but the kind that do grow to a serious size. A very Australian end to our day in the mountains!

We took a side path on the way back to the car to check out a shelter area that was supposed to have some Aboriginal engravings. We looked long and hard but weren't able to find a trace of them.

Then four tired people headed back into the city! In a move that Toby later coined the "breaking your guests" maneuver, we unwisely decided to head out to see the Vivid lights with no real break in between activities. But that's a story for another blog post!

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