In New Zealand we visited Christchurch. The city has recently suffered a series of devastating earthquakes from September 4th 2010 to September 3rd 2012. We had heard about them on the news with interest as Peter’s son and his girlfriend lived there in 2010, however we had no idea of the extent the damage to the city.
Christchurch Cathedral
One of the first things we did in Melbourne (apart from the obligatory dipping of our toes in the Southern Ocean) was climb The Eureka Skydeck
The sea was much colder than we expected having just come from the tropical water temperatures of Perth!
In Melbourne we saw these birds that looked just like coots from a distance, but when we got closer to them they were a lovely blue colour.
One of the best things about taking a holiday in January, is that you get to miss January in the UK. When we left it had been raining for weeks, and although the sun wasn’t setting until 4.30pm, it was dark enough at 2pm to turn on the lights. We hear that it has been like that the whole time we were away, so we really did pick the right time this year to leave Europe!
Having spent a few days on the coast we were quite excited to visit Western Australia’s Capital City. The skyline looked great as we glimpsed it along the highway, with lots of sparkling high rise buildings.
The building on the right of this picture is called The Bell Tower. It houses bells from St Martin in The Fields in London, bells that are older than Perth!
Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!
Kookaburra sitting on a TV aerial
We were watching the sunset one evening on a beach in Perth, and suddenly I realised that the people fishing in the evening were being observed by some very large birds! We don’t see Pelicans in England, apart from in Zoos, so it was great to see them in the wild
Western Australia has lovely sunsets over the sea so most evenings we scrambled over the sand to watch the sun go down
Here are some of my favourite WA sunsets;
Walkway to the beach
I was sent this story on Facebook recently & really liked it, so saved it for a blog post. I am in the middle of a Paulo Coelho reading phase at the moment, and in the middle of ‘The Devil & Miss Prym’ I came across the same story! So just in case anyone hasn’t read the story, here it is! 
A man and his dog were walking along a road. Continue reading
One of the best things about coming home is finally getting a chance to look through all my photographs and to share some of my favourites with my friends and family.
The Jetty for the Ferry to Penguin Island
Day One 