Almost as soon as we waved our first guest, Robin, off on the train down to Sydney to continue his adventure, I was back at Broadmeadow Station to pick up Ed and Archie. 
Ian was working at the Habitat then meeting us once we got home but as soon as we arrived in Lemon Tree Passage my phone rang and it was Ian telling me to bring them straight to the Habitat as there was a koala but he was very active and could move on at any time, so we turned around and high tailed it down there. 
The koala was a big male and very low down the tree, he obviously thought the mating season had started as he had been going from tree to tree marking them with the scent gland on his chest with Ian in hot pursuit so he did not lose him before Archie arrived.
After taking plenty of pictures of him we wandered around the Habitat and found a female high in the branches, if you look carefully you can see her in the photo with Eddie and Archie. It was a very successful day in the koala department because, as well as these two, Ella was in her usual tree down near the marina, a three koala day is very special.
The weather was glorious and the following day we took the boys to see various beaches around the bay where they swam and played in the sand. Eddie came out with the quote of the trip when he said, "Do you come down to this beach in winter?" To which I replied, "this is winter." 

We wanted to give our visitors a taste of as many different bits of Australia as we could in the limited time available, they had already been to Sydney for a couple of days and were heading up to the Great Barrier reef after leaving us so we had booked a trip to the outback.
It was going to be a 2300 km round trip so it made sense to get up at 4am for the first part of the journey - 12 hours to Gundabooka National Park, still in New South Wales, back of Bourke (to an Australian, going back o'Bourke means officially entering the outback). All three of us adults drove in turn so we were able to press on with no lengthy stops, although we did briefly stop in Walgett which is a very grim little town with grilles up at all the shop windows. We decided we wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible and it turned out we were right as we heard on the return journey that someone was murdered there that very night! 

As we neared Bourke I prepared myself for big things as all the road signs and maps made out Bourke to be huge but it turned out just to be big compared with the other towns around it and was a bit of a disappointment, however, it is the gateway to the outback so significant in that respect. We arrived at our destination at around 4pm. It was beautiful, all dark red earth and beating sun just as you would imagine. We had booked to stay in the shearers accomodation, which consisted of 6 bedrooms each with two bunks, a communal kitchen and eating area then outside toilets and showers (redback spider heaven). There was a fire pit outside which was great as it gets pretty cool at night and it is unusual to be allowed to light a fire in the scrub so Archo (his new outback name) gathered sticks and we ate dinner around the camp fire before retiring pretty tired.

The next morning we went exploring and found the old sheep shearing shed which was surprisingly intact with much of the equipment still in place. The shearers names were written on the walls with the number of sheep they had sheared beside them, it was quite easy to imagine the heat, smells and noise of a working shearing shed as we soaked up the atmosphere. We followed this with a walk along a track through the bush and were surprised by the carpet of beautiful spring flowers under the trees as far as the eye could see, it was like an English meadow, they must have had a reasonable amount of rain recently because it is usually just red dirt. 

There was another walk marked on the map which led to Aboriginal rock art in the caves at the end, so we followed a path among huge rocks and boulders and spotted a kangaroo grazing nearby. We looked around to point him out and realised we had lost Eddie, we could hear him yodelling in the distance so Ian and Archie stayed with the kangaroo while I went to find him. Once Eddie was retrieved we finished the walk and drove back to our shearers quarters, it was around 5pm by now which is the best time to spot kangaroos as they are diurnal animals. We saw heaps, big reds, medium greys and wallabies but the highlight was seeing an emu with four stripey babies. 

 After a dinner of Ian and Archie's famous Archoburgers we had an early night with a plan in place to get up at sunrise to go and spot more kangaroos.

                                           

We were very excited to welcome our first visitor from England this week. Robin flew in on Wednesday having spent a couple of days with Zoe and we were keen to show off our lovely neighbourhood to him.
The koalas at the Habitat decided to go into hiding but good old Ella was in her tree as usual so the koala box was ticked and the next challenge was to try and find some whales. This is not the best time for whale watching as the humpbacks have nearly all passed by on their migration north and very few have started the return journey with their calves. Clearly nobody had told the whales this because we went out  with our favourite whale cruise operator Imagine Cruises and, after a bit of desperate searching, we saw about six and were even treated to one leaping right out of the water at bang on four o'clock. The whale watchers call it 'breach o'clock' because this is when they jump, goodness only knows why.
Robin was very lucky with the weather and Friday dawned bright and sunny again as we drove inland to the historic country town of Wollombi. The town was a staging post on the Great North Road, built between 1827 and 1834 to link Sydney with the Hunter region. Up to five hundred convicts worked on it at a time in gangs of fifty and remnants of the convict roadwork can be seen today like the bridge in the photo. The road was never used as much as anticipated because steam ships started to transport people and goods to Newcastle instead.
Wollombi is typical of a town which would once have been home to far more residents than it is today. The usual General Store stands in the middle of the main street and the old court house is now home to a museum with a tiny police station hiding behind. There were a couple of other shops but they did not seem to be expecting much custom and one shopkeeper had popped a note on the door and gone off to do something more interesting. 
The last building in town was the pub which allows free camping in its garden on the banks of a creek, it looked like a jolly nice spot and we are planning to go back for a few days with the caravan and explore the area further.
We drove a little further to look at remaining bits of convict built road and passed a field with wallabies grazing (wallabies - tick). On the way home we spotted some kangaroos (tick) and a dead wombat, I'm not sure if that counts.

A charity fundraising trivia night was hosted in Newcastle a couple of weeks ago and we were invited to join a team by some friends representing the Tilligerry Peninsula. Our team squeaked to victory and we all won tickets to the fabulous Regal Cinema in a Newcastle suburb. 
We had heard great reports about the Regal, it is run by volunteers as a community cinema and shows films to suit the audience. They try to show Australian films whenever they can but the movie we went to see was made in New Zealand - The Hunt For The Wilderpeople. I don't know if it has been released in the UK yet but it is a must see especially for any of my old colleagues at the school.
The cinema itself is housed in an old weatherboard building, no bigger than a bungalow at the front but goes back a way and seats about 100. We were not paying on this occasion but, even if we were, it only costs $8 (£5) for any seat at all performances. As the customers arrive they are greeted with a glass of wine, soft drinks, cups of tea and a buffet of pizza, sausage rolls, cakes etc all included in the price. The various showings have different catering, afternoon performances come with scones, jam and cream, we were there on cocktail night and, at the end of each month, they have a 'whatever is left in the pantry night'. That sounds like it is worth a visit. 
Before the film started we were entertained by The High Andies, a trio playing Hawaiian music while the volunteers came around with more trays of food in case you had not eaten enough. We could not believe how generous it all was or how hard the volunteers worked, well done everyone, we will certainly be visiting again. 
After a wet week the weather is starting to perk up just in time for our first UK visitor, Robin. The koalas appear to be on the move and there is a real feeling that spring is around the corner. The prospective boyfriend of Ella, our local koala, is still hanging around and she is looking a bit more interested, the birds are pairing up and I spotted this family of three tawny frogmouth owls in a tree together. The tawny frogmouth is a master of disguise, I wonder if you can spot all three. 

Newcastle hosted the Classic British Car Show at the weekend. We love a car show and so do our friends Tim and Virginia so they came up from Sydney in Tim's Triumph Dolomite Sprint and off we went to the show.
It was in a fabulous setting on the foreshore at the mouth of the Hunter River overlooked by Nobby's Head lighthouse and Fort Scratchley and the location set the cars off beautifully. There were heaps of cars, far more than I expected, with most British classics represented with rows of glorious E-Types, Austin Healeys, Jaguars, Minis and so on. Tim and I spotted the cars we learned to drive in, mine was a Cortina and his a Ford Anglia which was also our first family car when I was a child.
The cars looked even better because we are having a run of sunny, warm days which are making us feel like spring is around the corner, I hope it stays this way because we have a steady stream of friends from the UK visiting in August and we want them to see the place at its best. 

This is a wonderful time of year at the Tilligerry Habitat where we volunteer. We were there manning the information centre yesterday and had a three koala day! This is unusual because koalas are not social and the males in particular give each other a very wide berth, there tends to be one alpha male in each location and he sees off any travelling males who might happen to wander in, we think we have a male at each end of the Habitat with a female or two dotted around but they are mysterious animals and nobody is sure. So it was great to be able to send visitors off with their maps and be pretty sure they would see koalas because they are difficult to spot and we have days when we can't find any to show off. However, there is plenty to look at even if the koalas are in hiding and this time of year is rather special.

The walk around the Habitat is beautiful and tranquil all year round but at the moment the wattle is flowering (yellow fluffy blossom on acacias), banksias have huge bottlebrush blooms and grevillas are in flower. Many of the birds like to eat these and I spotted a pair of black cockatoos, one standing guard while the other was having a real feast. They are very shy birds in spite of being massive - much bigger than their white cousins, they look like Lancaster Bombers when they fly over - and we often only know they are around by their distinctive cry. The locals say they are only seen and heard before it is going to rain and the Aboriginal story is that the black cockatoo came into being when a white cockatoo fell into a fire, was burned black and flew out crying for water which is why they call out for the rain.

Ian and I are now the proud holders of New South Wales boating licences. We passed the theory test a few weeks ago but could not obtain our full licences until we had been out on the water on three occasions demonstrating our skills, or lack of them, to an experienced skipper. 
A friend and her husband who both meet the criteria bravely volunteered to take on this task, but the weather has not been kind from a boating point of view. We have had fine, sunny days but it has been quite windy so our trips on the water were quite choppy affairs. Although we are in a bay, it is bigger than Sydney Harbour so can get a bit of a chop up when it is blowy and after a few days of chickening out, we decided we had to go for it or we would not have our licences in time for Eddie and Archie's visit next month.
One of the more scary thing you are required to prove you can do is taking the boat 'over the plane'. This is revving really high so the boat rears up but then settles to aquaplaning across the waves. Non licence holders are not allowed to do this as they have to keep under 10 knots at all times, so the first time you brave it is under the watching eye of your assessor and it is doubly terrifying if the water is a bit rough. However, like most things, the first time is the worst and it was all plain sailing after that and we were fully signed off and picked up our licences at the end of last week.
It is pretty windy still so we decided to go over to Nelson Bay today to check out a historical walk we thought our forthcoming visitors might enjoy. After stopping to marvel at the 24 hour live bait vending machine, we picked up the brochure from the visitors centre and went in search of the numbered posts in the guide. Well it was a lovely walk but, of the twenty odd information posts promised, only one was still standing. Once we realised this was the case, we worked out where each one should be and read the guide to see what was there only to find that every stopping place, whether it was a fisherman's cottage, boat jetty, ocean swimming pool, first church in the bay, first post office etc, etc had all either been washed out to sea, destroyed by the elements or knocked down to make way for the new marina in 1987. We will be complaining, especially as we had to pay for the guide book. 
It was a fabulous walk though with great views over Nelson Bay Marina, which is very beautiful, even though it is responsible for the destruction of all the local history and we enjoyed checking out some of the interesting houses we would never have found if we hadn't gone on the walk. Afterwards we comforted ourselves with a Red Ned's pie, Australians love a pie and Red Ned's are exceptional, Ian had a prawn and scallop (though he usually favours the lobster and barrimundi with ginger) while I tucked into a buttered chick pea curry pie, they certainly went some way to making up for our disappointment.
Spring seems to be in the air here, the birds are pairing up and Ella, our resident koala has an admirer. She doesn't seem very interested but he is hanging around hopefully so, watch this space!

While all the political turmoil has been going on in Britain, it has sort of slipped under the radar a bit that we were having a General Election in Australia. Even here on the run up, the TV news appeared to be concentrating more on Brexit than on the possible change in government of their own country as it was expected to be a close run thing.
Voting is compulsory here so election day is quite different, it is held on a Saturday and has a touch of a party atmosphere about it. Unlike in Britain, where people drift in as and when during a long day, the polling stations close at 6pm and are crowded and most have a sausage sizzle. When asked to sum up the forthcoming election in six words, more members of the public answered 'Looking forward to the sausage sizzle' than anything else. 
Mind you the electorate need sustenance when they are voting here especially as this was a double dissolution election - meaning votes had to be cast for both the upper and lower houses. Also, because there is preferential voting here you don't get to tick a box then go home, you have to number preferences on both papers and could spend all day racking your brains in your little booth. Alternatively, voters can choose to go along with the preferences of their chosen party so, for example, if you were voting for the Greens in our district of Paterson and wanted to go along with their preferences your choices would go;
1) Green Party
2) Australian Cyclists Party
3) Animal Justice Party
4) Voluntary Euthanasia Party
5) Socialist Alliance
6) Labor
The ballot paper Ian is holding up in the photo is for the Senate and the paper lists all 151 candidates for the 12 available New South Wales seats. You have to number at least 1 - 12 but can number all the way through to 151 if you so desire. I can't vote yet, otherwise we might have been there all day!
We bought our snacks for the evening ready for an all nighter watching the results pouring in and switched on the TV for the election results show only to find the programme finished at 10pm with the announcement that counting would resume on Tuesday - they were taking 2 days off!
Anyway 9 days later, the Liberal/National coalition limped over the line (don't even get me started on the fact that there is a permanent coalition) by this time it was a bit of a damp squib and most people had lost interest, as I am sure you have reading this.
Being in government limbo didn't stop us pressing on with our renovations and Ian is currently putting the finishing touches to our bike shed. We try, whenever possible to use recycled materials and this has been built almost entirely from pallets (take note Mark Pulsford). It looks rather good, I think he is taking his design influence from the opera house.

While Zoe was staying with us we took the train down to Sydney to see Vivid, where selected buildings have magnificent light shows played on them after dark for a few weeks. We set off early to make a day of it and, instead of taking the train all the way into Circular Quay, we got off a couple of stops short and walked in over the Harbour Bridge. The views from up there are sensational though I imagine the brave people we saw setting off on the bridge climb would see even more. These little groups of climbers can be seen all the time if you look carefully at the bridge. They are not easy to pick out because they have to wear boiler suits which make them blend in with the bridge so as not to distract drivers. I have the greatest respect for them, my knees turn to jelly just walking across on the footpath.
Ian has been set the challenge of finding us a different bit of Sydney to look at every time we go and this time he chose Barangaroo Point Park. This is a new park that has been developed on the harbour in an area which used to be home to old freight docks, the rest of the space is going to be taken up by a massive Crown Casino complex, but the park is delightful. It is a really peaceful place to walk, cycle or just eat your sandwiches and watch the boating activity on the harbour. They have made a marvellous job of it, planting the whole area with native trees and shrubs, it is a really neat addition to Sydney Harbour.
We shuffled back to Circular Quay via the Botanic Gardens, which are always worth a visit, and got ourselves into position with a Hungry Jack's in hand to wait for Vivid to start (Hungry Jack's is what Burger King is called here).
Vivid was good last year but even better this time. The display on the Opera House took about 20 minutes to get through its full cycle, my favourite bit was when the, astonishingly 3D, turtles were walking across it. The Museum of Contemporary Art was incredible too with blobby paint in all different colours cascading down the building, the pictures don't really do it justice.
After a visit to the Hunter Valley the next day, Zoe flew back to Melbourne and we settled down to study for our boat licence test. We bough a boat a few weeks ago (Bunny II, Ian's family had Bunny I when he was a child) but have not felt up to taking it out until we passed the theory part of our test. The boat licence test has two elements, theory then three trips out with an experienced skipper (anyone who has held a NSW boat licence for two years or more).
We were surprisingly nervous about the test and set off to the Marine Rescue headquarters with mounting trepidation, it was ok though, we both passed. You can take your boat out before gaining a licence but cannot go above 10 knots, so we ventured out for the first time this week to get the hang of the controls so we don't look like complete idiots when we go out with the experienced skipper assessing us.
It didn't go too badly. We chose a quiet time midweek when we thought nobody would see us making fools of ourselves at the boat ramp but, of course, it turned out to be surprisingly busy so we had a small, amused audience. We managed to launch it without too many dramas or arguments and took a slow trip up the creek and back. When we came to put it back on the trailer (a procedure we were secretly dreading) one of our neighbours appeared from nowhere walking his dog, so we had an audience for that too! It was all fine however, and we are now confident we will be up to speed by the time our friend Eddie and his son Archie come to visit from England in August.