Life in Oz

Australia...finally! Well, southeast Asia and all it's attendant noise, bustle, excitement and travails is behind us now. We are staying at a friend of Ivan's named Pat Catlin. It's been a real treat so far and he and his brother Mike have gone far beyond kindness in giving us a nice place to stay, air conditioning,a mobile phone to use, the run of the house and dvds to last us til our eyeballs fall out. It's such luxury to sleep in a real bed with real pillows and to cook comfort food. I am feeling better now and aside from a small weight loss, no lasting effects from the deadly beef hot-pot. We've been just laying about a lot, looking at tv and movies while we recover from jetlag and have only made one brief foray into the big city of Sydney as we are staying out in the Shire as it's called here - Yowie Bay to those in the know.

By weird coincidence, on the boat we took in Halong Bay Vietnam we met 2 lovely ladies named Tonia and Rosemary, her mother. Her house is 5 minutes away from Pat's house and today we had a lovely brunch with her and her family. Small world hardly says it. For the time being, we are just hanging out and have yet to make any decisions on the next destination. We will be travelling to Brisbane while we are here and also to Adelaide to visit other folks we met in Vietnam. It's hard to say where we go from here but stay tuned as I'm sure there will be twists and turns to follow in this story. Cheers and Love to all.