Where Have I Been?

 I'm quite shocked, on returning to Blogger after what I thought was a not a very long absence, to find two things - one, that I haven't posted on here since February; two, that the whole damn thing has changed completely while I've been gone. What's this all about then, and why didn't anyone ask me? Oh, well, yes, I suppose because I haven't been around to ask ... !

We stopped for 2 nights in Bangkok

So let's see how this new Blogger set-up works, then, and find out whether everything I write vanishes into the ether. Firstly, apologies for absence - but I've been away, you see. Somewhere beginning with A, where I saw creatures beginning with a K, and where (through the rain) I saw a famous bridge and a famous Opera House. Right!  We had a month in Australia, starting out in Sydney where we had three days of almost solid rain, resulting in flooding throughout the whole New South Wales area. 

Sydney Harbour Bridge on a dismal rainy day!

Remember, back then at the beginning of March, it had been dry in England for a long time, so this came as a bit of a shock! (And it feels like we brought it back home with us!) .

From Sydney we spent four days driving along the coast road to Phillip Island in Victoria, where my brother and sister-in-law now live. Fortunately the weather improved! 

Scenery on Phillip Island

    

Mallacoota - one of the beautiful places we stayed at along the road.

Melbourne from the Yarra River

A wallaby we 'met' on Phillip Island'

The Grotto, Great Ocean Road



The 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road



Perth





We stayed for 10 days altogether on Phillip Island, seeing the lovely scenery and lots of wildlife as well as spending time with my family. We were close enough to visit Melbourne city from there, and eventually drove on  to Adelaide, seeing all the amazing sights of the Great Ocean Road on the way.

Our final stop in Australia was the beautiful city of Perth, where we spent three days before flying to Singapore for our stopover on the way home.

And we arrived home just in time for the last few days of the nice weather you had here in March - before the deluge began!

It was an amazing holiday - part of which was useful research as part of my next book is set in Australia!  But I must admit I'm finding it hard to get back into the writing groove now.  Of course it was great to be back with our lovely family - the babies had grown, and changed, so much while we were away!  And we've since had a great three-day break with the entire family down in the New Forest - in the rain!  I'd love to add some photos of that too, but adding pictures in this new Blogger set-up has just about done my head in, which explains why the pictures above are a bit all-over-the-place.  I hope it's going to get easier with practice!!