More on Sovereign Islands

"Money can't buy you happiness" is how the old adage goes - but it certainly helps! The home we visited yesterday on Sovereign Islands looks tiny in comparison to the one across the road from it and yet it has the same number of bedrooms.

As I pointed out, each and every home on the Sovereign Islands is individual. There is not one home that you would be able to purchase here under three million dollars and any vacant land (such as next to this home) is eagerly snatched up and before too long the security fences go up and the construction of a new masterpiece is begun. Each house block faces water. This home faces a man made canal which means it is a safe anchorage for a very large boat - each home has its own pontoon.
This particular house has four levels, garages and offices being on the lowest level and then three levels of living and entertainment. It is fabulous! This home is not too big for the people who live here - there are people coming and going all the time and I haven't met anyone so willing to offer a bed to friends as these people. They live life to the fullest and they enjoy sharing it.
When I return home the contrast between my lifestyle and expectations and theirs really hits me - but I am happy with my situation and love my "country" home!
AJ

Amazing Gold Coast

Christmas and all it entails is now quietly slipping into the past and once again normal life can resume.
Desperate to get out and about Colin and I hopped into the car to go and visit family that live at the Northern end of the Gold Coast. The area in which they live is reclaimed land - land which used to be sand at the bottom of the sheltered patch of briny between South Stradbroke Island and the mainland. A series of islands was created and a covenant ensured that only homes with a huge price tag for their constructions were permitted. As a result the islands are home to some of the most amazing mansions you could hope to see. Some are beautiful, many are unusual, some have multiple garages for dozens of vehicles but all are magnificent.
I just had to stop and take a photograph of one of the homes that is still under construction. If you click on the picture to see it larger you will see evidence of the builder's activity in front of the main entrance. While most of the homes on the Sovereign Islands are huge, this one manages to dwarf most of them.

The house covers four house blocks. This is not really the front of the building - this is the part that faces the street, the front of the house faces the waterway known as the Broadwater. Only a regular sized family lives in this amazing mansion - a couple with two children. They may be regular sized but they certainly cannot be called a "regular family"!
If the outside of the home looks this grand I suspect that when finished the interior will be breath taking. I doubt very much if I shall ever get the opportunity to see the inside or even the front of this home but I can hope!
AJ

More colour from my patch of garden

I must be doing something right this year! My garden is really rewarding me with colour. I suspect it is my industrious husband's doing - he is out every single day with the hose, watering my seedlings and providing me with trailer loads of new soil. Tomorrow we are off to see if we can purchase some sugar cane mulch direct from the farm! My garden is really "spoilt"! I think it gets more attention than we do!

Number one picture is another look at my pretty multicoloured Tibouchina mutabilis. With these blooms all close together you can see how they change from white to a stronger pink colour. I prune this bush back once it has finished flowering and that keeps it from getting too big but better than that it develops more flower branches for the next year. Last year this bush was quite open but this year is more dense. Next year it should be even better.

The Agapanthus are out! They really are a majestic plant with their strappy green leaves and tall stems with big heads of blue on the top - they are such a contrast to most things in my garden which seem to be various shades of pink! I suppose I will have to dig some of them out after their flowering is over - they have multiplied so that they take up quite a bit of room. I wont be throwing them away though, when I lift them I shall plant them down the side of the driveway that goes down to the shed in the back. They wont mind being in the shade of trees and come November we shall be rewarded with a fantastic display of blue!

I have only one white Agapanthus and it is a little slower to open than the blue, It also looks a bit lonely but it will have "pups" so that I will have two or three plants next year.

The best bit of all is kept til last - the daylilies start showing off in November! I have about eight different daylilies and, like the agapanthus, they have pups that give me new plants every year so I have clumps of daylilies all through the garden ranging from single buttercup yellow to deep red that is almost brown. I love daylilies and have visited daylily farms - this is where some of my plants were purchased. I have a gorgeous one that a friend brought for me from a holiday and another that I bought from a gardener who had a stall on the side of the road! I will share some more of their beauty with you another time.
Dont forget that to see the pictures larger, click on them!
AJ

Yellow flower

Thanks to Jenny in Western Australia I now have a name for my bright and cheerful yellow flowers!

So for those of you who are curious, this yellow daisy is Coreopsis, It multiplies quite well and can be pulled apart easily and spread around. I started with only a punnet of seedlings so all these plants in one garden plus the plants in the next picture, in an adjacent garden are from those original six. I have not found it to be weed-like. It does not spread wildly appearing all through the garden unexpectedly - plus it is fairly shallow rooted and really easy to pull out should the plants become too numerous.

A friend gave me the pretty flowering shrub (lots of the plants in my garden have a story!). I was told it would be a white Tobouchina but, as you can see it is not completely white. The new flowers are white with pink on the back of the petals and as the days pass that colour appears on the white front of the petals. Because the colours mutate the plant has been called "Tibouchina mutabilis" Which, for me, makes remembering the name so much easier! This same friend gave me four different cuttings from his white Tibouchina but not one of them turned out to be white. The other three are deep purple. The purple variety is known as "Tibouchina austenville" and is the most common of the varieties seen around this area. it will be a few months before the third variety in my garden comes into bloom again. It is a pretty pink colour that does not mutate. The flowers are rather tatty when seen closely but the show created by the masses of flowers makes up for that.
(Click on a picture and you will see it larger, then click on the "back" button to return to the blog)
AJ

Little critters

I must apologise for being so slack about writing in my blog. Just when I think I have my life organised so that it is all mine, I volunteer to help people "do things" and so find I have no time at all! Today I have a little time just for me so here I am again!!!
While chasing around in the garden with the camera in search of "small" things for the photographic topic for Visions I came across all sorts of little bugs and spiders. Some lived to see another day but some have hopped off to another planet.

My first photo is not of a Calendular - a rather large showy flower that is usually a brilliant orange colour, no, this is a much small flower that comes up every year in my garden - I bought the first punnet of seedlings about ten years ago and since then I have split them and moved them around the garden and they flower prolifically for about three weeks. Each flower is about the size of a ten cent piece. No way can I remember the name of it though. Sorry about that!
Now I come to the bugs. There were lots of tiny spiders - I was using a macro lens so those tiny spiders now look quite impressive and a bit scary.

Now this one looks quite fearsome! But when you remember the size of a begonia (tree begonia) flower you then may realise that it is very small indeed.
This is the web of another of my garden inhabitants.

I am not sure if Mrs Spider is inside the funnel or if she expects her prey to get trapped in it. The web covered quite a large area between leaves and must have been newly made because there was nothing trapped and it was undamaged in any way.

The last little monster was really small - the web was stretched between three leaves and the spider was weighting down the middle of it. I thought the spider was transparent until I focused the macro lens on it and saw that rather than transparent it was a subtle green colour. The fancy markings on the spider's body surprised me. With the naked eye I couldn't see it. (Mind you I do need glasses if I have to read anything!!!)
 There are plenty more bugs and critters crawling and hopping around in my garden. There are even some miniature grasshoppers that make lots of little round holes in the Chrysanthemum leaves and the ones I found I photographed and sprayed. I obviously did not manage to find all of them because I have found more "aerated" leaves since.
A little reminder before I close. Click on the photos if you would like to see them larger. Click on the "back" arrow (top left) to return to the blog.
AJ

showing off again

Yesterday I took my tiny high definition video camera around the garden to make a record of the flowers that I have in bloom at the moment. Today I put the shots together with some music.
I suggest you click on the title at the top left of the video embedded in this blog so that you can watch the video in Youtube.
The sides are trimmed off , which I find irritating!
Here it is


AJ

Smaller and smaller

I just had to share this with you!
In the mail today was an ordinary looking envelope. Inside it was something that is far from ordinary looking. This is one more of my Ebay purchases and although the description told that it was "the smallest USB memory stick" I still did not visualise that it would be quite as small as it is.
Here are a couple of photos to give you some idea of why I had a surprise.

The thickness of the entire memory stick is the size of the plastic bit in the mouth of the regular USB memory stick! and . . . . it is 16G ! The cost? five cents short of $15 including postage from Singapore.
I have formatted this midget and it is now ready to be used. (Formatting makes sure that there are no Trojans lurking on the drive).
I love Ebay shopping!
AJ

Morning light

I enjoy taking my dogs to the park for a walk and because they are big dogs and feel rather responsible for me, I walk early - before there are other people with dogs out walking! They are too strong for me should they decide to chase off any opposition! So far I have managed without a problem. The trouble is, as summer rolls nearer the daylight starts earlier and earlier! I will soon have to take one dog at a time "just in case" - but that means twice the distance for me! The dogs are always on their leads - or I would spend most of the morning trying to find them!
When we walk along the footpath the two dogs trot side by side and right at my side - so they look very well trained. That is until the outside dog decides to suddenly sniff at a tree trunk and shoots off to the left. The sudden pull manages to catch me off balance and I very nearly get yanked over the back of the dog that is still beside me (usually Byron). That might sound quite funny but I can assure you that it doesn't feel very funny at the time! Whoa!
Our morning stroll takes us into the Hinterland Park - which is deserted at this time of the day. Most times I do not see anything striking enough to take out the camera - which is always in my shoulder bag along with a collection of blue plastic bags for doggy-do pickups, and my mobile phone should I need rescuing! But one morning the light was beautiful and I managed to juggle the dogs - who both wanted to sniff different trees since I had stopped walking - and firstly captured the light racing through the trees in a small area of wetlands.

There is a saying "The best camera is the one you have with you" and this little camera is just so handy. It was left behind on the coach driven by my tour guide son, back in 2007 (I think) and was never claimed. I sent away for a battery charger and another battery and it has been my constant companion since then. I have no qualms about letting my little grandchildren use it. It seems to be almost indestructible! Besides which I love to see the world through children's eyes! So this camera is the one that lives in a handbag and when I am using the Nikon D90 it stays in there!
Another shot from that walk in the park is this one of a spider's web.

Not being able to play with depth of field with a little point and shoot camera, it is quite difficult to get a satisfactory picture of a web. Against the brightness of the sky it has disappeared and yet to my eyes it was quite visible. Another difficulty is with using the LCD screen as against using a viewfinder. Knowing that the focus is on the right part of the photo is tricky!
To be honest, I have used some of my Photoshop skills to enhance the colour. (If I hadn't told you, would you know?) Yes, another downside of a P&S camera is that changing the white balance and exposure to get the right results is not comparable with the controls on an SLR. But the photos were "almost there" and just needed a little warmth added. So "The best camera is the one you have with you" plus a little skill with Photoshop!
AJ

Showing off in style

There were dozens of amazing floats in the Grand Parade on the final Saturday of the Toowoomba Flower Festival however I will not even attempt to share them all with you! However I will give you a little glimpse.

Do you remember the Smurfs? I had two little plastic smurfs as mascots when I was a teenager (before the Ark sank) so it was with great amusement that I shot this picture and the following one.

They look the same - but so much larger and cuddlier! But who is the girl with them? Is she part of the team or is she there to rescue them if they fall?

The characters from Star Trek were also marching in the parade - Storm troopers! Good fun! I don't remember a little black one though. I shall have to watch the movie again!

Here is a vehicle that proves that learning to drive can be fun! I like the "L" plates on the wheels!
The parade was great - there were so many marchers and different floats that the parade took over an hour to pass. The audience were almost passing out from being in the sun all that time so the marchers dressed in all enveloping costumes must have been cooking! I am glad I had lighter clothing on!
AJ

Spring on the Range

I have just uploaded a little video I have made from the photos and bloggie video that I took on Friday of the beautiful gardens that won prizes in the Toowoomba Flower Festival. I hope you enjoy it.
Click on the title at the top left of the video if you would like to see the video in Youtube - in this blog the sides are trimmed off!
AJ

Link to more photos of Spring in Toowoomba

As promised, I have put my photos of the Gardens I visited into an album.
Here they are.

The Spring Gardens of Toowoomba 2011

Enjoy!
AJ

The colours of Toowoomba

It is Spring and every year Toowoomba celebrates Spring in a big way. Toowoomba is a good two hours drive west from where I live on Queensland's Gold Coast and it has a completely different climate to here. Being on the top of the Great Dividing Range at an altitude of 700m it has a more temperate climate with cold winters and low humidity during summer. The soil is an amazing orange red colour and is the envy of every gardener working the heavy clay soils of Mudgeeraba (my home!) Things grow in it!
A Spring Festival is held at Toowoomba for a full week during September and it culminates in a Grand Parade on the last Saturday of that week. I joined a two day tour to Toowoomba that included a tour of the gardens on one day and the parade on the second. Today I will share a mere handful of photographs that I took in the gardens. More photos will be shown in a separate link to a web album later.

Wisteria is one of the plants that would grow here - I have tried but with limited success, the flowers were not as impressive as on this vine - so I dug it out! The cooler climate seems to suit the Wisteria much better and many of the parks and gardens in Toowoomba have either a purple or a white wisteria.

The brilliant mauve and sheer mass of blooms really is a treat for the camera!

Not all the gardens in Toowoomba are filled with colour like this. The majority of residents do not have the time nor inclination to create a flower garden. But the few people who do have a passion for plants must spend a good part of every day at work in their gardens to have them look so fabulous. This is one of the smaller gardens but the grand champion garden was over an acre in size.

Flowering trees give colour above the head as you walk through the prize gardens. How everyone managed to get all their plants blooming at the same time amazes me! I wonder if these prunus will grow here - I guess there is only one way to find out!

Here is one more garden - I was lucky to be able to take a picture without people in it! These gardens are "crawling" with people wandering through them. One gardener said that last year he had 23,000 people through his garden!

Finally, a little indulgence! I tried not to take too many close up shots of "flowers" - I was supposed to be admiring the gardens rather than individual specimens! However this one just begged to have its picture taken!

Click on any of the pictures to see them larger, then click on the "back" arrow to get back to this blog.
I will share my album of photos tomorrow.
AJ

Culture on the 'Coast

I have done so many things this past week that to write a story about what I have seen and done actually stops me in my tracks! Where to begin!
So to be feminine and non logical I am writing about today first!
It was a hot "summer" day today with the temperature over 30'C and the air was filled with the haze of smoke from grass fires (most likely the fire brigades burning-off the long growth as a safety measure)so wandering around was rather exhausting. But at the same time stimulating.
Today many of the different cultures that make up the people who have made the Gold Coast "home" had made a great effort to demonstrate either their dance, music or their foods. It was the Gold Coast Multi-Cultural Day.
I had barely managed to charge my batteries for my Nikon and my Bloggie camera after two days in Toowoomba but I was so pleased that I had made the effort. The colour and the sharing by everyone was wonderful to see. I stayed three hours and in that time I travelled the world!
I had actually arrived ten minutes before the first "show" (Three stages in action, non stop - and all free) and a brightly dressed Chinese woman encouraged me to sit down and she told me so much about the group she belonged to. It is a strange title for a group of dancers but I will share it with you - "Global Federation of Chinese Business Woman of Australia" (Yes, womAn not womEn)They practice a kind of Tai Chi and martial arts with swords that looks more like a beautiful dance than a type of aggressive attack/defence skill. I took some Bloggie of the sword dance so I will share it later on.

When the ladies posed for a photograph for a friend, of course I could not resist grabbing one myself! Don't they look gorgeous? The woman who was chatting to me is in the centre at the back, in green. Surprisingly most of them did not speak English at all.
When the performance had finished I made my escape (or I would still be talking to the Chinese lady!) and made a bee-line for one of the other stages. On the way I came across three little girls in yellow costumes. They looked so beautiful. I chatted to them and asked them if they were going to be doing some dancing somewhere soon. I asked if their mother's had done their beautiful hairstyles and the floodgates were opened! They turned around so that I could admire them all the better and showed off this hand movement and that dance position until I asked them if I could take a picture of them. I took one but the next thing was that three more children were called over - and then more, so I have three photos of these delightful children (different number in each!) who later were on stage demonstrating Indonesian Dance.

What surprised me was that some of them did not "look" Indonesian - but they may have either an Australian mother or an Australian father. (remember that you can click on the pictures to see them larger - click on the "back" button to return to this blog!) They did dance beautifully - I made a point of returning to the stage for their performance.
While waiting near a stage for a different show - it was an Indian song and music demonstration - I was joined by two little girls who had obviously been to the face painting. I can strike up a conversation with children very easily and these two were just so sweet. I asked them if they would mind if I took a photo of them since they looked so gorgeous and I asked them to put their heads close together and look at me - here is my lovely shot of them.

Don't they have the most beautiful eyes? The face painting is lovely too, not the mess that you sometimes find! I wish that I had found out if their mothers wanted a copy of this photo - maybe they will find it accidentally by finding my blog!
I have so much to share that I will be writing again tomorrow!
AJ

Art on the Sands

All this week the foreshore of Currumbin is enlivened with the addition of some most unusual artworks. Every year the Swell Sculpture festival is held in Currumbin and the entries to this competition - with a major acquisition prize of $20,000 - are displayed for everyone to see and judge both on the grassy roadside and on the sands.
Whenever there is something colourful happening in my part of the world I pick up the camera and check it out!
Here is the album of pictures I took. Click on the picture shown here and then chose "slideshow". When the first image appears, change the length of viewing time to 5 seconds or the pictures will change too quickly.
I hope you enjoy them.
AJ

Swell Sculpture Festival 2011

Remembering yesterday

This week has been one of Heritage  - on Sunday I made my first visit to the Mudgeeraba Heritage Centre because there was to be a special commemoration of the turning on of Electricity 75 years ago.
Of course I was not in Mudgeeraba when it was still dark, in fact I was not even a twinkle in my father's eye at that time, let alone aware of a place called Mudgeeraba! But remembering the things that were done that have influenced today has become very important to Australians. Australia's history is not very long but it is very much appreciated.
The volunteers who are responsible for the very presence of the Heritage Centre had been labouring long and hard at restoring a very old street lamp. Many hours of work had gone into the removal of rust and creation of the perspex "glass" as well as wiring so that the lamp could not only act as a dramatic feature to the grounds but be a security light too.

Speeches were made, local politicians heaped praise and the light was switched on - not with a roll of drums but with the blast from two vintage rifles.

Early pupils from the Mudgeeraba Primary School were among the audience and they were the ones who symbolically switched the light on.

This photo does not show the switching on of the light, it is included to show where the light is and how it fits into its new location. The old buildings are so smart and well maintained as are all the artifacts inside and out. It is a pleasure to walk around and gaze on all these utensils from the past. For there is nothing here of real monetary value but it is all of rich memory value.
Nothing like this can be done without money and all is done by donation. A donation towards the restoration of the old street lamp was given to the Heritage Centre by the Mudg Foundation and after all the speeches the Director of the Mudg Foundation, Peter Oschenbein, handed another cheque to the committee to help with further projects.

If you are interested in learning more about the Mudg Foundation, click here.
I have taken plenty of photographs of the Mudgeeraba Heritage Centre so I will write about the place again!
AJ

Sunshine on the mountain

On the last day of winter the sun came out and it was far too nice to stay at home so the picnic box was packed with tea and biscuits so that we could spend the morning exploring the mountain that is very close to home.
Showers were forcast for the afternoon so we only had the morning to do our driving.
Rain had fallen the day before so I felt that it would be worth going to see the waterfalls - there is only a little catchment area so the falls are less spectacular a few days after the rain. The best time of all is when it is actually raining.
I enjoyed the challenge of taking photos in extremely poor light. I am sharing all of the photos that I took that morning (not many) and I hope that you enjoy them too.
Click on the photo and you will be taken to the web album. click on "Slideshow" and change the length of time to 5 seconds once you are in the slideshow, then you will be able to read the captions.
AJ

Springbrook in Spring

Photos of Melbourne trip

Once you have been away, even for a few days, there seems to be so many things to catch up on! I have only just managed to get around to working on my photographs of my visit to Melbourne - many needed major correction due to the distortion caused by the height of the buildings. I will make another post soon to show how the corrections were acchieved.
Not all my pictures are here - I still have the pictures I took on a walk along a few of the city streets to upload. However there are quite a few here that should keep you entertained for a while!
I was very lucky with the weather when in Melbourne - only on one day did it rain and that was when I spent the day wandering around the Tutankhamen exhibition (truly magnificent and something I will treasure in my mind for years) and then in the company of friends.
So let me take you to see Melbourne through "my" eyes!
AJ

Melbourne in August 2011

If you wish to see the pictures as a slide show, After clicking on the picture in this blog, click on "slideshow" above the collection of photos. When the first picture appears change the length of time from 3 seconds to 5 so that you can read the captions.
If you press F11 you will fill the screen with the pictures, removing the menu bar at the top of the screen. Remember to press F11 once the slideshow has finished to restore the menu bar. Esc. (the keyboard key top left of your keyboard) will stop the slideshow.
When you make Google your email account you too will be able to share lots of photos with your friends in this way - and have a blog page too. Google gives this all to you FREE!

An architecture day

Today was a great day for my camera – sun and a few small clouds made photography a pleasure! To begin with I started at Federation Square with its unusual shapes and angles and a real shortage of people. I understood that this area was teeming with people but I think I was either too early or else it was too early in the week (Tuesday!). Whatever the reason I was able to enjoy myself taking photos without having to wait for people to move out of my way! I did see what looked to be a group of photographers being taken around Federation Square under the wing of a “more experienced’ photographer. The shots he was encouraging his student to take were not the sorts of angles that appealed to me so I actually wonder just how experienced he actually was!

Here is one of my shots of this unusual place.

Across the street from Federation Square is a very well known railway station, Flinders Street Station. I can remember sending a postcard to my parents back in the dim dark ages when I first arrived in Australia that had a photo of Flinders Street Station on it so this was one landmark I just had to take photos of!

I crossed the river and walked along Southgate taking photos as I walked and wondering why I had taken a coat with me that morning. The day had turned out so warm that I was too hot – but it is easier to wear a coat than carry it! I had to take a photo that showed the river – the Yarra River. It is jokingly called the river that runs upside-down! The water is brown but I don’t think it is as dirty as it actually looks! The central business area is in the background.

The is a huge contrast of styles of buildings in Melbourne from ultra modern to very old. Here is one of the modern looking creations.

And this is the City Baths. I think you would agree that these are fairly historic? The power lines and rails are for the trams that run around. This building is on Swanson Street, for those of you who have visited Melbourne.

 Tomorrow I fly back to the Gold Coast where there are no buildings as old as the Flinders Street Station or the Melbourne Baths. I have really enjoyed my short visit here and I hope you have enjoyed seeing a few of the shots I have taken.

AJ

To Ancient Egypt and Back

After a typical Aussie Breakfast of toast and Vegemite I left my hotel in a taxi for the Melbourne Museum (a ten minute walk away!)

 outside the front entrance to the museum

Mary is not quite so sprightly as I am and would not have been able to walk that distance – hence the taxi. Today we were to visit the Tutenkhamun Exhibition (I had been brought up to spell the boy king’s name Tutankhamen – with an E – but it has changed, as has the pronunciation)

No photography of any kind was allowed in the Tutankhamun Exhibition but since photos of the exhibits are in many books that I already own there really was no sense in trying to sneak snap! The exhibition was in dark rooms with spotlights on the exhibits so after two hours of reading and admiring these awe inspiring treasures, my eyes were really tired. It was almost overwhelming to be able to stand so close to these wonderfully preserved and intricately detailed ancient burial items. The audience were able to walk all around each of the exhibits and see them from every angle.

After a normalizing cup of coffee we wandered into the rest of the museum. The animal section was interesting because of the huge number of stuffed animals and the way they were displayed. One exhibit of possums appealed to my “photographic design” way of looking at things!

I just HAD to take a photo of the Tasmanian Tiger – this stuffed beastie was the very last of its kind – they are now extinct. It was in captivity before it died. The tigers were destroying sheep so were exterminated. Then it was realized that the species had been wiped out completely.

Another shot I tried (all, in the museum, were taken hand held with slow shutter speed and no flash) was of a rather magnificent stain-glass window. I am not sure of the reason of its presence in the museum but it is rather lovely. The lower part of the window did not have lighting behind it so I only aimed at the top two “panels”. remember that if you wish to see any of my pictures larger, click on them. Click the "Back" arrow to come back to this article.

Museums have really changed since my earliest memories of them – they are now far more interesting places to go into. I love the way that modern technology is used to further enhance the information about the exhibits. There was even a diorama that included two robotic dinosaurs (that I have taken video of to share with the littlies back home) they look quite real!

Coming out of the museum the weather had taken a nosedive – it was raining! It had better dry up by morning – I have another day of photography ahead of me!

AJ

Into the City

My morning was spent teaching my host computer techniques – nothing new in that activity! I always seem to find someone who needs some help with one program or another. Today it was video editing. The program I had brought with me did not work on the computer so I downloaded a freebie which is actually very good for someone just starting out. For anyone wanting more control over the sound (this free program will only allow the entire sound track to be made louder or softer) this program will not do – so I hesitate to recommend it. It is much better to start with a program that will do all that is required and learn how to use it than to get a program that you will end up feeling it is inadequate.

After lunch the clothes were tucked back into the suitcase and Mary and I were taken into the city where we booked into the Mantra on Carlton. This will be our home for three nights.
I just have to share a picture of some of the old buildings - these are very expensive and very small homes.

After the mandatory cup of tea (Something I just HAVE to do when arriving at any new place!) I took my camera for a walk because across the road from the Mantra I could see a park and beyond that the Exhibition building.

The sun was still out and the clouds made the sky very pretty so this afternoon was perfect for taking a few pictures. Off I went and was soon in the park and opposite a magnificent fountain. There were lots of couples taking photos of each other with the fountain behind them but I chose to have my fountain on its own!

Walking around the fountain I noticed there was a rainbow so I turned the circular polarizing filter until it was the most colourful and this is the result.

Then I walked around to the sunny side of the building and took a shot from there.

Next door to the Exhibition building is the Melbourne Museum. This is an amazing looking building. I wandered all the way around it and took lots of photos.

After I am back on the Gold Coast and with my regular laptop, I will put the photos I have taken in Melbourne into a web album and share the link to it.

This evening I am off to have a meal at a “posh” Indonesian Restaurant. I have put on my glad rags! Wanna come?

AJ