Christmas Down Under

We experienced an Australian Christmas this year. What does that mean? Swimming and beach time Christmas morning and no turkey for dinner but lamb and lots of prawns.

Michael and Fiona, friends from our Beijing days, invited us to spend the holiday with them and their extended family. It was great!

Their house is situated overlooking the beach in Mollymook, south of Sydney. We took the train there. It was a long trip that involved more bussing than we’d realized when we booked the tickets but it was enjoyable. It was a great way to see the countryside and a slice of life in Australia as we whizzed by.

Brisbane to Sydney is an all day trip. We left at 5:00 a.m. and arrived well into the evening. We gave ourselves two full days to explore Sydney before we carried on to Mollymook. We filled our days in Sydney by drinking good coffee, eating great food and wandering along watching the tourists. We also made a quick stop at the Canadian Consulate to pick up our new passports.¹

From Sydney, we used a combination of buses, trains and automobiles to continue south to Mollymook. It’s a gorgeous seaside area. We loved it there. As I mentioned already, we enjoyed time on the beach but most importantly, catching up with Michael and Fiona as well as getting to know their family. It was a Christmas we will remember for a long time.

Our time there slipped by much too quickly. Before we knew it we were heading north again. This time we only spent one night in Sydney and were back on the train early the next day heading back to Brisbane.

Returning to Brisbane, we found Cambria in good shape. On the way from the train station to the marina, we noticed many branches and leaves scattered along the road. Also, a couple of traffic lights weren’t working. Our Uber driver said that they had had a violent thunderstorm earlier in the evening. I was worried about what we’d find when we got to Cambria but thankfully, it was none the worse for wear. I couldn’t see any evidence of damage from the storm. Actually, I couldn’t tell there had been a storm.

We have three weeks until Cambria gets loaded for the trip to Mexico. We will spend that time enjoying the anchorages around Brisbane and making plans for the time Cambria is en route to Mexico.

1. I had no blank pages left in my passport when I arrived in Australia. Sharlene had three. ↩︎