Saturday, January 14, 2017

Thursday-Saturday, 5-7 Jan 2017

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MARGARET & MIKE

On this day 43 years ago Terre Haute, Indiana there was 12 inches of snow on the ground and many brave souls ventured out to witness the marriage of Margaret Ann Knudsen to Michael Patrick Haley.  What a grand day that was, but not as grand as the days that followed.  43 years later we are still going strong.  How Margaret has put up with me for that long, I do not know but I am sure glad that she has.
We (that is Margaret) decided to take a 3 day holiday for our Anniversary.  We decided to take Thursday, Friday & Saturday off (more or less).

Thursday -  We went to the Westfield towers for lunch as we were out looking for some clothes for Mike.  After shopping and lunch,  we took the ferry to Parramatta which is about a 1+ hour ferry ride in the harbour and up the Parramatta river.  We walk along the Parramatta river walk and then meandered through town to Town Hall.   We found a nice little Indian restaurant and had dinner - lamb and chicken.  Then we caught the train back to the city.

The Strand Arcade - one of many shopping arcades in and around city centre

Grill'd Hamburger restaurant where we had lunch

Leaving Circular Quay on the Parramatta Ferry.  Cruise ships park in Circular Quay all the time and stay for 1-2 days.

Looking back on the Opera House

Getting ready to go under the Harbour Bridge and go up the harbour and into the Parramatta river

Houses along the bank of the harbour

More houses and shoreline.  Not sure when the harbour stops and the river starts, but pretty sure this is still part of the harbour
The shoreline that seems to be the beginning of Parramatta River

The Parramatta shoreline.  Do you see the crocodile? I do not because it is not there, but we sure thought the mangroves were a good place for them.

Parrot Island.  The tents are permanent and are rented out to the campers who decide to spend a few days on Parrot Island in the harbour.
Kissing Point - one of the stops on the way to Parramatta.
Arriving at Parramatta dock

Parramatta river walk

One of the good looking ladies on the river walk

Anniversary dinner - lamb for Margaret and chicken for me.  The meals were delicious

Friday, 6 Jan 2017

We stayed around Sydney today.  We went to a jeweler and gave him two of Margaret's earrings that had the other matching one missing - so now she will have 2 "new" sets of earrings.
We had lunch at Phillip's Foote, a favourite restaurant in the Rocks area of downtown Sydney. We also found the ground zero for the early mileage marker where all distances in Australia were measured from.  There is an Obelisk at the site.

Lamb steaks and beef kabab on the grill at Phillip's Foote

Margaret's lamb meal

The Bride with her dinner

The groom & chef with his kabab

Phillip's Foote sign and address for any adventurous souls

Year of the Rooster is 2017.  Gift from the jeweler making the new earrings for Margaret

The flip side of the coin

one side of the obelisk at mile marker 0 in Sydney

The obelisk that marks ground zero for the original distance marker of roads in Australia

The distance of some of the cities from the obelisk

The anchor from the first boat to land in Sydney Harbour in 1788 (??)


Saturday, 7 Jan 2017

Today we went off to Palm Beach, NSW Australia.  Palm Beach is a nice, little beach that is not overly crowded.  Some friends like to go up to Palm Beach to surf. We went to Palm Beach several times in the 1990s, so we wanted to go back and check it out. It was a nice sunny day and perfect for walking on the beach.  The trip from our flat to Palm Beach is about 2 hours - walking, train & bus. It was a pleasant day and a perfect end to a 3 day anniversary holiday.

Panorama of Palm Beach

More sand, surf and outcrop of land

Palm beach was not very crowded and this was on a Saturday. 

heading towards the rocks on the south side of Palm Beach

Some of the sandstone in the rocks showing how the surf has carved the rock

The rock out crop on the south of Palm Beach

The surf hitting the rocks

Happy Anniversary you two love birds

Margaret wanted a picture of an Australian Post mail box, so here it is

Para-surfing on Palm Beach.  We watched several of the surfers doing this for quite some time.  They really move quite quickly due to the strong winds

More para-surfing

A last look at Palm Beach as we head back home - Sigh!!!!!










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