Where has the time gone? . . .

It is now Sunday evening after a day with worship and a house full of friends and family noisily catching up on our travels and deepening our relationships before we jet off tomorrow for home in the northern hemisphere.  We've gotten to know some great people while we've been here and could be seeing some of them in the next year or two as we've invited many to stop in and use our guest room if they are ever coming through.  But for now, time is quickly slipping away.

We had spent Friday night at a nice hotel in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains and got up to make one more visit to the little Megalong Valley Tea Rooms for a delicious breakfast, or "brekkie" as the Aussie term goes.  We just couldn't stay away from the friendly comfort of the place and the people.  We then proceeded to squeeze in as much viewing of the beauty of the mountains and the valley as we could before making our way back down to a late dinner with the whole Andrews family, recapping some of our adventures and observations and having one more good family time together.

And now, as the song goes, our bags are packed (well, 98%) and we're ready to go... tired but full of joy and profoundly thankful for the opportunity to visit dear family and make wonderful new friends as well as to see and learn so much about this amazing land down under and the people who live here.  We have a pile of memories to unpack and savor for a long time to come.  We'll be writing one more post... this one just some reflections on some of the things and experiences that have made this whole trip so delightful along the way.

And, yes, it is a bit strange to be getting on the plane in Sydney at 1:40pm on Monday and, twenty-four hours later be getting off the connecting flight from LAX in SEATAC at only 4:50pm on the same Monday!

A few closing images...

A lovely breakfast in a lovely place near the fire to ward of the morning chill.

Picnic, anyone?  A great little shelter in the freshening wind.

I don't think I'll ever tire of the gum trees, especially the white ones...

. . . nor of the beautiful sandstone cliffs.

Bob and Cheryl, our intrepid hosts and guides in this wonderful adventure.

The Three Sisters... pillars of stone overlooking the Megalong Valley.
The Blue Mountains are a must-see if you ever visit this region.

And in the end, the mountains . . .

Becky again: This particular trip within our trip has involved a lot of sight-seeing in absolutely beautiful country. The Blue Mts. of Eastern Australia are known as the Great Dividing Range because they are the highest mountains between the east and west coasts of the continent. They are not the sharper peaks of the Cascades, but are flat-topped sandstone escarpments, somewhat resembling the Grand Canyon area. They are made up of sandstone cliffs, topped by flat table lands, with deep forest and meadow covered valleys.

We left Cheryl and Bob's house mid-morning yesterday (Thursday) for a sunny drive punctuated by stops at viewpoints overlooking ranches, waterfalls, and winding through small towns. Along the way we detoured down a narrow steep winding road into the Megalong Valley where we stopped for lunch at the Megalong Tearooms. It was a special place with charm, delicious food and the typical Aussie warmth and friendliness.

Bob was outstanding as a guide giving us historical tidbits about the region and particular towns and industries in this vast rolling rural countryside. We saw herds of cattle and sheep grazing, coal fired power plants fed by near-by mines, and vineyards and wineries. By dark we'd arrived in Mudgee where we settled into a nice clean motel and walked down the quiet streets of this little country town to a pub for dinner.

This morning after breakfast we got a good look at a bustling Mudgee in the sunshine. Mudgee is in the center of one of the key Australian wine-growing areas and the town has many good resturants, interesting shops, well-kept 19th century buildings, wide tree-lined streets, and at least three beautiful old brick and stone churches. After exploring downtown, we took a short walk through a park along a small river, then got back into the car and headed off to visit a couple of wineries. The second one we visited was on the side of a hill where after tasting some of the wines we had a lunch of locally made cheeses, honeycomb, and fig and walnut sweets and really good coffee. It was a liesurely lunch overlooking not only the vineyard but a small ranch with cattle and a mob of kangaroos feeding in one of the pastures. It was exciting to see several groups of kangaroos in the wild over the last couple of days.

This evening we've retraced our path from Mudgee back to Blackheath, one of the small mountain towns we drove through yesterday. Once again we're in a lovely motel room, having had another delicious pub meal, this one with a glass of warm mulled wine to help ward off the chill of the winter mountain air.

It's hard to believe that with tomorrow comes the end of our trips within this great adventure. We want to get this entry posted with some pictures before a busy day Sunday with worship, friends and family, and the all-important (and challenging) job of packing for the long flight home on Monday. We hope to write a bit more during the flight about our impressions and the wonderful time we've had on our first visit down under.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Bob and Cheryl not only for their hospitality, but for their hard work and thorough planning that has made this whole wonderful experience go so smoothly. Bob put in many hours making reservations and tracking details, carrying around the file folder with all the important documents so that we could get on the right planes and trains, and check into comfortable lodgings. In addition, he's filled us in on lots of fascinating and insightful information about what we were seeing and where we were going. Cheryl and I have had precious sister-time to remember and share stories of Hood River and college and our lives lived separated by many years and miles, yet always connected by love and understanding. It will be hard to say good-bye to them and Becky, Marcie, Geoff, Cami and Nathan, even though we know we'll see each other again.

This is enough for tonight.

At the neat, clean and very pretty city park in Mudgee.  We are admiring the old gum tree.

Admiring the Gardens of Stone from an overlook on the way back from Mudgee.

A portion of the Megalong Valley nearing sunset.

Returning on the uphill climb from a viewpoint overlooking Wentworth Falls... getting our exercise!

Another view of a portion of the Megalong Valley from another location.  A good deal of the forest below is made up of gum trees like the one by which Becky is standing, only many even larger.

We are making our way along a path on the ridgeline for another view of the valley.  The tea room at which we would eat breakfast again the next morning is at the north end of the meadow far below, just left of center in this photo.

The above-mentioned meadow as seen from the tea room.

Becky practicing her mountain goat skills.