We're home!

We left Perth, Australia on Sunday 17th March at 19:40 and travelled through what seemed like several dark nights over a variety of countries and seas for 17½ hours ...

 arriving at Heathrow at 5:22 on Monday morning (18th) taking into account the 8-hour time difference between the UK and Oz. You can see above bottom right that local time in Perth was 1:15pm.

We had the most fabulous six weeks in Australia visiting Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, each unique and different in their own way catching up with old friends and meeting and making new ones. We took lots of excursions by coach and by river boat; we did lots of wine tasting and eating out and saw some amazing sights including koalas, kangaroos and kookaburras.

As you can imagine we were slightly jet lagged (slight exaggeration, lol)  but over the past four days have gradually started to feel better, having lots to do has helped us to stay awake during the days.

 Still Rockin' was where we'd left her at Hambleden Marina and we were surprised (but shouldn't have been) to see all the daffodils out ... it does seem strange to have come from a very hot summer to spring in one fell swoop!

 After waking up at 4am on Tuesday morning we decided to walk into Henley for some exercise after sitting on a plane for all those hours ...

 and found the lock a busy place ...

 the bollards being spruced up and the vegetation cut back ...

and burned.

and a rather old boat on the lock's tail landing.

Chrysoprase built in 1899.  The link is to an old advert when the boat was for sale in 2014.

I am well aware that I've neglected my blog for some time now and admit that all the photos that I want to record on my blog have become rather overwhelming, but bear with me, they will be posted as time and energy allows.

Until then, we're so glad to be home.