Two SATNAVs and Still Lost

On Monday mum and I went for walk down to the Parramatta information centre and along the river. You could get some idea of the reasons for the poor relationships between the Aborigines and the Europeans. It seems to be as the history books tell us. Whole tribes were wiped out; children were kidnapped and westernised. I spoke to an old Ozy yesterday and the fear of the Aborigines is still real.


I also saw that much of the pressure for Australia becoming a republic is from the newer immigrants (Chinese and Indian). Again this was confirmed by my friend at the park. He was pretty much not bothered either way. I wonder what the younger generation Ozy thinks.

We walked down to the rivercat stop. The river is blocked by a weir at this point.

We had a leisurely icecream at a Sudenese shop. Very tasty; we were given tastes of the different ones.

We arrived back to find out that Sally was called to take the Camry in for minor repairs 30 minutes earlier. First we had to go out to Cherrybrook to collect it. We attempted to set up both SATNAVs to get us to the Camry garage. At first Sally led with my SATNAV continuously recalculating. She gave up. I led until Sally came to the conclusion that we were heading the wrong way. I did a turn left; hoping to go around but finished on the motorway. At this point Sally overtook. The map had won. Before going back to collect the Camry I did an intersection check on Google when this was put into the SATNAV we took 15 minutes instead one and half hours. Should I tell Garmin?

Yesterday we went Featherdale Wildlife Park. It would take to long to list the variety of Australian wildlife on show. Zoe enjoyed looking and Emily enjoyed walking around. She has still not learned the lesson on taking on a kangaroo. She got away with it this time.


In the afternoon mum and I took Zoe to the park. She played, I spoke to an Australian grandad. He has story to tell. He was abought up in the back of a lorry, they then moved to live on the water before finally getting a house. His wife's family lived in two caves and had to move out when the world got to be less secure.

Olympic Pool Day

This morning we visited Sydney's Olympic Village - in particular the Olympic Pool. It covers a vast area with many pools including the fun pools.

Sally, Emily, Zoe and Nan togged up. Suddenly there was a small drama. Nan, who is the only person I know who can swim without a bathing hat and keep her hair dry was drenched. In the 'fun' end there is a giant bucket fed by water. The contraption is designed to topple over at a particular water level. There are warning bells, but nan did not understand what they meant.


Despite the soaking they all had fun and we ended with a feast of hot food, doughnuts etc.

Everyone is now resting, except for Sally who is charging about sorting child care and Ian who is at his second day of work.

One of the cars is in for minor repairs and we are improvising with one. It was a bit hairy following Sally along roads we were not familiar, even the SATNAV got confused, but I managed to keep the Camry in the convoy.