Australia Day 2012!

Australia Day 2012!

The last year has gone so quick and Australia Day is once again here, as I look back to over the last year it makes me very proud to be an Aussie.

In the last twelve months, Ross and I have done some travelling and we meet many Aussie both at home and overseas, and we have made wonderful friends along the way.

When we when across Australia by ship and Train, we meet some wonderful Aussie, one of those being a disable young man who was partly blind, his spirit and caring for other was unbelievable, he did not see himself as disable, he saw himself as an everyday person, and that there was nothing he could not do.

When we were in Adelaide, we were having lunch in the park, there was a young man sitting on the steps with a hat in front of him on the ground, I don’t often give money, to people asking for hand out, but there was just something about him, I walk over and put money in his hat and as I turn to walk away ,felt hand on my shoulder, when I turn back, he was standing there with his arm open and he hug me and said Thank you.

One of the things that make me so very proud to be Aussie, happen in Turkey on ANZAC Day, to see thousands of Aussie’s and so many of them young, and most who had travel thousands of miles to see the sun come up over ANZAC Cove at the dawn service and who then made the very long walk to Lone Pine for the midday service, to see this kind of respect given to our service men and women, was so good.

It is the young people who will move our country forward and it is they who will keep the ANZAC spirit alive, it is they who will take our country around the world with them in their hearts and it is they by their actions, which will bring the people of the world to Australia.

So this Australia Day, please look at our young people and see the good in them, we often read in the paper or see on T.V., when one of them has done wrong, I think it time we saw the good side of them too.

I wish you all a wonderful Australia day,

I hope you spend it with family and friends, doing something you enjoy,

Please all stay safe when you’re out and about, and

“Please DON’T Drink and Drive”

S.M. Mac Arthur ©

Kookaburra and Tawny Frogmouth

When we were in Sydney, we when to the Blue Mountains, (pictures still to come) on the way we stop at this little Zoo (I’m sorry I can’t tell you the name of it, because my note have gotten lost), I do know the family that run it, started by just taking in hurt Australian Animals and it has just grown from there, they had Australia animals of every kind.

But the pictures I’m going to show you are of two birds, the Kookaburra and the Tawny Frogmouth. These birds where free to walk or fly around the Zoo, they were just in cages of a night for their safety, some of the other birds where in cages for our safety, as many could take a finger off with one bite.

Why the Kookaburra and the Frogmouth, well as you will see they are not the most beautiful of birds, but there just something about them, I just love the two of them and they look so different, yet they are very alike.

S.M. Mac Arthur ©

 Frogmouth

 Kookaburra

Sir Hans Heysen and The Cedars

When we were in South Australia in November, we when to The Cedars . This is a wonderful old home and containing a fine collection of paintings and drawings by the artist Sir Hans Heysen OBE (8 October 1877 to 2 July 1968). Han Heyson would have to be one of the best landscape artist that Australia has had.
When you walk into, Han Heysen working studio it like stepping back in time , the Studio was built in 1912 and used by painter until his death in 1968,. All his painting, materials and tools, sketches, notes and more, are still as they were when he died.

The Cedars' was the family home and has a rambling cottage garden that seems to go on for miles, the garden are just beautiful. The Cedars is still owned by the Heysen family.




S.M. Mac Arthur ©

                                     

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year to you all,

I wish you only the best for the coming year,

Sue