Last day in suburbs of Sydney.

Sunday 12th. May was our last day in Thirroul, before heading south to the Capital City of Canberra. I woke up to the wonderful & unexpected news that Wigan  had won the F A Cup & my favourite player had scored the only goal of the game

We went to Mass in Thirroul at the church of St. Michael. It was an old church that had been re-ordered, putting the Sanctuary in the centre of the church.

 The site of the original Sanctuary.

 The re-sited Altar

One of a nice set of Stations of the Cross

It was Mothering Sunday here in Australia and Joanne had sent some flowers to Anne &  Wendy (her honorary Australian mum).

After lunch we made the relatively short journey into The Royal National Park just north of Thirroul. We stopped off en-route at Bald Hill.

Stanwell Park beach can be seen over Wendy & Anne's shoulders.

Shortly after leaving Bald Hill we entered The Royal National Park & headed towards Garie Beach.

The weather has been kind to us in the Sydney suburbs, with temps. in excess of 22 degrees. Things aren't looking so good for the coming week as we head south.

Monday morning, & it was time to say our farewells to Wendy, Brad, Nick & Elise and head out to Australia's Capital city. The journey was to take us just over 3 hours, with two stop off's. The roads were very quiet, but the weather got noticeably cooler and wetter as the journey progressed. We left Thirroul at 20 degrees and sunny, arriving at Canberra at 12 degrees & raining. Needed to do a quick change into long trousers & two woolly jumpers. I also put the heater on it's highest setting in the hotel room. We arrived at our hotel at about 1 o'clock but couldn't check in until two.

Before leaving Canberra this morning we took in a couple of the sites,starting off with The Australian War Memorial. This view outside, is looking down Anzac Parade in the direction of both the old and new Parliament buildings.

The eternal flame burns in the pond of reflection. On either side of the pond are the memorial walls with the names of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

The dome over the tomb of the unknown soldier.

From there we headed across the city to the Royal Australian Mint.

We left Canberra this afternoon  for the three & a half hour drive to Albury, on the New South Wales / Victoria state border. It is approximately the half way point for our next city stop over, Melbourne. It was early evening & dark when we arrived at Albury so will spend some time exploring the town in the morning before we leave.