clear water among an amazing variety of coral and

fish. On our way down from Cairns to Sydney (1500 miles) the view from our camper window shifted from rocky coast to sugar cane fields to hilly forests. The Blue Mountains, a few hours outside of Sydney, are a spectacular sort of mini Grand Canyon. We caught a folk music festival out there and particularly enjoyed an Irish (of course!) group called Lunasa. We will see Verdi’s MacBeth at the famous Sydney Opera House this Wednesday and leave for New Zealand this Saturday. One month is just not enough time to see Australia; we didn’t realize that it is literally as large as the continental United States! ML is upset that a month has not been enough time to find the country’s most scenic wonder, Mel Gibson. We did see wild emus, but she says it doesn’t compare.

G’day Mates!

V and ML

P.S.  Some of you have e-mailed us lately and commented that you hadn’t received an update in over a month. Shucks, didn’t know you cared so much! We haven’t had cyber access lately because we’ve been spending most of our time driving down the east coast of Australia and staying somewhere different every night. This hasn’t given us much time to correspond. Thanks for missing us, though.  ml

P.P.S.  To all you Dallas-area folks: The North Texas Irish Festival is the first weekend of March. Go. And report back to us.