Roo Round-up

Or... Roger's final thoughts about Australia. If I were to live here, based on what I've seen so far, I'd go for the New South Wales coast. Lovely climate, fabulous beaches.

Almost deserted beach at Nambucca Heads.

Sydney has crept into my Top Five Cities in the world.
Despite my fear of heights we've been to some spectacularly high places.

 The Blue Mountains

Watching young people on a waterfall, standing on wet rocks above a 100 metre drop was not fun.
The Aboriginal problem. We've talked to many people about this and there is a problem but no one knows how to solve it. It's our fault, along with our Euro-neighbours, for colonising everywhere. The Aboriginal population is invisible. We saw some excellent contemporary work by indigenous artists at the superb Margaret Olley Gallery. Very political and hardly a dot in sight. Also a recreation of MO's house, which doubled as a studio.

Margaret Olley's sitting room.

At noon the sun is in the northern sky.
Only saw kangaroos twice in the wild, despite the estimated 50 million that live here. Saw no poisonous snakes nor any spiders - although they tend to come out as the summer hots up. Nor koalas. We saw lots of birds though. And heard them. They are SO LOUD. The Bush is full of scrubby bush and so is the outback.
And finally - it does get cold here, especially south of Sydney.