Simply Soothing Sanctuary

We are now in LAX and our flight here was uneventful , so grateful. Our next leg of the journey has been delayed for an hour, so perfect opportunity to people watch and practice patience. I was able to stay awake through the first flight so that I could sleep on this one, but at the moment I'm in that place beyond sleep. Jim went to get coffee but I think he may be lost.

We have a traveling companion and look forward to sharing pictures of Qaussie during our time in Australia. Here's a couple;

So, I'm sad to say that we do not have free Wifi which we were hoping for to do this blog of our adventures. But, on Sunday, here, we found this lovely lady at an information center that told us we could come and use theirs.

The day we arrived was a challenge, to say the least. Our little companion Aussie bear decided to stay and fly the friendly skies with Quantos and it took me a little time to get over that. Then the car rental was another challenge as the way we planned on paying for it wouldn't work. UGH, got over that! Then the GPS in our first car wouldn't connect so we waited for another...and then I worked very hard at not driving Jim crazy as he adjusted to driving on the left side of the road.
Friday (here)On our way to the TimeShare we decided to follow a sign for the Natural Bridge. I am so glad that we did, even though the drive to it was alittle scary. It was a fabulous hike in to the rain forest and I'm so happy that we did.
Because it takes so long to upload pictures, I'm going to do most of that on fb when we get a chance.

(Saturday, here)Our first long drive was to a O'Reily's Plateau. OMG I thought the plane ride was nerve wracking, but I got over that fast. The road we had to travel on had me grinding my teeth and clutching the seat belt. God Bless Jim, and he had to drive on the left!! it was a motorcycle's dream road with switchbacks and road washouts, with a lot of one way giveways(yields) and not enough room to pass even when it was two way. When we finally got to an area to pull over and take a walk through the woods, I almost got our and kissed the ground. The walk/hike was fabulous though through ancient woods and ginormous ferns and plants. We caught a blue tongued lizard sunning at the end of a hollow log and the birds overhead were in full song. I could of stayed there forever. Of course we had to get to the top to even start to think about the down road. I was hoping that there would be another way to go, but of course not!! At the top was a camp ground and timeshare that was absolutely breath taking, but I could not imagine having to take that road any time I wanted to go somewhere. While we were up there though we visited "the mountain garden" and walked the "treetop walk". That was a trip, being up in the air above the forest floor and seeing the moss and the ferns that were growing on the trees. Quite beautiful! The ride back down was not as bad for me, but harrowing just the same. Very happy to get back to our little spot and watch the birds from our little deck overlooking the pond.

Sunday we stayed around the timeshare and took pictures of the fine feathered friends that visit us on a daily basis and then we traveled into Nerang to find wifi. What we did find was a SUBWAY sandwich shop and that was great. Decided to walk around and see if there was a library, but it was closed and that was when we spotted this nice little information/museum spot. Lynn, the lady we spoke to had a story about when she had traveled to Rome and been helped by strangers and so she was very willing to pay that forward and we are grateful.

I will be posting the pictures mostly on facebook but, will do a couple here. We were very happy to introduce Aussie bear II