Rainbow events

While Bryan attended school and explored Western Australia, Jennifer kept busy at the University of Portland and going to Rainbow activities. We attended an OV in Woodburn in late February, then the annual Statewide initiation in Salem on the first Saturday in March.

She performed the Bible Tribute at opening and then was Grand Drill Leader for initiation.

Her State Service team put on a lunch to raise money for the Grand Worthy Advisor's service project, the Scottish Rite Speech Clinics.  

Today we attended the OV for the East Portland District.

Fremantle

While I flew home, Bryan arrived in Perth, then traveled to Fremantle to begin his classes at Notre Dame.

He is sharing a dormitory apartment with 15 girls from UP on the program.

When not in classes, he and his classmates are enjoying the beach and exploring Perth.

Australia Day 10 - Melbourne Part 2

On the last day of our trip, we parked again at the Docklands, and took the free tram down near Flinders Street Station and Federation Square. Melbourne has an extensive system of trams linking the outlying parts of the City to downtown, and the free tram circles the old downtown area. 

We walked down the the river, and took a boat cruise upriver, past the Cricket Ground. The cruise was a little disappointing, as there is not that much to see up river from downtown. Supposedly the downriver trip is better, but the boat operator said the tide was too high then to go down river. 

After the cruise we walked by Flinders Street, and through part of Federation Square, then headed back to Docklands and ultimately our hotel. The next day we headed to the airport, where Bryan caught a plane to Perth, and I flew home.

Australia Day 9 - Melbourne

This morning we drove into Melbourne and parked at the Docklands, a new mixed-use redevelopment area.

From there we took a bus to the Melbourne museum, located next to the Royal Exhibition building, which was built in 1880 to host the 8th World's Fair.

Besides looking through the exhibits on the history of Melbourne and about the aboriginal people of the area, we enjoyed the special exhibition of Bond costumes and props.

Australia Day 8 - Canberra and Snowy River country

Friday morning we drove to the National War Memorial, but it didn't open for another half hour, so we took some pictures and headed out of Canberra.

We drove south to Cooma, gateway to the Snowy Mountains, where we stopped for lunch. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to drive into the mountains, and it was a little too cloudy to really see them from the hill outside Cooma.

We continued south until we hit the coast, then turned west again and crossed the Snowy River. We stopped for the night in the town of Bairnsdale, a few hours east of Melbourne.

Australia Day 7 - Botany Bay and Royal National Parks

This morning we checked out of our Sydney hotel and headed east toward the airport, then turned south and winded our way down to Botany Bay National Park, where Captain Cook anchored the Endeavor briefly during his first trip to explore Australia and New Zealand.

From there we headed south and drove through Royal National Park, then turned west.

We drove to Canberra, where we stopped for the night. We drove around the Parliament building before finding a hotel.

Australia Day 6 - Sydney again

 

On Wednesday we returned to downtown Sydney. We parked at the Opera House, but this time we made sure we got there early enough to get the early bird rate.

We tried to tour the government house, which is located in the botanical gardens just south of the Opera House, but the governor was having an event, so it wasn't open for tours.

We headed down toward Hyde Park, and went through the museum in the old barracks that held convicts back when Sydney was first founded. It was really interesting how they covered the various aspects of the buildings history.

Then we walked through the Anzac memorial and the rest of Hyde Park, then through the Strand and the Queen Victoria Building.

Finally we went to the Sky Tower, where we met some classmates of my son's who were also touring Sydney prior to starting classes in Perth. They did the Skywalk while I took pictures from the observation lounge.