Epilogue

The next day we woke up to several inches of snow. Not what we had in mind when '24 hours' ago we were in Singapore which was about 93 degrees and humid!

From this...

...To this

Well what have we learned by going out to the other side of the world. It is a smaller world than it was. Last century people would leave for Australia and they would not return, now we go to Australia for a wedding. Thank you Barney and Ingrid for a lovely wedding and reason for a holiday.

It is a good thing to go and see how other people do things. Just because something has been done that way here for all those years does not make it the best way. There was a lovely quote in our Singapore guidebook:

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home" (James Michener).

There are some abiding memories that will stay with us. Stroking a koala and swimming with seals and dolphins are two amazing memories. The Stamorr bed and breakfast, again for the wildlife in the garden, the kookaburras and the cockatoos. The bleached appearance of the bush and this was even at the end of a relatively wet Australian summer. The roads are so big and the distances seem that much bigger, perhaps it is because everything is in kilometres. The light in Australia was great for taking photographs. Walking down a street in Singapore and being the only English person there and we did not feel out of place.

The not so good was Heathrow. They had the biggest guns, the least amount of flowers, the most depressing concrete and the most unfriendly people. Australia did not seem to be at ease with its aboriginal history and culture. We found this very sad.

Would we do it again? Well if we can fly out of Norwich to Schipol and then on from there, then yes, we would do it again. Looks like we will have to earn some more to afford to travel again in a couple of winters' time!

Postscript:

On September 3rd 2005 Isabelle Mary Ellis was born. She is a well photgraphed baby with lots of emails being sent around the world.