Australia Day - Manly Beach

Today was Australia Day- January 26.  It is sort of like our 4th of July, but not as big a deal, so maybe more like Memorial Day.  They get a 3 day weekend and go to the beach, have boat races and lots of  markets.   It is obviously a family holiday.  We decided to take the ferry to Manly Beach and see the sights.  At days end, we came home and Josh prepared a typical Australian Barbie- the meat shown above is sort of typical.  It was lots of food and very delicious.

But, back to the beginning of the day.  Last night the 4 of us babysat the 2 kids; we kind of had pretty good odds on them.  Jim looked up the lyrics to "Tie Me Kangroo Down" on the internet.  We then sang and danced our way through it; the kids had never heard it.  So, this morning we gave our program to their parents who also had never heard the song.  We were a hit!!  We are thinking about going on the road.  The song came out in 1960- thus is why we all remembered it.

All of us waiting for the train at Beecroft as it is just arriving..

We got on the ferry at the Ques which is where the bridge, opera house and our ship will dock and took a half hour ride to Manly Beach.  This is the Harbour Bridge. 

The Opera House from the ferry.

Great view from the ferry and a beautiful day!

Manly Wharf

Having fish and chips beach side.

This sign was on the beach.  Raquel and Josh had never seen this before.  There were people swimming and surfing.

Grace and Marty are not going to swim with sharks.

Australian Day!  The 4 medium sized stars are the southern cross (in the southern hemisphere sky);  we don't know what the other stars represent.

We all got tatoos - Jim is getting his on the ferry - notice the people watching.

Marty showing off her's in a beautiful setting.

Josh is taking the picture - we were all Australian today!

Just to let all our faithful followers know - tomorrow we get on the ship to cruise to New Zealand.  We get back to Sydney February 10th.  While on the ship we only have expensive internet.  That means we will still take pictures and notes, but no blog.  We will start up again after we get back to Sydney and fill you in on the 2 lost weeks.  Those of you in the midwest - keep warm and know that even though we miss you we do not miss the weather.  

G'Day mate and "see" you in 2 weeks.