So where to start in time with my blog? Maybe last year because this year is to short to have much happened in. 2017 was a year with the titel ‘Australia’.
Actually, it started in 2015 with a visit at my home by Jo Stone from Australia. She was visiting Europe and here in the Netherlands she had a friend, Luciënne, who was my friend too, so they both came to visit me. It was a lovely day together with an exchange of techniques and knowledge.
Jo and Luciënne
When she left she invited me to come to Australia, to the National gathering of Basketmakers in Queensland in 2017. We stayed in touch and a year later my husband and I said: what shall we do with Australia? Going there for 5 days is not so nice, we have to go longer but how and what? He said: I will tell my boss that I will be away for 5-7 weeks next year so he can prepare himself. So we will have a lot of time to decide what we are going to do.
Then in September, my daughter Liza came home and told me she had arranged an internship. Oké, I said to her and where will that be. She smiled and said: Sydney, Australia.
So we didn’t have to decide anymore, we would go in 2017.
I contacted the Queensland Basketmakers and arranged that we would come to there Gathering and they asked me if I would like to do some teaching and a talk. Exiting!
My daughter left 26th of February 2017 for Australia and we followed her the 9th of April. It was my second time of flying in a plane and then directly to the other side of the world. Normally we go with our motorbikes on vacation and drive through Europe. No need to fly than.
We landed the 10th in Sydney and stayed there 2 days to explore this big city. We had a room in a hostel very close to my daughters apartment. We had rented a campervan for almost 6 weeks and because the next weekend was the Easter weekend we picked up Liza in village near Sydney. We made a tour through the fully packed Blue Mountains and on Monday we dropped Liza of at a trainstation.
Then our 6000 kilometer, 6 weeks long tour started. We went up north, zigzag driving through the country in the direction of Brisbane. At the PCYC Bornhoffen in Natural Bridge, Queensland was the National Gathering. More about that later. From there we went to the west, direction Outback and then south to Healesville, Melbourne, Victoria.
There we visited Jo Stone and stayed there for 5 days. She showed us her beautiful work and the beautiful surroundings where she lives. From there we went up north via Canberra back to Sydney for a last stay of 2 days. Liza changed her stay from 5 months to 11 months and she went traveling around the south of Australia to Perth and a little further north. The last 3 months she worked as au-pair in a family with 3 kids. She’s home now but in the time she stayed in Australia we had a lot of contact with her friends there and we stayed connected with this great country. We will go back there as soon as possible.