Sunday, January 6 - Saying goodbye to the kids ...

     ... but only for a couple weeks.  They wisely had decided that it might be more fun to move on to New Zealand while Diana and I concentrated selling the Landcruiser our last week in Australia.  Their flight was at 6:55 am, so they figured it might be smart to get a room in the city for the night before their departure instead of trying to leave a campground with locked gates at 3 am in the morning.  Smart kids.  And certainly a lot easier for Diana and me.  We could sleep the morning away in our tent while they made their way to the airport.
     With no big rush, they cleaned their tents and shoes (New Zealand is picky about introducing new organisms onto their shores), sorted out their stuff, and carefully repacked.  Besides their own gear they are taking our Coleman cooler, which we purchased here when we first arrived, filling it with as many valuable camping items as we could stuff inside, like the stove, tools, two good pans, a book, cooking utensils, etc.  That would give them good stuff for their start in NZ and also free us from having to carry it over ourselves, or even worse, start all over shopping for it.  We ended up having to pay $50 AUS for excess baggage, but the cooler alone cost us $80, so it was definitely worth it.
      We finally got into Sydney by train in the afternoon.  The kids were loaded down with their stuff and Diana and I carried the cooler between us.  I'm glad we didn't have to go too far from the station to their hotel.  It was certainly heavy enough, and also fairly awkward walking through the city streets.

Were they really that delighted to be ditching the old folks?

Inside the somewhat deceptively named Posh Hotel.  The room wasn't bad
but didn't include it's own bathroom.  However, considering they would be leaving
at 4 am and it was only a few hundred meters from the train station, it fit the bill.

     We hadn't properly celebrated Dan's birthday last August with our own scurrying about getting our rental property finished and rented and leaving for Australia, so we had promised him a beer at a pub in Oz.  This was our last chance.  Once the kids got their last minute plans wrapped up in their room, we walked to the pub The Three Wise Monkeys for dinner.

We'd walked by this pub several times during
our many trips into Sydney.  

Our last meal together in OZ.  Good beer and tasty tucker.  

     We left the pub, said our goodbyes, and headed off in our own directions.  We'll be seeing them again in about two weeks in New Zealand.  I'm really looking forward to it.