Where in the World is Saura

We just returned from Mona Vale, a historic manor and gardens between our house and the city center. The Avon runs through the grounds and people come to stroll, enjoy the gardens, and feed the ducks. My previous experience with duck feeding is from Tanglewood, where the ducks are pretty aggressive when the food comes out. These ducks that make their summer home along the Avon are not so people aggressive, and they mainly stayed in the river while we threw bread at them. This was partially due to two of the dominant males coming up onto the bank and chasing away any other ducks that tried to get out of the water.

The main attractions here are the rose garden, the lilly pond, the main homestead (with restaurant), and punting rides. Punting is a ride on a flat boat with a guide that pushes you up and down the river, ala Venice. There is also punting through the city center.

Now, something interesting did happen at Mona Vale while we were there, although we only saw the after effects. We were walking past the rose garden back to our van when Al mentioned something about a car. We were staring into a large flower bed, and I really wasn’t registering what I was seeing. Then, there it was. There was a silver Toyota in the middle of this huge bed, and it had stopped on the verge of breaking straight through to the rose gardens.

This last view was taken from inside the rose garden, showing how close this young driver came to just plowing right through. You really have to appreciate the speed at which you have to go to just drive a car through a metal post, foliage, a raised bed, and almost make it out the other side. She must have caught some air with this one. The policeman there said noone was hurt, just really shaken up. He reckoned it was an inexperienced driver that panicked; maybe she slammed on the gas instead of the breaks. Fair enough, but it was quite a sight.

Well, on the van update, we’ve added a plastic storage unit, a water tank, and Al built a unit to fit it all together. We’ve picked up a camping stove, so most of our suppplies are taken care of now. We’ve also begun to plan our route and will be finalizing that over the next few weeks. So at the end of February we’ll be heading off, and we can share more of New Zealand then.

By the way, Al has won the 2005 Oscar for Best Son, which he shared with his brother.

Cheers!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2006 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.