March 19 - St. Georges Basin

Sydney is a large cruise liner port in Australia and the terminal point for many cruises.  With countries no longer accepting cruise ships, there are many ships that are discharging Australian residents here.  Many of these people are having their vacations terminated prematurely. When you see them walking off the boat or in our hotel, they look pissed or dejected.  Of course, this is totally understandable.  There are other passengers that you can see on board and I have no idea what will happen to them.

With the end of the Globus land tour, we are entering the final stage of this fantastic vacation.  Our good friends Ellen and John Kelly have invited us to stay with them for a couple of days in their home in St Georges Basin, which is about 150 minutes south of Sydney.  We met John and Ellen when they were on their honeymoon during an European river cruise in 2011.  Since then we have been on two other cruise and had the pleasure of hosting them in Ontario last year.  Their hospitality and friendliness are unsurpassed.  It is going to be a great few days before we head off for home.

On our trip from Sydney to St. Georges Basin, we stop at Bald Hill Lookout.  Here on most windy days you can para sailors jumping off the cliffs and floating down to the beach below.  The beach, known as Stanwell park seems to be a surfers beach.





A couple of kilometers from this beach is the Sea Cliff bridge, which extends from the rock cliffs of the Pacific shore into the Pacific Ocean.  The reason for this bridge was to reduce the amount of repairs required due to rock slides. Off shore there are several ocean cruisers idling in the water waiting for the command from headquarters.



For lunch we stopped at a semi-private club near to Seven Mile Beach in Gerroa.  The beach looked phenomenal, with white sand in a horseshoe bay.







We arrived at John & Ellen's place in the middle of the afternoon.  Their house is a wonderfully design bungalow, with a great backyard for entertaining.  After sharing some wine, Ellen treated us to great meal of fired rice and apricot chicken.

Fiji Air has been changing our flights.  It now appears will be delayed by a day in arriving back in Canada.  Kari and our good friend Joan have been relentless in warning us of the potential dangers in not returning to Canada immediately due to the Corona virus lockdown.  We very much appreciate their concern expressed by them and our other friends.  But as I told both Joan and Kari, we will adapt to what ever comes our way.