Day 65 - The Kooka-burglary of the Botanic Gardens

​It was another lovely slow morning today - I do like to take my time with my Nutrigrain and tea! I then accompanied Neil on a trip to the tip to recycle cardboard from Christmas. Let’s be honest, the main attraction for me was to see the ibises, or ‘bin chickens’ as I now know them to be called.

We then returned home to pack up a picnic and then picked Curt up on our way up the hill to the Dandenong Botanic Gardens. 

We arrived at the gardens and set about finding a table on which to have our picnic. There we all were, enjoying our sandwiches, when a kookaburra flew down and stole Neil’s sandwich right from his hand. It was really quite impressive, although a bit of a shock and a disappointment for Neil to lose his sandwich.


We then had a lovely wander through the gardens - the highlight being the Chelsea Australian Garden, which won ‘Best in Show’ at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2013. I also enjoyed that there were lots of AdLabs around the gardens for me, as well as pretty plants and nice views. Right before we headed for home, we were also lucky enough to see an enchidna, which was really cute.


We stopped for a couple of traditional geocaches on the way back into the city, and then I had a quiet couple of hours (reading my book in the hammock with a cup of tea, all the while guarded by Kuma!) whilst Chloe and Sarah returned from work and Curt had a session at the gym. 


We then all went to a lovely Italian restaurant for my final Aussie dinner. It was very scrummy and lovely to have Neil, Sarah, Chloe, Curt and Brandon all there. We did all have a particularly good laugh at Sarah’s attempts at ‘Six-seven’! 

Back at the house, I said goodbyes to Curt and Chloe, as I may well not get to see them tomorrow as they have work, and then have turned in with my book - remembering that tomorrow is the last day of the year and I have not yet completed my yearly reading challenge. 

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