Saturday, March 7

One of our reasons for coming to Wollongong this week was to disperse the ashes of my Uncle Archie who died on New Year's Eve.  He left instructions that he wanted to be left in the rose garden at the Wollongong  Botanic Gardens where his wife's ashes were sprinkled earlier.  Since then, there has been a ban on ashes among the roses so we did a symbolic 'drop' of a handful there and took the rest to the harbour to scatter in the waves.

Archie was a sailor during and after the war, and loved ships so it was appropriate to leave him there.

Yesterday, we took the train to Sydney and then a ferry to Abbotsford to enjoy a celebratory lunch for Marilyn's birthday.  And, tomorrow, we take the train again to Circular Quay to join the Rhapsody of the a Seas for a cruise to Fiji.  This will be our twelfth cruise and we will have clocked up 144 nights at sea by the time we get back.