Thursday April 06, 2006 5:30 am Ballina NSW

A. Morning Musings

5:30 am Our days are beginning to fill up. Yesterday's bird watching at Allison's was a genuine treat. While chatting and watching the birds in her front yard we happened to start discussing her plans and soon found ourselves agreeing to house sit at her place for an entire month while she is away. I will now discuss this with the realtors this morning and see about getting out of our lease. We also need to see about changing our air reservation to Sydney and then arrange for a hotel room near the airport. Finally we have heard that no one has claimed the watch we turned in to the police at Byron Bay a month ago and that we may pick it up. With a little luck we will also see a movie later this morning.

I encountered some problems yesterday evening while reviewing my photos on Adobe Photoshop Elements (I have lost all of my tags and descriptions as well as many of the images). I will be spending some time this morning seeing if I can get on top of this.)

Chores: realtor, Virgin Blue reservation, Sydney hotel, pick up watch from Byron Bay

C. Actual

7:45 PM The day was full but a poor match with what I wrote this morning. We began with an early morning walk along Shelly beach. I took a few photos of both dolphins and birds. A good beginning.

The visit to the realtor was disappointing - I was hoping for some form of compromise with our remaining lease, but I guess I live in a world that no longer exists. But we remain positive about our decision to leave early and experience living in a rainforest setting for our last month.

Much of my day was spent cleaning and dissambling the barbeque. We even took it to Lismore and it is now safely stored away for our next visit. We have also been able to finalize arrangements for getting to the airport and storing our car. We are very fortunate to have friends who will do their best to help our visits be trouble-free.

I was able to purchase more CDs and now have all of my images backed up. I will wait until we return to Lethbridge before setting up my online photo library.

Still to do: change our plane ticket to Sydney, book a hotel room in Sydney and travel to Byron Bay to pick up a watch. Most of our packing into suitcases and plastic containers is complete and we are in a good position to pack up and move.

Next week our priorities will be bird watching and reading.

Dolphins at Shelly beach
Blue-faced Honeyeater		New Holland Honeyeater

D. Reflection