Maryborough, Queensland

Maryborough, inland Queensland. A delightful town with lots of history and lovely old buildings. The boatbuilding industry on the local Mary river has all but disappeared, but it has a brand new town hall and an active art community.

Maryborough is the birthplace of the author of Mary Poppins, Pamela Lyndon Travers, although the town was already named Maryborough before that event. The town hosts the annual Mary Poppins Festival.

Australia (lazy post)

 I will take advantage of Mario's post about our holidays in Australia and post my sketches for Melbourne Harbour and Manly Beach (my laziness knows no limits!)

 

Australia Summer Holidays

We had only seen it from the sky and had stopped there a few times "on transit" to New Zealand, but this time we finally went to visit Australia, I mean Victoria and New South Wales coast. We first landed in Melbourne and spent a few days enjoying this very cultural city. We saw some awesome graffiti on the streets,  the narrow lanes packed with people and good food everywhere.

 Brunswick St, one of our favorite streets for it's shops, street life and facades.

Victoria Market, for cheap food and for any type of items. 

 Melbourne Harbour, sadly no big boats on this day.

One great thing about this journey was to meet the Urban sketchers from Melbourne, Evelyn Yee was our contact, we met her and 2 other sketchers at the Harbour and did a sketch together on a sunny Saturday Morning, see above. From Melbourne we drove up to Sydney through  the coast on a campervan, this road doesn't always get close to the sea but there are a lot of nice villages to stop and have a swim on the estuaries, lakes or beaches. Sleeping on a van was the highest moment of happiness for our daughter Eva, look at her floating on the Cuttagee river near Bermagui.

 Places like Eden, Lakes Entrance, Merimbula will be kept on our mind.
After so many beautiful landscapes it was time to reach the city again, before arriving to Sydney we tried to find out with USk Sydney if there was some sketch meeting that week and Liz Steel told us that they were actually going to meet on the Saturday in Manly. It was a great change to see this very cool place, located on the north of Sydney Harbour and met other Urban Sketchers. There are so many ways of looking and sketching a place and is good to learn and share techniques. The drawing below was made while the market was going on and people were moving towards the beach.
 

 The Corso at Manly, very colorful facades and dramatic palm trees.

After visiting the "must see" places, our favorite way of seeing a city is to wander around and follow the instinct, the topography, and "the shades" on sunny days.  Its always exciting to find great spaces by chance, for example the Sydney Theater company and the amazing cafe with a view to the bridge and the boats (see below) and also a Chinatown quick sketch made while Liliana was in the queue for some mechanically made Emperor Cakes. After this trip we definitely want to go back and discover other places in Australia.

The Land of Oz

The grass is not always greener...  especially in 40+ C heat. However the 'Lucky Country' is always enjoyable to visit.

The you know what

An eastern grey and one of those guys who can hold his breath under water for 5 min

 

The one on the 5c coin, which they still have.  We visited the Royal Mint where you can spend three dollars and make one dollar yourself - perhaps our worst investment - but still fun.

We spotted a few koalas on Raymond Island, usually sleeping in the crook of a branch.

 

A tandoori in Ned Kelly town - Beechworth

 

National Gallery of Oz

 

Gold of the Incas exhibition

 

Our accommodation - with West Gate Bridge out the port hole

 

"The Termi"  - Gippsland Lakes - Railway Terminus Hotel - Bairnsdale

 

Other end of my favourite Railway Station (Flinders St)

 

Story book sand sculptures - Frankston - they use brickie's sand and spray the finished item to hold in place - this time 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'

Gippsland Lakes - Newlands Arm