Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Well where did the last 2 weeks go? Yes, Miss R came home today from AJ2010 and is currently snoring in front of the TV. She had an absolute blast!

And what did we do while she was away? Why we jumped in the car and drove 3000km to visit her, of course!

We stayed at the Medina Apartments in Wollongong, which was fantastic. The service from all the staff was exceptional, from the moment I booked until the moment we got home and I realised that I could have earned Velocity points by staying with them. A quick email, and all fixed!

We'd driven through Wollongong before (I used to work for BHP so wanted to see Port Kembla), but never really stopped to look around. We quite liked it; beautiful piece of coastline, lots of cute little shops....yes, I think I'd visit again. Loved this road:

We stayed in Mildura and then Yass on the way over, then Canberra and Mildura on the way back. The hotel in Canberra was very historic, but had been left to decline a little. It was being refurbished, but still had a way to go. We went to visit the National Museum of Australia while we were there; spent several hours wandering around before it closed and still didn't feel as if we had seen everything.

But back to Visitor's Day. We, along with around 10,000 other people, rolled up to Cataract Park on Saturday 9th to see what our beloved children were up to. It was a stinking hot day (yes, I know it wasn't as hot as Adelaide, but not far behind!) and we were exhausted by the end of it, but it was just amazing to see the scale of this....and Miss R was very pleasantly surprised to see us. She showed us all around, introduced us to her Troop and Patrol, we bought state badges and contingent badges, checked out the media centre and Market Day....it was great and I'm so pleased we made the effort.

Here's Miss R at the gateway to her campsite. They won the award for the Best Troop Name - not sure if that was for the whole Jamboree or just the SA contingent though.

Miss R is one of the lucky few that will qualify to attend 2 Jamborees, as she won't have turned 15 for 2013's in Queensland. She's come home all enthusiastic to go again, so I hope that feeling lasts. I think Scouts has been good for her and I'd really like her to continue.