The end is near!

We are now at the conference in New Castle. We have been here since Thursday. Friday we went to the Hunter Valley and spent the day tasting wine's and cheeses, rough afternoon! I have tasted more wine on this trip than I have in my whole life, and I still have not had a bad one.

Tomorrow we will speak at the conference in front of about 900 people. We will be front and center for about 30 minutes. We have put a lot into this and hope it turns out well.

Sunday afternoon we will leave New Castle and head back to Sydney to finalize the trip.

Now at host families

Last night was the first time the team slept under a separate roof. My host family has been great. I got to meet them throughout the trip because Tony is the district governor for 9680 and his better half Sandra it not a Rotarian, but is involved 24/7. They have a beautiful home in North Avoca. It overlooks the beach and is just breathtaking.

I got to see a kookaburra bird this morning. He was sitting on the fence singing for food. Sandra tryed to feed him out of her hand like she usually does, but he couldn't figure out if my wheelchair was a friendly thing or not.

I spent the day with the NSW Police Department in Gosford today. It is amazing how many divisions they have and how they operate. I have not yet spoken to the rest of the team to see how it is on their end. I hope it has been as good as mine.

Our day & more on Aussie English

Today we had a fantastic day with the outbound Australian team to Germany. We went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and FINALLY saw some kangaroos, wallabees, koalas, dingos and other Australian wildlife. The kangaroos and wallabees were very interested in sniffing all of our chairs. Maybe scents of our canine kids interested them...who knows. We really had a wondeful day. Tomorrow we're looking forward to a behind the scenes tour of the famous Sydney Opera House, lunch at The Rocks, and a dinner presentation.

I promised more lessons on Australian expressions. Here are a few more that we have learned...

Give it a burl... Give it a try
Ute - type of car they have here that looks like an El Camino
Eskie...Cooler or icechest
Mad as a cut snake...self explanatory
Sunnies...sunglasses
She'll be right or She'll be apples...everything will work out
Woop Woop...way out

Here are some more...see if you can figure out what they mean:
Bikkie, Hoon, Like a shag on a rock, gone troppo, ridgy didge, rellies, fair dinkum, skippy chrissie, chuck a wobbly...

More to come...stay tuned!