2 April 2006

Here's looking at you


I'm looking at you!
We started the day with a fine breakfast of bacon and eggs with our hosts and their ten children. Although we are quite used to bulk quantities I could imagine many family's surprise at the amount of bacon, eggs and bread we went through for breakfast.
Then it was a rush to find shoes, pack up bedding and sleeping bags, find socks for those shoes and do a head count in each vehicle as we all went to Mass. We attended a lovely church built many years ago, still with the original altar at the back and some finely restored stained glass and statues. The pew we selected had the patron of this church, St Patrick, looking down on us and pointing at us as if to say, "I did a lot of work in Ireland all those years ago. Now it's your job!"
We left after Mass for our final leg of about 5 hours. We had a short stopover to get some very tasty meat pies and thought of stopping at Macadamia Castle, which had a very interesting huge knight posted out the front. (B6 shows you the knight at B Where's)
However, although "Admission to the Castle is Free!", that only contains the gift shop and food area. The really interesting playground in which the children were interested was in the admission area. As that would have cost us $58.50 (US $43) it was a bit much for a playground, and we didn't have the time to do any of the tours and shows.
We finally arrived at Marian Valley just before 4:00pm. As the late Sunday Mass was being held we had a leisurely look around the grounds.
Luckily, we were able to use three of the retreat house rooms as it was a quiet week.

No comments: