Last Days of Australia Trip

We spent the last weekend of Australia trip poolside overlooking Adelaide with Family and celebrating Milan's birthday, then and a quick stopover at Oma and Opa's before flying back to Cambodia. Here are some of the photos.

Clancy in Adelaide

Clancy has been catching up with cousins and playgrounds the last couple of days, swimming and playing hide and seek.

 

Pizza at Jarrad’s

Our last night In Melbourne before heading to Adelaide was with my sister Sylvia and her Husband. Clancy has had a great week with his Oma and Opa. His cousin Ebony had a sleep over last night.

Gang blong Vanuatu

We caught up with some old friends from Vanuatu, Mike and Camille who now live in Bussleton WA and Phil and Emma who live in the Dandenong’s VIC. We met for a 715 breakfast after Gerome’s 40^th, in St Kilda where we were staying. We were not firing on all cylinders, but it’s always great to catch up with the guys.

Gerome’s 40th

One of the main reasons for travelling this time was to attend Gerome’s 40^th. It was held at Jacques Reymond restaurant in Prahan, Melbourne, (www.jacquesreymond.com.au). Gerome has an extensive cellar and provided the wines to which Jacque Reymond created a Degustation menu of nine courses. We started with old vintage Dom Perignon and just got better from there. The whole event was fantastic.

Soccer with Opa

Clancy got a chance to show Opa some of the new skills he was learning at his after school soccer sessions.

Headed to Australia

We are headed to Australia for two weeks with one week in Victoria and another in South Australia, returning to Cambodia on the 23^rd of February.

Norodom Sihanouk du Cambodge Horse Jumping Championships Finale

The final day of the event. Clancy competed really well, completing the course properly. He didn’t place but the way he handled the horse and guided him was all one could hope for, so very well done and more exciting for me than my event. The Adult course was really difficult and I didn’t get a complete round with Unique shying at jump 3. We came back and cleared it but by that stage without a clear round I couldn’t complete the timed section of the course. That was disappointing as I had clear and 1st place rounds in the previous two events. Anyway, the course pulled up all the other riders also and I still finished with the best round and won week three. As a result I was crowned (in the French because it sounds way cooler) Le champion le Grans du Cambodge in my division!

Training with Special Forces

Beau pulled himself out of the sick bed on his final day to head out to the Cambodian Special Forces Shooting Range, a slightly weird private enterprise of the army. Beau and I shot off a couple of clips of AK47’s and Beau had a go at an Al Capone era machine gun. It’s one of those ‘must do’ things for 'boy' visitors in Phnom Penh.

Visitors from Borneo

Beau and Amelia came visiting from Borneo via a few days in Vietnam. The news of the visit was their engagement. Unfortunately both Beau and Amelia fell ill while in Phnom Penh and didn’t get a chance to do all the things we had planned so they are talking about coming back again.

News from Vietnam

Beau and Amelia are in Vietnam and are heading to Phnom Penh tomorrow for 4 days.

We just received the following news from Beau..

"Yesterday we departed on a beautiful junk boat in the north east of Vietnam on Halong bay. The white dolphin is a luxury 2 suite junk that we chartered for a 2 day trip.

After having lunch on board and traveling through the world heritage listed limestone mountains, our first stop was an amazing floating village. We visited their pearl and fish farms and also the local floating school. From here we then motored to the lay up spot for the night with all the other junks. After sunset and a couple of drinks we were served a romantic seafood dinner. After dinner and extremely nervous I waited to find the right time. This was quite hard as Amelia was in one of her funny moods and i was trying to be romantic!!!! Eventually i got her attention….asked Amelia to marry me and told her how much she meant to me…..there was a very long pause….yes of course I will! Stay tuned for our tropical wedding plans soon."