Behind the Scenes - Gila Mosaics

Australia - Final Stop!

3/15/2018

Finally, the day arrived when I met Belinda, the amazing woman who organized my entire Australian tour. She performing heroically to pull it all together! We had an incredible time together, definetly kindred spirits!

Belinda & her husband Ian, have a beautiful property out in the country. The have greenhouses where they grow vegetables, an orchard with all types of fruit trees, plenty chooks (chickens) and a couple of very cute fur babies!

One of my favorite things is fresh off the tree figs. I was really disappointed that they didn't ripen in time for me to pick and eat them. I kept checking, but no figs for me!

Being out in the country, Belinda assured me that I would see some of Australias unique wildlife. Sometimes, they just appeared in front of us, and to see others we had to go out hunting in the night.

This is an Echidna - a slow moving porcupine like creature with multi colored spikes!

There were always a wide variety of birds at the feeder.

It was an exciting day when we were lucky enough to spot a kangaroo at the edge of the property.

The kookaburra really does laugh, loudly! The ladies in my workshops sang many rousing choruses of the old song, Kookaburra sits in an ole gum tree, for me ..... I hadn't heard that song since I was a child.
& It's true!

Gaia - Belinda's super stunning mosaic studio guardian

Two portrait workshops and one flower workshop ensued. All full, with amazingly friendly, fun and talented people. Here are some of the works in progress and results of their hard work.

It was super exciting when I found out that my good friend and colleague Freya, that I worked with in Malaysia, could drive over for a visit. We hadn't seen each other in 20 years. We had a lovely few hours catching up, with endless giggles as we tried to get one acceptable photo!

Another fun excursion was taking a ride on the Puffing Billy Railway. The line is one of the most popular steam heritage railways in the world and is kept in operation through the efforts of volunteers of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society. The railway aims to preserve and restore the line as near as possible to how it was in the first three decades of its existence, but with particular emphasis on the early 1920s.
I was told that normally everything is lush green, but unfortunately what I saw was mostly brown, due to the recent drought conditions.

We were lucky to have Conductor Fraser, a friend of Belinda's, ride with us, as our personal guide.