Mission Not Accomplished :(

Doing my morning catch-up on what's going on in the world gave me an idea for where Tom and I would walk today. While reading a post at The RiotACT (a local forum) lamenting the tragic shortage of decent pubs in this town (Canberra generally and Gungahlin specifically), one of the posters mentioned the Gold Creek Tavern. Instantly I thought that a nice walk around the area could be rewarded with a nice cold beer or two in the beer garden. So off we went.

The walk was nice. We've been there a few times (including once when Mom, Hazle and Tommy were here), but I don't remember it ever looking so green.



Being a weekday, there weren't a lot of people around ("tourist traps are empty...") so we could walk fast enough that it was actual exercise, and then after we'd powered through from one end to the other, we slowed down and took time to look around a bit.

Tom thought it was cool when he saw the goldfish sticking their heads up out of the water to feed on the plants growing in the ponds (they made this weird sucking noise that got his attention), but he thought it was totally awesome when I pulled out some stale bread and he got to feed them himself.



He also fed pigeons and ducks, but we had to stop when he wanted to hand-feed the ducks the way Daddy did, and one of them nearly got his finger.

We've lived here for over ten years now, and I can't remember Canberra ever looking this green.



Of course as Karen always points out, it's not green like it was up north. In the semi-tropical rain forest. But, in its own way, it's nice. Much better than it looked a year ago, after over a decade of drought.

After enjoying the scenery for a little while, we turned around and headed back to the tourist area, ready for a little afternoon refreshment. And discovered that the Tavern in GONE! It's been replaced with "AdoreTea - the destination for tea lovers". Dammit! I mean hey, I like a cuppa as much as the next guy, and if the want to throw a few scones my way, or even an roasted eggplant, capsicum, goat's cheese and olive tapenade sandwich with the crusts cut off, I can handle that. If I'm in the right mood.

But when confronted with the sight of AdoreTea where the Gold Creek Tavern used to be, when I am in the mood for a nice frosty mug of ale, I am quite likely to use language that ladies enjoying high tea might prefer not to hear. Oops! My bad.

Oh well, I guess the important thing is that we had a nice walk. And that's at least FIVE in a row! And on the way back to the car, Tom got to have a little runaround and pick flowers. There were yellow ones...



And pink ones...



And there were bushes to crawl into to find good sticks...



And there were dandelions to blow apart, and bees to run from, and sunshine and a nice breeze, and lots of room to run around having fun for a while. Even if we didn't get to have a beer.



Did I mention that today made FIVE days in a row? Maybe even SIX! :)