Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 301 (Friday 28 October) - Roadtrip 6 - Back Home Alas

8.45 a.m. We finally made it to breakfast after a sleep in, showers, and some viewing of ABC breakfast television (at which actual meaningful news was covered and discussed. Imagine that!), and what a lovely breakfast it was. Our host, Margaret Fair (who in the 1970s lived in Nepal and married a Nepalese man before returning to Australia), had laid out a great spread of cereal options and toast, and even cooked my poached eggs all the way through so no nightmarishly gooey runny yokes for me! Hooray! We were even joined by by a skink who happily stayed in the same spot on the tiles near the table, warmed by the sun and the heating under the tiles...

9.54 a.m. Finished up breakfast, took a tour upstairs of the other rooms (we were the only guests that night), brushed our teeth, packed one or two final things, and while Steve settled the bill with Margaret, I packed the car, which we left parked outside the B & B (the Snow Lion) while we sauntered into town (a few minutes walk away) to go through the shops that had been largely shut tight the night before. On the way there, we passed through a beautiful park, with a trellis colonnade covered in lavender, with a  magpie and a crimson rosella feeding nearby.

10.05 a.m. We spent about two hours wandering through the shops, which featured everything from art to antiques, crafts and jewelery, buying some mugs for a friend of ours John when we found them in a retro store, doing some Christmas shopping for my niece Zara (a photo of whom arrived while were shopping - see below), and meeting some delightfully warm and friendly shop owners. There were a few shops that simply didn't open or open in time that we wanted to see but you can't see or buy everything! Although goodness knows I've tried...

A quilting shop, the photo of which I sent to Jen and Sel from my writing group. They love quilting and Sel begged me to take the whole store home with me!

The mugs we bought for John - 6 sets of mug and saucer at $22 each.

A cool butcher's sign if ever there was one!

My gorgeous guy loves his CWA recipes and so a picture outside the local CWA citadel had to be taken

The very cute shot of Zara in the rain at Australia Zoo - she loved jumping in the puddles!

12.03 p.m. Off down the road out of town, before turning off onto a road only the locals really know about which connects Braidwood with Nowra on the coast. We had planned to scoot inland but after some locals we dined with the night before recommended this road, we chose to use it instead, even with its 15 km of dirt road, because the rest of the road was newly, and beautifully paved and wide. We even got one last hit of national park beauty, stopping at Morton National Park's Tianjara Falls, after being tipped to look for the turn off sign which is only 75m before the entrance which takes you to a stunning view. While the water flow was small, the view was still mighty impressive, and a few other lucky souls had left, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, which was, as always, delightful.

There was a special area located just off the lookout with a reinforced steel grill that allowed you to see right down to the valley floor. Not for the vertigo sufferers, or faint-hearted!

2.47p.m. After emerging at Nowra, diving into Berry quickly to grab some bookends we'd seen in Berry for my gorgeous, we hightailed it up the coast reaching Kiama for a relaxed mid afternoon lunch at the Stone Wall cafe (very appropo name for two gay boys really!) and some of the yummiest sandwiches I have ever had...

6.49 p.m. At St Peters station to head into the City - after rushing to my gorgeous guy's place to wrap the bookends and drop off to Brett - to see the newly restored 2010 print of a 1927 cinematic classic, Metropolis