Our last adventure in Queensland was hot air ballooning over the Atherton Table Lands.  That's us on the front-right of the basket.

Our next trip was to Canberra, the capital of Australia.  This is where Lachlan and the others grew up.  We met Lachlan's and Ilde's folks and visited the war memorials and government buildings (that's Parliament to the left).  We also got to spend time with our friend Don, who was battling leukemia at the time.  We felt so fortunate to be able to see Don and help brighten his mood a bit at that difficult time for him.  We're happy to report that he is doing much better now!

Up to this point we had not seen any kangaroos in the wild, and we were bent on finding them.  Lachlan drove us to through the outskirts of town so we can go on a kangaroo hunt.  Sure enough, we found them.  There were hundreds.  It was so exciting.  We then went to Tinbinbilla Nature Preserve to find more local animals in the wild.  There we spotted koalas, emus, black swans and lots of exotic birds.

We spent a couple days in the Hunter Valley Wine Region to taste the local wines. Lachlan has family that own a little vineyard and farm, so we stayed there over night.  This was Lachlan's first date with Angela (far right), whom he had met a few nights before as we were tearing up the town.  Lachlan and Angela are now engaged and will be married in December, 2004.  Congrats, you two.  We can't wait!

Our last hurrah in Australia was an Aussie Rules Football game to see the Sydney Swans play.  It is an exciting game to watch - a cross between American football and soccer.  The game was played at the lovely Sydney Cricket Grounds.

After the game Di and Shaun had a barbecue at their house.  Shaun threw some shrimp on the barbi, of course, for a real Australian meal to remember.