Celebrating A Month Early

Friday the nineteenth was our 12 year and 11 month anniversary!  Daniel will be in school on our 13th anniversary and that is why we took our trip in July.  We left Stanthorpe, and Queensland state, early in the morning to make it to Armidale, New South Wales.  We were both excited about finally travelling across the border.

We drove by this Triceratops a few times before Daniel finally snapped a shot of it. 

We've no idea what this pyramid made of stones is all about.

Obviously, it was hard to see and we couldn't find a road to take us there

Welcome to Northern New South Wales

Where it looks like Southern Queensland!

Armidale is another small town.  This place is chock-a-block full of churches!  On each block there was at least one holy building or cathedral.  I was driving and we arrived a little early, so we decided to walk around the town and check out some museums.  

First little church, and me by our car 

 Church number two

 Another one!

 What I found interesting is how similar all the bricks looked

Different buildings - same bricks

 Are there a lot of sinners in Armidale?

Sixth church

All within a two block radius

World War 1 Memorial Fountain

The Armidale Folk Museum was small and interesting.  The sole curator was an extremely friendly, albeit odd man.  The museum's building was constructed in 1863, although it wasn't used as a museum until 1933.  Of all the ancient artifacts held here, we were allowed, and even encouraged, to touch anything that wasn't behind glass.  Daniel and I explored the main room together and then split up to wander by ourselves around the other small rooms.  Every once in awhile I could hear the curator telling Daniel a crazy story and encouraging him to touch things.  Then after a few minutes he would appear behind me to give me added information on whatever I was looking at, ever adding, "You can touch it." Like I said, he was an odd man. 

 Someone, a long time ago, thought that these creepy birds were beautiful

 This was Daniel's favourite carriage

The English Coach was used over a century ago by Armidale's State Governor

I pushed a button on this old cash register

 We both liked this fan

and I really liked all the items lining the shelves

 I had a pair of shoes repaired here recently;

the machinery hasn't changed much in 100 years

Curator: "You can go in there!"

Me to Daniel: "Get in the Tardis!"

After spending just over an hour listening to stories and looking around, we signed the museum's guestbook and went to see the New England Regional Art and Painting Museums.  The photos were huge and unbelievably beautiful.  They were by an Australian photographer who took shots all over Australia and some of them were absolutely mind-blowing.  Daniel and I walked around taking them all in until we finally decided to check into our hotel for the evening.

Since it was our anniversary celebration we splurged on a fancy suite, complete with dinner and breakfast the following morning.  We went searching for a swimming pool only to discover that it had been turned into a restaurant.  Back in our room, Daniel attempted to hook up his laptop to the HDMI on the big flat screen television.  He even had a little help from one of the staff members, and in the end it was an unsuccessful venture.  The young man who was helping him accidentally ripped the cable into two pieces.  Whoops; that was the end.  

Our fancy room also came with a bottle of bubbles and chocolates 

Pop!  That's a good sound

A toast

I love his annoyed at the television face

We did our best to order expensive food since we'd already paid for it with the room fee; however, this is not an easy task when you're vegetarian.  Usually meat dishes are pricer.  The food was okay; I think we were expecting a bit more.  We did have a fun time together, though.  The champagne was making us laugh and for some reason we pretended to plan our 25th wedding anniversary.  I remember that elephants were to be involved!  For dessert, Daniel ordered a chocolate cake that was actually pudding and I ordered creme brulee which was actually custard.  We decided to take the sweet course back to our room and our waitress insisted on carrying them for us (I think she probably wanted a break from the busy workplace).  As we ate, we watched a show on Daniel's laptop and continued our jovial night of laughter.

 Huge menu, one vegetarian choice

 Daniel and the fancy restaurant

Meh