About

Joan Elizabeth's profile image I blog as Joan Elizabeth but outside the blogosphere I am just Joan. My husband Ian and I live in the Lawson a town in the Blue Mountains, NSW Australia. The city of the Blue Mountains, 50-120kms west of Sydney, comprises 26 small towns within 1000 square kilometres of World Heritage listed National Park so an incredibly beautiful place to live. My blogs I started writing  Blue Mountains Journal in 2007 when I had a year off work and decided to explore the mountains by walking each day, taking photographs and learning to name the flowers and birds. Naming the trees continues to elude me. Some time later I found I was also enjoying adventures beyond the mountains so began Sweet Wayfaring . After we bought a small caravan we extended our reach to inland Australia where we've fallen in love with the rural and arid landscape and want to see more. Finding myself back at work and with little time to spare for blogging I started Burnbrae Jo...

I am hoping that this will be year that I am truly back in the blog business.   Here's the plan In  Blue Mountains Journal  I plan to explore each of the towns that make up the City of the Blue Mountains - a new town every couple of weeks.  We are not so up to taking bush walks any more so this seems like a plan that has a good chance of working. I hope to post once a week at  Burnbrae Journal  while again reflecting on a Psalm each week, beginning from Psalm 1.  It is wonderful way to record the happenings in the garden and when I retire later in the year (assuming I really do it this time) I have great hopes for more to happen there.  It is shady and weedy but has such great bones and wonderful trees is manages to be glorious despite my lack of effort. There are however another two large gardens competing for my time.  The easy care bush block at Clandulla which I would like to develop further with Australian native plantings when I a...

Well last year I didn't plan anything and it showed.  I got the blog blahs and posted very little. Like most people my phone is my constant companion so this year, I hope to take shots more regularly with my new iPhone camera and post to whichever blog is appropriate.

I am a little late with this post because this year I find myself without a plan.  Maybe something inspiring like 100 towns will come up as the year progresses but right now nothing. We haven't been wayfaring this Summer and I don't expect to go far until we do a long trip north later in the year. So I guess you will see sporadic posts in Sweet Wayfaring, Blue Mountains Journal and Whistlers Rest. I expect to continue with my regular posts at Burnbrae Journal and will progress with a new Psalm (in sequence) each Sunday.  I do my best to match what's happening in the garden with the verse selected from the Psalm but don't always succeed. Of course I will keep adding to the Royal Collection.  Between us we managed to add 19 new hotels this year, though I am still to upload most of the images to the gallery.  Once I do so there will be over 100 hotels in the collection.

What a fun year I had in 2012 with the 100 towns. It's difficult to come up with a new project that has the potential to be as rewarding but  Roads the Beckon is what I have in mind. On the highway between the Blue Mountains and Lithgow there is a road named Forty Five Bends Road -- now doesn't that beg you to go and explore it, if only to count if there are 45 bends? There are other roads with wonderful names, perhaps not wonderful scenery.  That is the point of this project, the road will be selected only because its name is promising and we will go see what's there. Wherever I am on the weekend I will search the map and pick the road/street name I like best. I plan to publish the roads at   Sweet Wayfaring   and  Blue Mountains Journal  depending on where it is located, I will see if it is possible to consolidate them into a Gallery when I get some time. Perhaps the road of the week will be all I post as I expect to be pressed for time until mi...

My blog plan for 2012 This year I plan to continue posting to Sweet Wayfaring when we do a new trip and I'll still be out and about in the mountains so will take you with me at Blue Mountains Journal whenever I go for a walk or drive, probably posting alternately between the two blogs like I did in 2011. Burnbrae Journal will post twice a week on Sunday and mid-week. In my mid-week post I will be doing some reminiscing with recollections of when I first 'met' particular flowers.   Whistler's Rest will continue with occasional posts. The galleries The   Royal Hotels   will continue. I am hoping to add to the collection in 2012 and welcome contributions from readers anywhere in the world.      Weekend People  will be retiring at the end of January to make room for a new blog visiting 100 towns in the Central West of NSW, posting weekly.  This will pull together images from previous posts on Sweet Wayfaring and others that may not have mad...