Greetings from Sydney!

Today is a great day. The stone and I took the train to Wollongong where we met Sue Bessell from the city council. I was so excited; after years of planning there we finally were, on the other side of the world and about to get in a car and drive to the place where the stone will be given a new home.

I barely slept at all last night and then gave in around dawn and got up. It's strange to have waited so long for something and then when that something arrives it is both mundane and quite extraordinary at the same time.

We took the train and then a bus and Sue met us at 11. Nothing could have prepared me for how beautiful the site it. Here the sun is shining and hot today so the sky is cobalt blue and there are no clouds. In response the water of Lake Illawarra was a deep translucent and slightly cornflowery blue. Rippled by a gentle and cool breeze.

The lake is vast. There were birds of all sorts feasting there - heron, cormorants, shags, pelican. Apparently the prawns from this lake are the best that you can get. The site for the stone is at Kanahooka Point and it looks directly over to Koonawarra. Apparently there was a King Hooka - an aboriginal elder - after whom the Point is named.

Who knows - perhaps it was him who spoke to me in my dreams and instructed me to bring a stone out here.

When I was waiting to be picked up by Sue this morning I came to think of myself as a strange ambassador. One who comes bearing stones. I thought, is there a more precious gift that could be taken from one country to another, given from one community to another?

After being at the lake we went off and chose a large slab of sandstone to which the migrating stone will be fixed next week.