Fun times

As usual we have been busy bees so not much time to keep the blog updated. We have done a variety of things recently, so where to start. Well the big event of the month has to be Ned and Janae from neighbours visiting the Queen Street Mall in Brisbane. As you can imagine Garry was very impressed being dragged to see them - although all I can say is he complained the whole of the cue but when we got to them he jumped up there for his picture (what more can I say). Personnaly I thought it was really cool meeting some of the neighbours crew as I am a massive fan.

Ned and Janae

After all the excitement of meeting some of the neighbours cast we decided to spend a day riding rollercoasters are favourite past time. After spending two weeks in Florida in Nov you would have thought that we had enough but nope. We went to Movie world on the Goldcoast which is a smallish park with not very many rides but a good day anyway. The best ride was the superman one which shot you around really fast it was cool. As you can see from the photos the weather was shocking!

Movie world

Superman Ride

Brisbane has an agricultral show for a week every year called the EKKA, it is a really big thing they even get a public holiday which is known as peoples day. We didnt go on peoples day as thought it might be a bit busy. A friend of a friend was over from the UK so we showed him the sights of Brisbane - took him fishing and too EKKA. They have this weird thing that they all go to the EKKA for showbags, these are like promotional bags for different companies that you have to pay for!!!! (strange) but it is a massive thing to go to EKKA and get a showbag. They are usually around about $15-30!?! It is also a tradition to have a dagward dog - this is a deepfired (battered) hotdog on a stick that you are supposed to dip in ketchup. Unfortunatly I did not try one! There were lots of animals and a massive fair it was quite a good day out.

Sleepy goat at EKKA

Llama

Ed and Garry fishing

Sunset (always have to have one!)

Gold Coast

Well I have been a bit slack at posting on the blog but have been fairly busy so I will update on everything we have been upto. Where to start - well mine and Garrys birthdays have both been and gone, mine in June and Garrys in July. We had a lot of fun for my birthday we had a meal on a paddle steamer up the Brisbane river, which was lovely, for Garrys birthday we went to a restaurant called Tukka. It is an Australia Bushtucker restaurant, all the food is Australian so Aussie meats and berries it was just devine. We went out in Brisabane with some of the people I work with which involved at lot of alcohol and dancing but it was a really good evening.

As we had a few weekends of camping we spent some quiet ones in Brisbane having a relax. We went to the Southbank and checked out some of the museums which was cool. We also went to Mount Tambourine which is in the Hinterlands. It is part of the mountain range, we did some walking through bush and went to visit some of the winerys up there - well Cedar Creek Winery. We had lunch at the winery on the patio which was really lovely we also went to the Glow worm caves. It is man made caves that they house glow worms in it was quite cool bit weird! We did some wine tasting and ended up buying lots of good wine.

Mt Tambourine View

Bushwalking at Mt Tombourine

More walking

Bushwalking

Garry in a tree

Sarah in a tree

Cedar Creek Winery

Hinterland

Unfortunalty Garrys Grandad past away which was very sad and difficult for Garry, he decided not to go home for the funeral as we thought that his Grandad would rather we stayed here and did something nice for him. The funeral was when we had travelled down to the Gold coast so because his Grandad was in the navy we thought it would be nice to do something at the sea. We got some balloons and some flowers. We wrote messages to him and attached them to the balloons and let them go, putting the flowers on the water. It was very sad but felt really special for a special man. We will miss his Grandad lots

We had a nice weekend at the gold coast at Surfers Paradise. It is completely different to everywhere else we have been. It is very busy and commericial lots of high rise buildings and nightclubs. As usual when we go camping we went night fishing but it was impossible to get a spot on the beach to fish there were hundreds of people lining the shores it was amazing. Luckily we found a spot and Garry caught two tailor which we filleted and he cooked on the BBQ for tea. On the Sunday we went on a Kayak tour which was alot of fun. We kayak to an Island called Wave break where we had breakfast and snorkelled seeing lots of funky coloured fish. We then kayaked on to South Stradbroke Island which is a sand Island that has been cut off from North Stradbroke, it is the only place you will see Swamp wallabies. We had a walk around there and then kayaked back. hard work but lots of fun.

Surfers Paradise

Surfers Paradise

While we were on the Gold coast we decided that we wanted to go Whale watching so we booked it for the following weekend. Garry wanted to go on a fishing charter so we booked that too, so we treked off to the Gold coast again this weekend. We went out Whale watching on the sat and saw lots of Humpback whales that are migrating up the Australian coast. The were amazing, we saw a few different pods of whales. They were so massive one of them swam right past the front of the boat - all I can say is wow.

Whales

On Sunday Garry dragged me out of bed at 4.45am to go fishing (yeah was appreciating that!). We set out on the boat at 6am in time to see the most lovely sunrise and take 100s of photos of it. We travelled out of Gold coast for 2h on the boat and were fishing in water 90m deep, it was killing my arm to reel in just the weight I had on it let alone if I got a fish. I was a bit concerned that I was the only woman on the boat but in the end worked to my advantage as I just acted the weak, dim woman and got the men running around after me hehehehehe. Well as always I caught more fish than Garry heheheheh over here there is a size limit on fish you can keep. I caught 4 fish but only 3 of them were big enough to keep, Garry caught 2 fish and niether of them were big enough ooopppss. I managed to catch a Pearl Perch, Mauhi and Red Snapper. So last night we had the snapper for dinner and it was lovely.

Sarah's Fish - Snapper, Maui, Pearl Perch


My Snapper!

Well I think that is everything we have done over the last couple of weeks other than go and see Harry Potter which I was very excited about so we saw it the first day it was out here and I loved it. I hope you enjoy the pictures and I will keep it updated.

Our House

Just thought I would post some piccies of our little unit in Oz. It is two bedroom, one bathroom, two balcony unit. It is about a 10 min walk to the uni and the city cat goes from behind the house.

View of river from Balcony

view from other balcony

Lounge/dining room

We havent got the lovely peach curtains anymore! They put us new cream ones in although it was a big loss we are surviving hehehe.

Inskip Penenisula

We packed up the car again and headed up the sunshine coast to Inskip Point about 3 hour drive. Inskip it just below the south end of Fraser Island so you can see Fraser from the beach at Inskip. We camped on a site just off the beach again but this time it was a proper campsite no proper toilets, no showers or running water! I actually survived - only just but that is a different story!

View of Fraser Island from Inskip

Rainbow Beach

Carlo Sandblow

Lake Poona

Inskip

We arrived Friday afternoon and pitched the tent had a bit of a wonder on the beach before it was dark. Saw the most amazing sunset and then saw the most amazing stars, lots of shooting stars a sight I will never forget. Again we went fishing I actually caught the biggest fish for me so far a Flat head! Unfortunatly we didnt have the camera gutted! The wind was really strong and very cold so we retired. I was absolutly freezing (in Oz and cold cant believe it!)

Sunset

Saturday we decided to explore some of the local area most of it can not be accessed by two wheel drives but we saw what we could. We went to Rainbow Beach which has coloured cliffs that arc around a wide bay, to a place called Double Island Point. We then went on to Carlo Sandblow which is a 120m high dune that sits atop a hill, the views were amazing. We also went on a hike through the bush to see Lake Poona.

The weather was amazing on Sunday and I finally persuaded Garry to get on a horse yes you heard right he went riding with me. I have photographic evidence too. It was amazing we rode along rainbow beach the weather was fantastic, white sand, lovely blue sea and horses it was great. It was a 2hr ride too so he was complaining about how sore he was so I had to let him go fishing - but I sunbathed so it was nice. Monday we packed up and drove to Tin Can Bay, thought it would be a good idea to rent a boat for two hours and go out in the bay and fish. Yeah great idea with Garry driving! He managed to get us grounded on some rocks genius! Luckily he got us off it was very funny!

Fishing on Rainbow Beach

Tin Can Bay

Garry on a Horse!

The Two of Us!

Garry

Riding on Rainbow Beach

North Stradbroke Island - 'Straddie'

After purchasing a large amount of camping equipment with the idea to go camping we thought we best try it out. Although I used to go caravaning as I child I havent really been camping as such so was very excited about this expedition! Although when I mentioned to my friends that we were planning this little trip they found it amusing, thanks guys!

our humble abode

Straddie is an Island just off the coast of Brisbane it is not very big and there arent very many roads but lots of beaches! So we packed the car (well garry did while I worked) and got up early on Saturday morning to get the ferry that takes you over to Straddie. The ferry takes about 40 mins to get there and goes across moreton bay. The weather was not brilliant it was very overcast and there was a bit of a chill - the first time I have worn a jumper in the whole time we have been here. We arrived on the Island too early to pitch the tent so decided to make a trip to Point Look out at the the northeast tip. Straddie is very popular with the surfers because there are really big waves! The sea is lovely and blue with nice white sand (see the pictures) There is a walk at Point look out that takes you through the North Gorge which was just lovely, this time of year is whale migration season and the whales swim up past Point Look out but we didnt see any :(

North Gorge

Point Look out

After our walk around point look out we went to the campsite at Cylinder Beach - very popular swimming beach. It was a lovely campsite the facilities were immaculate and we were just off the edge of the beach. We had a walk along cylinder beach and found the most massive sand dune - which Garry thought might be a good idea to race up yeah right - we got about a third of the way running then died hehehe We climb the massive sand dune and sat at the top while we died but it was cool to look around at the views. We did some rockpool hunting and saw lots of funky fish.

As Garry was having fishing withdrawals we went to Amity which is a good fishing spot. First we fished off some rocks and yes I caught a fish woo hoo! We then went to fish off the jetty, as it started to get dark more and more people turned up to fish. All of a sudden a dolphin appeared and was swimming around the jetty it was stealing the bait from the fishing lines, it was so cool it hung around for ages and was swimming right up. Me and Garry loved it the Aussie werent so impressed that it was ruining their fishing hehehe. After we got back to the campsite garry decided that he wanted to do some night fishing off the beach so we set up on the beach which was really cool as there was no one there and the sky was clear so could see the stars there was a full moon it was awesome. Low and behold garry managed to catch a shark he was well pleased.

My Little Fishy - What a catch!

Garrys little Fishy!

On Sunday we went to Brown Lake - which is what it says, very strange the water is totally clear but with a brown colour. We went to go to the other lake also which is call blue lake but we could not get to it as they had closed the car park and walking tracks so decided to go fishing again - do you get the theme. Garry caught another two smaller sharks but not much elase was going on so we made our way back to the ferry terminal. We stoped at Point Look out again and watched the waves for a while they were so huge it was unbelievable the beach was closed due to the dangerous wave it was amzing to watch - still no whales. All in all we had a really good time and saw loads of wild life. Will be nice to go back in the summer

Frenchmens Beach

Cylinder Beach (where we camped)

Would you swim in these waves?