An Evening Drive. Friday 29th Dec

Most of the day was spent, unsuccessfully, shopping for baby things. All the items we wanted(the big things) were not included in the sales, so we ended up with just a blanket and a few clothes. Lets hope Bradley doesn't make an early arrival as we are nowhere near equipped yet!

At sunset we decided to jump in the Ute and explore Cooloolabin Dam to see what it was like at low light. It was pretty nice but no big sunsets tonight.



We carried on up a dirt track about 10km to a lookout called Point Glorious which was definately worth it. Too late for sunset but still managed a snap for future reference.



On our way home, from the ute we saw a bandicoot, a barn owl and another snake! Cath's favourite way to view snakes is from her high up seat in Tanky.

Cania Gorge

Our holiday was officially a washout! We headed to an inland area where it never ever rains, until we turn up for our summer holiday and it chucks it down! We were in a cabin(shed with a bed!) on a caravan site in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town, Monto, was dead with one not very nice cafe. Basically there was nothing to do in the rain as our planned activities where walking, four wheel driving and wildlife watching. Even the four wheel drives said "dry weather only", so we were a bit stumped. As the cabin wasn't very nice, spending 15 hours inside it with heavy rain proved too much and we decided to cut our holiday short and come home!

A scene from a wet Cania Gorge.


Emergency waterproofs were brought into action with a dripping Cath at Dripping Rock.


We managed a walk to one of the sights, called Overhang Rock.




There were some highlights Bettongs and bottle trees! At our camp site there was nightly bird feeding, so we trotted along and fed the rainbow lorikeets which have very sharp claws and beaks as Neil found out as one decided his flesh was more tasty than the seed! After all the lorikeets had gone and after it had gone dark, little furry creatures called Rufous Bettongs come out and clear up the seed, they are small marsupials just over a foot tall. It's quite unusual to see them so it was great just to sit and watch them close up.


Another thing we looked for where the bottle trees, which unfortunately were down a red dirt road with a sign saying "dry weather only", so we were limited to spying a few from a tarmac road nearby. Here is a snap, it was the best the light could offer.

Christmas Day

Wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas back home and all over the world. Hope you all are having a great day with lots of nice pressies!

We have had a very different Christmas Day this year, sunburn instead of frostbite!
Along with Cath's parents we headed out to the beach at 8.30am and after a play in the waves and a short sunbathe we had breakfast. The done thing here is to cook breakfast at the beach, we made(well Cath's Mum & Dad!) a full english breakfast even with HP sauce. It was great fun, extremely hot and very different from Christmas' of the past. When we got home it was straight in the pool to cool down!








Opening of presents followed and then Xmas lunch of ham with the trimmings followed by good old Christmas pud but wasn't quite as good as home!



Enjoy your Christmas Day and have a very happy new year!

We are going away for 4 days on Boxing Day to Cania Gorge, which is 5 hours north of here. Rain is forecast the whole time so it may be a bit of a wash out. Keep posted for more intresting blog news!

December Catch Up

It's been a busy month hence no blog which is no good excuse really! An early new year resolution is going to have to be weekly updates. Neil has been busy with work and Christmas work parties proving he can drink just as much Castlemaine XXXX as the native Queenslander and Cath busy with Christmas shopping and browsing baby shops!

We've managed to squeeze in a few outings too! Firstly a tour of the coast heading south looking for good photographic locations.

Both taken looking towards Alexandra Headland. About 20 minutes from our house.





CJ posing in a wreck at Dicky's beach, watch out for this one in future sunrise shoots!



Only a few 100 yards further down the coast is Moffats Beach, from this lookout we could see green turtles in the waves.




The 3rd December saw Martin head back to the UK so we had a last meal at Nambour RSL. Next time we are all reunited there will be 6!



Another weekend, another expedition checking out good photo locations, this time looking for the best viewpoints to capture The Glass House Mountains on camera.



A weary Cath on reaching the top of Wild Horse Mountain lookout, named after the wild horses that used to live here.



A day out closer to home was at The Big Pineapple which is a tacky tourist attraction just near our house, but Cath wanted to check it out anyway! There was more than meets the eye, we went on a train ride, a boat ride and a macadamia nut ride! That was the tacky stuff, but still quite interesting, they did have a small wildlife park though, which was nice.
While walking in the grounds we had an encounter with another snake but he wasn't one of the ones they've got in glass tanks, he was out in the open, Cath remained calm and watched him so she must be getting better!
No photo of the snake or the big pineapple as Neil ran out of batteries! But beware if you visit we are now friends of The Big Pineapple and can visit as many times as we like! So you too can experience The Big Pineapple!


One of the Koala's of The Big Pineapple.

The Ashes

After 3 days at work Neil was having some time off work to watch England defend the Ashes!!! As you probably know this did not go according to plan, so we watched England get walloped for 5 days instead!
We travelled into Brisbane every day which was a long tiring experience but even though the cricket wasn't the best we had a good time and Neil, Martin and my Dad managed to consume their fair share of beer! ( and pies for Neil!)

Hopefully good news from the next test, good luck England! Even though I think we should be neutral now especially as I'm carrying a little Aussie in me! (Neil is shaking his head)

Real life has begun!

On 20th of this month, Neil started his real life down under and didn't he know it when the alarm went off at 5am! It was work time, he started with a painting firm about 25mins from the house. He gets to the yard for 6am then works at the job till 3pm, which still is a pretty long day. Cath feels very guilty about staying at home or shopping or going to the beach while her poor hubby has to earn the dollars! But she'll more than have her work cut out when little Bradley arrives!




First day home after a hot days work!

Maroochy River Boat Trip

On Thursday we headed out onto the river with all the family. We hired a boat for half a day, chucked in the esky full of food and a bucket with some handlines and some prawns(for attempting to fish!) We explored upstream and into some creeks, stopped at a waterfront hotel for coffee and had a picnic by the side of the river.





We had a go at fishing, Dad just fed them prawns but Neil managed to catch one, Cath thought it was cute so we put it back in!




Weather report: Hot and Sunny!

4wd driving trip

We went off on an adventure on Tuesday for 2 days along with Cath's brother Martin, we packed up Tanky (the affectionate name for our ute!) and set off to Cooloola National Park which is also known as Great Sandy National Park(It's the bit that Fraser Island used to be attached to on the main land for you folks who have been here). Well as you may have guessed its pretty sandy! We took the Cooloola Way which is a 4wd drive track up through the park to Rainbow Beach. The track was pretty bumpy but Tanky didn't even need his 4wd drive.





Once we checked all other tracks were passable(and a coffee and cake stop!) we headed deeper into the park onto a serious 4wd drive track where Tanky and Neil got to have some fun. After 40 mins we parked up at Freshwater Lake, see photo to check just how fresh the water was!


"Freshwater Lake" (There was even a sign by it, not to use soap in the lake!)


After a picnic we took Tanky down for a run on the beach but as it was high tide we only got to play in the soft sand so we headed back and saved the beach for low tide in the morning.



On our return to Rainbow Beach, we went for beers(not Cath!) then we headed up to an awesome place called Carlo's Sand Blow for sunset. From first hand expereinece it definately has a lot of sand and a lot of blow! After checking into our apartment we had tea at Archies with the backpackers it brought back many memories aswell as making us feel old!



Next morning we woke up to thunder storms(which can be pretty hard core in Queensland), had our brekkie and after advice from the locals decided it was still safe to go 4wd driving on the beach. It was action packed with bolts of lighting hitting the sea, torrential rain and only metres of soft sand to drive on between the sea and the cliff with an incoming tide! Tanky got a little bit stuck a couple of times but Neil managed to get him free without any digging or towing! It was an ace first time experience in our own 4wd and I'm sure when you all visit you may get taken on this adventure too!!!

Snake Update

The big news today, Pete the python was found slithering around the pool this morning for the 5th day running, we read they don't normally hang around one place and normally move on. So action was taken, Neil the brave caught him in the pool net and pinned him to the patio while Cath's mum called the snake catcher. It was the easiest $25 he's earned as Neil did all the hard work. So Pete( who as it turns out is actually a girl was renamed Patricia by the snake catcher) has gone to live in the bush somewhere away from scary humans and Cath can now safely go back in the pool!





After the dramas of the morning, Cath, Neil and Martin spent the afternoon at the beach trying out our new bodyboards, not Cath as the bump gets in the way! The boys then downed some cold XXXX's out the esky and Cath drove them home in the ute!

Weather report: Very hot (34 degrees and no clouds!)

Another week in Aussie

It's been a week mostly of paperwork and errands but we have managed to squeeze in a few days out! First of all Cath managed to get a afternoon out at the beach, Coolom Beach on the Sunshine Coast which will be our local beach when we move into the new house. It's not bad for our nearest beach,hey?!



This is a pregnant pommie whale!


Then the bad news for Cath, a new neighbour to share her perfect paradise with, a 5ft python lives in a hole next to the pool. Neil loves him and Cath hates him. You may have to click on him to make him bigger as Cath still won't look at photos of him!





The offical news is that Neil now owns an iMac computer which he is very pleased about, he also has a job, a blue card which is a safety card(he spent the afternoon at college learning about australian safety on building sites) and an Australian driving licence(where he didn't get a question wrong on his theory test!)



Back to the holiday news with a quick drive out to a local beauty spot called Wappa Falls and started to get back into the photography.





Finally Cath's brother has arrived for a month of the good Oz life. We went out to the Glass House Mountains today, where we walked for over 9km in the heat of the day, Not good for pregnant women! But a few snaps of us and a very handsome goanna trying to disguise himself as a tree! A stick insect who was very good at disguising himself as a stick(funnily enough!) He gatecrashed our picnic falling out a tree onto the middle of the table cloth! And a scary spider!