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!

Day Out With The Oldies!

Today we decided to take the oldies out for a spin in the Ute and headed to Buderim which is a small town nearby which has some forest areas. It was a good day out with boardwalks to a waterfall and we had a picnic with the mosquitos!

This little fella was swimming near the waterfall along side a green tree snake but didn't manage to photograph him! We were impressed by the frog's breaststroke!

Yes, it is. Our first roo! We took a detour on the way home to Mum and Dad's plot for their new home where we saw Skippy and his friends having dinner. Let's hope they still live there after the house is built and we won't have to leave home to watch them!

On the way home we stopped at a creek to do some platypus spotting but no luck. So now you have got to keep posted for platypus news!

Weather report: After heavy rain all day yesterday, hot and sunny today!

More Aussie news soon! x

Big Ute News!

Our search is over, the deal has been done. We drove home in this little beauty today, a Mitsubishi Triton 2.8l diesel. After taking these snapshots we took it for a spin into the hinterland(inland mountain area!), where we had a coffee and cake stop! Can you notice a theme in our days out.

Cath is slightly concerned how she is going to reach the push chair out the back without going head first in!

We are very happy with our new toy, but still no roos!

Weather Report: Cloudy (but no rain, yet)

Still finding our feet!

We are into the second week of our new life. Still not quite in the holiday mode as the official duties haven't been completed yet. But hopefully big ute news tomorrow, fingers crossed.

We did manage to escape to Noosa for the afternoon yesterday which definitely felt like a holiday and revisited a cafe on Hastings street we went to 4 years ago!

Today we went for a drive inland and up into the mountains to start locating good photographic locations for Neil! It is very beautiful especially the Glass House Mountains.

We passed through a few quaint little towns were you just had to stop for coffee and cake(it would be rude not to!)

We then went for a rainforest walk with giant fig trees and lots of pademelons( tiny kangaroos, think these count for our first kangaroos sightings, well maybe not!)

Who has the bigger bump?

On the way home we came across a little gem, Paskins Road!

Weather report: hot and sunny!( a few clouds but not many!)

Take care x

More soon definitely with Ute and roo news.