Australia: road trip part 1

We're off on a road trip!  We're driving to Sydney and it'll take 5 days.  It's actually a fair bit more than 837 km but this is the first sign that occurred while I was watching and had my camera to hand.

The first day had quite a lot of driving - about 4 hours to reach Coffs Harbour.  We stopped on the way at Byron Bay for lunch and a look around.  Here's one of the beaches.

Byron Bay has a lighthouse: the Byron Bay Lighthouse.

It also has the most easterly point in Australia, which we weren't planning on but is kind of cool.  We didn't quite go there, as it's all the way down there, but we did see it.

And we had our photo taken with one of those brilliant fotopol things.  I've never seen them before but they're a very good idea. And here you have all four of us with some ocean behind.

Another unexpected bonus was the whale migration.  Looking down from the cliffs we could see shapes under the water and further out, whales leaping through the air.  Oh, and the odd pod of dolphins too, as you do.  We spent a good amount of time staring out to sea to see the whales, and this is the best photo I got.  It was great though, an unexpected pleasure.

After a good lunch in a fish restaurant, we went for a potter on the beach, of course.  Although a bit cooler for being further south, this was our favourite beach of the holiday.  Tranquil, broad, gentle surf, lots of space, mountains around.  Pretty brilliant.

And then another longish drive to Coffs Harbour, where we stayed in the Big Windmill motel.  A proper motel with drive-up rooms, and a pleasant enough meal in the windmill.  It is actually big.  Even more so as we were the only people eating at that time.  I should point out that this photo was taken the next morning.  Although temperatures were very nice for a holiday, it does get dark early (and quickly) in June in Australia, so our days were finishing in the dark at around half 5.

Another day, another beach, at Coffs Harbour.  Nice.

Have I already mentioned that Marisca got interested in taking pictures on this trip?  You can spot which one of the four above was her handiwork.

With a couple of hours' drive ahead of us, we thought 'what better thing to do than go to find a miniature Dutch village?'.  So we did, and here it is.  Oh, and it came with an enormous pancake too (that's why I went really, not to see the village, but don't tell Elspeth).

There was a train.  It had gone.  This is Tom's 'Gone?!' pose.  It's brilliant.

What else did we have as part of road trip part 1?  A honey farm, with bees and honey to taste.  (That sentence could do with some punctuation).

And a trip up a scenic waterfall way with not-very-impressive waterfalls but a nice view out from the top of the mountain.  Perhaps too long of a trip, as Marisca ended up quite tired.

And so, this is what happens when you have a road trip with two small children.  Marisca's grumpy face.

And another of Marisca's pictures, of Tom trying to find the door handle.

Australia: the Big Banana

Coffs Harbour has the Big Banana.  Of course.  Like most big things in Australia, I am led to believe, it's not actually that big.

But this is what happens at the end of a long car trip when you get out to see the banana and stretch your legs, and then decide that a nice photo of the children would be good.

The big banana: a sighter.

Let's start with Marisca.  Smile Marisca!  Do you want to leave your empty paper bag over here?  No?  Ok.

Now we've got Tom.  Well done Tom, nice and still.  Click.  Marisca?  What's up with you?  Tom's funny?  Ok...

Tom, sit down!

Marisca, please don't miaow at me pretending to be a cat.

Excellent, a nice cuddle.  Click - but the light is fading and the shutter speed too long as the cuddle turns into a wrestle.

Last go.  Look at my neck Daddy!  Lovely neck Marisca.  Shall we go?  I'm sure one of these will be ok...

Australia: friends

I'#ve not written a great deal about the Taylors - and most of my photos are of things and/or my own children doing things.  But one of the highlights of the trip was us spending time with our old friends, and Marisca and Tom making new friends with Jessica and Annabelle.

The girls got on very very well, making our lives easier (usually).  Tom was either played with ("Tombelo, Tombelo", or shut out of the girls' room, which was fine by him once he rediscovered the train set.

Picnic at Redcliffe beach....

Books.  Probably a rainbow fairy book, which (thankfully) Marisca has forgotten all about since we got back, having been particularly obsessed with them.

BBQ.  Of course.

The results of the BBQ.  Taylors eating lots, Mosedales just eating sauce sandwiches having ditched their sausages.

The train set.  Tom was so happy bimbling around with his trains.  Definitely a good idea to put those out!

And the girls again, on the last night, watching Frozen.

Thank you so much to Chris and Sian for hosting us and giving a reason to visit Australia.

Australia: running

I went all the way to Australia and took my running kit.  I was only really expecting to pootle around Chris' local parkrun, getting a few cheers for being British and a photo of my Saltaire Striders vest on tour.  Actually I ended up doing Sandgate parkrun twice, Newy parkrun once, and having two morning run outs with Chris too.  Plus learning the power of chocolate milk.

The parkruns were nice but rather flat.  And early in the morning making breakfast tricky.  But it is nice to be running at that time in the morning, even if it's funny seeing Australians wrapped up warm for their 'winter' runs.  I did struggle with dehydration on most of the runs but put in a couple of good times in the parkruns, and had my first yoga experience too.

A few photos below of Sandgate parkrun.

Australia: a long weekend

The rest of our time around Brisbane felt like a long weekend with friends.  We went on day trips, we had tea, we hung around and chatted.

We had a trip to Montville.  On the edge of a ridge of something, it's a little hilltop town with nice views.  Also a nice playground, a nice games shop, a nice cafe with very nice fruit loaf, a nice colourful kites & windmills shop, and a nice chocolate cafe.

We had a day trip to Mooloolaba, a beach up the coast.  Probably our warmest beach day of the holiday although we did relocate for lunch at exactly the right moment to miss the heavy rain storm.  Marisca and Anna enjoyed playing surfing together, digging holes, and the like.  We all had a bit of a swim in the sea too.

And on the last day before driving south, we hung around nearby, going to Redcliffe for swimming, picnic, playing, and cake.  Mmmm, cake.  

Australia: travel

I didn't write about it first because it's not that interesting.  For the same reason I don't want to write about it last.  But it is the thing people have asked me most about: how were the flights?  Well, ok really.  Over 24 hours or travelling in each direction with two children and three seats was difficult.  It wasn't fun at all, but we coped.

The way out worked better.  We had bulkhead seats so quite a lot of space around our feet.  The flight was primarily in daylight and so it just felt like a very long day.  Some napping from everyone, nice cabin crew, good TV (frozen was watched many, many times).  A very friendly chap who'd play cars with Tom for hours.  Tom did struggle with coming down and so we had 15 minutes of crying on each flight, but not much more.

The way home was less good.  Starting at 10:00 at night, everybody was tired but sleep didn't come easily.  The Emirates planes were more cramped (partly as we didn't have the bulkhead) and we shared rows of 4 rather than having our own row of 3.  Eventually everyone feel asleep except for me: I had Marisca curled up and lying on my legs, an arm rest that wouldn't stay up so I had to hold it up to stop it falling and crashing into Risky's skull.  And, eventually, a sleeping Tom who just wouldn't quite find a position that would let me sleep too.  So I had a very restless flight!

Jetlag?  Marisca was fine on the way out, and on the way back fell sound asleep as we touched down in Manchester so had to be hauled all the way through the long security queue and, eventually, got home, asleep, to wake at 2 and declare herself wide awake.  Tom was confused both directions: up in the night a lot for a few nights.  And us?  We're parents now so we just cope.

Australia: koalas and kangaroos

I love koalas.  I didn't really have a view on koalas before we went to Australia but now I love them.  They're obviously cute, and they just make me giggle with their hangingaroundness and general approach to life.  This will not be the last holiday post to feature koalas.

Back in Brisbane we went with the Taylors to Lone Pine koala sanctuary, which is more than just koalas really, with all sorts of Australian creatures, some of which are featured below.  As well as this there were playpusses which were very cool and a big hit with the girls.  There were three dingoes (two yellow dog dingoes, and one white one), red kangaroos, lizards, snakes, spiders, etc.  All of the things on this sign too:

Here's a koala.  See what I mean?  Hanging around.

Turtles.  We've seen turtles before, and indeed saw some just swimming about in the lagoon in Sangdate.  But these turtles are in a turtle stack.  And until a second before the shutter clicked, it was a triple trutle stack.  You can see the splash of the third turtle.  Apparently they stack quite often to get prime basking space.  Awesome.

Here's one of the most active koalas we saw all holiday.  I mean, it's not actually moving, but it looks like it might, at any moment.

A snake!  Proud of Marisca for giving it a stroke.

This is the infamous koala.  If you ask Marisca what she happened on her holiday, her stock answer for a while was that she went on lots of aeroplanes, and that a koala pooed on her.  This is the pooing koala, posing for a photo, which Risky just wasn't very sure about.  We went back later, as you'll see at the bottom. of the post.

We had a lot of fun feeding the grey kangaroos.There were lots of them just hopping around a big hillside, most of them getting a good feeding from the visitors, including our girls.  Again, Marisca enjoyed getting close and having a stroke, as long as they were facing the other way.  She absolutely loved them, just maintained a certain nervousness when they got too close.  If I came across a few dozen big red kangaroo the size of me I'd have felt the same.  Oh, we also saw a joey in a pouch which was fun.

And of course, the best and most exciting responses from the children all day was in the farm park bit, with the pigs, chicks, horses, and guinea pigs that we see all the time at home.  Although they caused the excitement at the time, the memories that Risky has are of the platypus, koala, dingoes, and kangaroos.  

Australian wildlife for the win.

Oh, I haven't mentioned Tom.  He was there, on someone's back for most of the time.  He also enjoys the "Walas"