Loving it...

May 14,2010 We are in Mission beach. I love it here. I love that it is small (about the size of Gretna), I love that the people here don’t lock their doors all the time, I love that there are wallabies hopping all around the town, I love that we are right near the beach, I love that it is warm (30+), I love the CS host (Mary), I love the CS house (huge and beautiful), I love that it is not touristy here, I love that it is so relaxing, I love it…

We arrived again to be invited into the home of such a wonderful lady. I have to say it again, CS is so great. The people we have met and made friends with is so unbelievable. This would never have been possible had we been spending all our time in hotels. We have been able to experience such cool things, such as footy games, meals with great people, local town life, having a beer at the neighbours, local trips up the mountain, fire twirling (Reiley you are the best),marking homework with Vincent (fun), riding a thoroughbred race horse (wow), and just hanging out with new friends. It is all exactly what we had dreamed would happen.

The horse riding was so very fun for Miranda and I. Sally (Mary’s daughter) saddled up her horse for Miranda and Miranda was very brave to get right up. She started by walking around the riding ring to get warmed up. Sally had some poles and obstacles set up and Miranda took Snow around them to get some control and get more confidence. It didn’t take much longer and I asked Miranda if she would like to try to trot. She said that she was ready, so she gave a bit of a squeeze and Snow started a bit of a quick trot at the start. Miranda slowed him down a bit and had a big smile on her face as she rode him around and around the ring.



When Miranda was getting ready to be done and we needed to leave shortly, Dean suggested I get on and go for a ride also. Miranda handed over the reins and I jumped on and took Snow for a ride around the ring too. What a great animal. So powerful and listened so well. I asked him for a trot and he immediately obeyed and it was great fun!!



Another fun thing we did was to take a ferry over to Dunk island for the day. It is only a 10 minute ferry ride and when we got there we decided to hike a few miles over to the other side of the island to coconut beach. I settled myself in on the beach in the warm sun, picked up my book and relaxed. For lunch we chopped up some tomatoes, onions, cilantro and limes which we ate with corn chips. Mmmm so good. It was the first time in the last month that we could sit on the beach all day and soak up the sun. It was an amazing day.



Today, Colton and Dean went on a fishing trip to the nearby islands. They had a great time though didn’t catch any huge fish but caught tones of small fish. Dean figured he caught at least 30 fish or so. They brought some really nice bright orange fish home for dinner tonight. They are called strawberry coral trout. I am really looking forward to frying them up tonight. Check Colton's blog for more fishing info.

Missions Beach

We flew from Brisbane to Carins yesterday, rented a car and drove south 1 1/2 to a small town called Mission Beach. We are CSing with a woman named Mary here. She has an amazing 2 story house overlooking the ocean. She has a pool in her backyard. We have our own living space on the main floor where we have 2 bedrooms a living area and bathroom. We have access to her living space where she has an amazing deck and great kithen. She invited us in with some iced tea to cool off as it was finally 32 degrees!!!! Yeah, its warm!!! I am so excited. So anyways, as we were talking she was telling us a bit about herself, as we talked horses came up and Miranda said she LOVES horses. Mary said, "oh, you love horses. Well my daughter has a few horses and we go riding all the time. Maybe I can take you to see them".
So right now, we stopped to use the internet on our way to go riding. She aparently has 3 thoroughbreds and a welsh pony!!

We also stopped at a banana farm on the way and got to play with a huge white lipped green tree frog while we took pictures and bought a bunch of fresh bananas. So fun!

Will download more pics soon

Brisbane

We are in Brisbane. Staying with a new CS family here (Vincent and Riley) They are another great father/son family. We love it here. We have been having some great meals. Yesterday Reiley (son), who loves to cook. Made us his special Mussaka. We also BBQed some lamb steaks and made Greek salad. Today, after a day at the windy and somewhat cloudy beach. We had BBQ roo burgers with fried egg on them. Mmmm egg on a burger is good. We also had some watermellon and more greek salad.
Today is mother's day. So I didn't have to do much cooking, though I haven't been doing much anyways. Tomorrow I hope to do a buch of baking before we leave for Cairnes on Tuesday. I miss baking. I think maybe I'll make some cookies, muffins and reese peanut butter squares.

The view from a mountain overlooking Brisbane

Surfer's paradise beach

bye bye campervan

Cooking supper in the outbackthe inside of our camper, The seats fold down into a bed..

The campground BBQ's.Fried steak anyone?

The rainforest mountains as we drove throught them.

Byron Bay lighthouse.The veiw from our campervan at 6am.I was lying in bed taking these sunrise shots.

|Good morning beach!!

May 7, 2010




We spent the last 4 days of our campervan rental at the coast. The evening we arrived it was sunny and warm. Dean and I went for a walk around the campsite and noticed a family sitting in the general camp kitchen area eating their supper. So we stopped to chat and see where they were from. They were from South of Sydney and are on a one month trip up the coast. They too took their kids out of school to travel. After chatting a bit we went to get Colton and Miranda who of coarse hit it off with their kids (Emma and Daniel) and played all evening. The next morning we made plans with them to go fishing off shore. Which was just what Colton and Dean have been waiting for. A bit of fishing.



The next morning we woke to rain. It rained and rained all day. By early afternoon we where all a bit stir crazy from spending the whole morning including breakfast and lunch in the van reading and chatting. We packed up the soggy upper tent part of our van and headed to town to see the wet sights. We stopped for a couple of hours at McDonalds again to download some pictures and check our emails. We needed to find out if we had accommodations in Brisbane when we returned our van. We got confirmation of our stay which is where we are headed today.



We ended up staying at the Sawtell campground for 3 nights. The third day it was sunny and warm all day so we could hang out on the beach for the 1st time since Hawaii. It was only 22 degrees or so, but it felt so great to be warm. At least until night time when it went down to 15 or so.

Last night we stayed at a campground in a town called Kingscliff. We parked right beside the sand on the beach and this morning at 6 am opened our van door to a brilliant sunrise. Wishing we could stay one mare day, we grudgingly packed up the campervan after a nice long walk down the beach and headed for Brisbane.



Last night in Kingscliff we had a great evening hanging with the camping group next to us. They had 2 young boys that Colton played with all evening and all morning till we left. It is so great to be able to meet people everyday to entertain and also to learn more about Australians. So far we think they are amazing people. Everyone we meet is so friendly and so much fun.



We can’t wait to meet our new CS hosts

I LOVE Koalas!!!

Soft, cuddly, cute. Now this could make me want to move here!!!

I LOVE KOALAS!!

More pictures from Sydney

The Assie rules foodie game. Kevin (cs host) took us to see.

Sydney Opera house from Sydney harbour

The beach was not great for swimming as tit was too cold. But it was still nice to go for a walk on.

The beach was not great for swimming as it was too cold. But it was still nice to go for a walk on.

The coast South of Sydney.Kookaberras in a parkA beach South of Sydney in a National park.

pictures from sydney and the outback

Sydney opera houseWild kangaroosEmusmining for opal near Lightning ridgeOur home for 10 daysParrots are everywherecockatoosa field of cockatoos