A work in progress!

Thanks for visiting.

My posts for 2010 are not quite complete (more news, trips and photos - esepcially when I have worked out how to export/import YouTube!)) so do come back at the end of the year to check out all what we've been doing during this last year.....

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

We went to a friend's NYE party in Waverton last night - their place overlooks the Harbour Bridge so was a perfect place to party and watch the fireworks.

The park at Waverton is a bit of a hidden gem, so although a lot of locals attended later in the evening, when we arrived at 6pm it was only just starting to get busy.  Some NYE viewpoints on Sydney's foreshore have people camped out the night before so they can secure a good pitch!

There were over 2600 police officers deployed on NYE - some ended up with a pretty good duty!

- this was the view from the front garden.  And from the back, where the barbie was (fantastic Aussie tucker - yummy snags and chooks) we had a wonderful view of the last sunset for 2010:

An then there was the fireworks double bill - the 9pm ones for families and then the ones at midnight.  They really were spectacular - crescent moons, hearts which we hadn't seen before and just the sheer scale, duration, setting and choreography of the whole thing made for an awesome event - we had the time of our lives!

Gold Coast Trip

The Mogers from NZ came to stay for Christmas and the New Year and we decided we would all go up to the Gold Coast for a holiday, in the Prado, stopping overnight half way up.

Top of the list of things to do was visiting some of the Theme Parks up there.  In the end getting accommodation was tricky, with 8 of us, so in the end we stayed in 2 apartments at Turtle Bay Resort on Mermaid Beach.  It was a lovely little place to stay that had several swimming pools and even a small cinema.

So we drove up on the Monday before Christmas - fully loaded up with a 155 ltr roofbox that didn't have an inch to spare!  The kids are all bigger than a few years ago when we did our last road trip with the Mogers in their Prado (to Rotorua & Taupo in NZ) so it was rather cramped in the car, especially as we each had a bag by our feet!

We stopped in Coffs Harbour Monday afternoon, which was around the half way point - the Novotel turn off was by the Big Banana (we saw lots of 'big' things on our trip but I only managed a few photos!)




 

Then arrived at Mermaid Beach the following afternoon.  Unfortunately our arrival coincided with the arrival of the cyclone further north Queensland, which led to heavy rain where we were.  It did mean that the theme parks were not too busy and the queues were not long, but we did get wet and one day we had to go home early as many of the rides were closed (even the wet rides!) 

Another great experience in Queensland was being able to do u-turns legally.  They even have signs saying it's ok.



MovieWorld - here I am with Scooby Doo!

(I could have shared a photo of the kids with him, but I have to confess I am a big SD fan too!

So we spent Christmas Day with the Mogers and it was - unusually for Aus - a wet affair!  Edwin cooked the snags on the barbie under cover as it was raining.  But it couldn't put a dampener on the kids excitement!  They had a great day, especially sharing it with Steve and Pete.  Plenty of lollies, choc, gaming and dvd's too!

On the way home we stopped near Numbacca, a small coastal town.  The motel's garden had a vast array of Hibiscus, the best I have seen in Aus so far.

We stopped for lunch at Woodburn, a small NSW town that had a great atmosphere which sits on the Richmond River.  The river was pretty swollen having breached it's banks and had a lot of debris in it.




The next morning we decided to stop at South West Rocks, another beauty point which is recommended for a halfway stopover from Brisbane to Sydney.  It was glorious - the first sunny and hot day in a week and an awesome coastline and couple of beaches.  We let the kids play in the surf for half an hour and then decided to stay the day and overnight.  Getting accommodation for both families was tricky and we got the last 2 accommodation in the area with the help of the local tourist office.

With that sorted, we went back to the surf.  One beach had amazing tall waves in shallow waters, called Horshoe Bay, Edwin and the kids really enjoyed themselves:

- spot Edwin and the children (near top rh of photo), the kids are on yellow lielows!




We headed back to Trial Beach for walk before dinner and the sand was amazing - powder snow like that squeaked under foot and seemed to go on for miles!  A more perfect beach one would be hard to find.

We stopped off for lunch at Bulahdelah at a really great if not quirky little cafe that served excellent food.  There are so many places and things to see along the Pacific Highway, it would be great to do a proper road trip over a couple of weeks going North from Sydney - maybe one day!   And then we were home.

December 2010

What a busy month!  As well as getting ready for Christmas and the school holidays, it's also the end of the school year, a 6 week long summer school holiday and also for us, Lydia's graduation at primary school.

All rolled into one, it's been pretty hectic, but great fun too.

The school has organised lots of fun things for the kids - in fact I am not sure if they have done any formal school work this month!

3 assemblies, 3 school play performances (Lydia was a Tuli dancer, Benajmin a mouse!), a whole school visit to the cinema followed by picnic lunch afternoon and heaps of other stuff!

Lydia had a lovely graduation lunch at school where they all dressed up, and on the last day of school a special assembly and after school and end of year party at one of the parent's home - the pool 'party' bit of it was pretty frightening, I've never seen so many kids in a home pool before - and they were all hyper!  It was a really lovely way to end school.

Lydia is really looking froward to going to Willoughby Girls High School and there are quite a few girls going there from Castle Cove School - and in particular her 2 best friends - which helps!

Merry Christmas!

November 2010

School Jazzfest - this annual event took up a huge amount of time and energy of the school community and I knew it was going to be big.  I was in charge of the bouncy castles - well fortunately only the ordering and setup on the day as the company brought their own supervision - a big relief I can tell you!

It was big! As well as the school's 4 bands, there were several other school and community bands playing, plus 'The Many Others' who are a great jazz band who had the bottom half of Castle Cove swinging!  Plenty of gorgeous food on offer, ranging from curries, snags to sushi - something for everyone!

We really enjoyed watching the children participate and Lydia's year 6 also got to accompany the big band for a couple of pieces and then also did a song piece.

September 2010

Lydia had her 12th Birthday this month and decided to have a pizza/movie Sleepover party - which was fine until I found out she had invited 15 girls!

In the end I think 12 came and 11 slept over - the large open plan space came in handy and the couple that decided they still wanted to chat after the 1am film finished went into the rumpus room, so the others could sleep - no prizes for guessing which room Lydia was in!

Lydia wanted a Pavlova for her cake, so a very good friend Caroline ended up not only baking the meringue, but put it all together for me and so now I know how to make Aussie Pav - in fact it's now my 'speciality' (probably because I buy the meringue ready baked from the supermarket and therefore no cooking is involved!)

July 2010

We had 2 weeks of school - winter - holidays!  We decided to go up to the Cairns area as it would be warm and had the advantage of no 'stingers' (jellyfish) in the winter.

We had a magical holiday - went snorkeling twice on the great barrier reef (and I managed to enjoy, once I got over my fear of sharks/fish/swallowing water/drowning!) and visited the Rainforest areas too.

The reef was awesome and in fact I was the last person to get out of the water one day, as I enjoyed it so much.  The highlight probably was seeing a couple of reef sharks.  The low point was discovering my underwater camera only took half the shots!

We went on a great days tour of the beach and rainforest area and had a guided Aboriginal beach walk, where we tried to catch mud crab and then gathered various shell fish which were then cooked for our morning tea. 

 Another highlight was getting to hold Koalas - you can't do that in NSW!

Also went on the Karunda railway which is a fantastic journey through the rainforest.  I guess almost everything you visit in Australia is awesome!