Australia

A long blog - but jusst dropping on some of our diary.

Thursday – Driving to Auckland

What a long day at work – it just dragged on, I just wanted to be on the way for the holiday to start!!! Finally got away and collected Jade and we were on our way! Did not stop until Huntley for tea, which was quiet late, but as we took the back roads we could not find anywhere with food we all wanted – KFC!!!! Got to Mel and Jase's house around 9.20pm. Luke is so cute!!! What a wee button. Jade was infatuated with him, loved the wee boy!

Friday - Skeggasaourus’s House

Coughed up a storm last night still. Thankfully slept in until about 8.30am, much better sleep after I closed two bedroom doors between Ralf and me, then I could not hear him snoring!!!! Jumped out of bed to see what wee Luke was up too, so very cute, I could get very clucky! Hung out with Mel and Jase and Luke all day. Mel and I went into the mall and did a little shopping, and brought back some lunch. Then we watched the movie Marley and Me – so sad, but a very cool movie.

Saturday – Flying to Brisbane

Woke up early this morning, when we heard that little Luke was up, so thought we had better get up and see what he was doing. Of course Mel was feeding him. Hung out with Mel and Jase for the rest of the morning, waiting not so patiently to go to the airport. Mel and Jase drove out with us to have a feed before seeing us off on the plane. Felt a bit stink about them driving all that way to sit there for 20 minutes before we went through to the other side, but not much we could do about it when we were all overexcited about holidays. Did our duty free shopping – my goodness a bit of booze!!! Flight was on a smaller aircraft than booked on which sucked, so no in-flight small TV’s on each chair and I am sure it was tighter fitting!!! Food was nice though. Finally got there and Tony and Dan were there to meet us, they did not recognise Ralf at all!!!! Funny!!!! Collected the car and got on our way – Yay GPS!!! Very cool to finally see their house. Love it, what a great layout and love the leather couch they have, wonder if it will fit in our bag!!!! Brooke not home, out staying with her boyfriend for the night. Jade and Dan got on famously, bouncing on the trampoline talking non stop – that was before they found out they both had a love of play station games – then they were off. We went out for tea to an all you can eat place, which was great. Ralf ate everything!! Then home so jade could get some sleep. Man it is hot here!!! Very very muggy. A massive cockroach was crawling across the desk in the lounge where we were sleeping, Chrissie killed it with fly spray for me – thank god!!

Sunday – Brisbane City

What is up with waking up so early! Up having a cup of tea with Chrissie at 6.30am!!!!!!! Could not sleep, lucky jade did sleep in allot longer! We were woken by crows! Wow they are loud! Today we went into the city for a look around. We drove down to some place by the river and parked our cars up there. From there we jumped on the city cat boat which took us into the city – what a great way to arrive in the city, very cool wee trip! In the city we looked through the markets, brought a gecko for the wall in the conservatory at home. Down to Southbank where the kids went for a swim, there is a pool right in the middle of town but they have built it too look like a beach which is quiet funny. From there we walked over the bridge into the main part of town and looked at a few of the shops. Back onto the boat to the cars and home. Chrissie and I went for a quick grocery shop for tea – I brought things we did not need J found easy Mac in a nacho cheese flavour, needed that of course, some wagon wheel biscuits and of course some Easter eggs. Then we collected Brooke form work and home for dinner.

Monday – Movie world

What a great place that. We collected Chrissie from her dropping off her car for repair and dropped her off home before heading down to the gold coast. Once again the GPS was fantastic, makes the driving and any little trips so stress free. We arrived at the park just after it opened, and queued up to get in. Not long thankfully. We did the Scooby Doo ride first up which we all loved, I think that was the favourite ride for the day for Ralf and Jade. Onto the log flume which was my favourite – awesome photo. That was the end of the rides that had nice ques. Superman escape we queued for a whole hour!!! Then Ralf did not even get to go on as he had his hat in his hand the chick would not let him on – pissed off!! But jade and I went on, I had the shakes afterwards it was awesome! Ralf had lunch at dirty Harry's bar, while jade and I had hotdogs and donuts – yum! Big long ones called churo’s – I am hooked. Brought a couple of t-shirts. Watched the Scooby doo show which was cool, and then onto watching the street parade which was pretty cool too – but very fast. While watching the parade we stood in the queue to go into the Shrek 4d show – fantastic!!! From there onto the batman motion master – that was wicked too. And there ended the day! Busy and rushed I reckon you could do two days there just not to rush and so you could see all the shows that were on, as we did not see many of them. Yay for gps driving us to the apartment, we were too late to check in with management, but lucky that they had left us the keys, we were all cringing about where I had booked us in as we walked up 3 flights of stairs!!! Great apartment though, just what I thought it would be – Yay for air conditioning. We went for a quick walk up town to get some breakfast stuff and some tea (subway). Then we all had showers and jade was in bed and I think asleep by 8.30pm. Ralf and I were asleep by 9.30pm!!!

Tuesday – SeaWorld and The Great Australian Outback Adventure

Well the weather was not to kind to us here. But in saying that nothing like NZ rain! We walked the length of the park to get to the dolphin display which was fantastic, very similar to Napier’s one but of course bigger and more dolphins, I managed to get some great shots. Just as we left there it decided to rain, but really what I would call drizzle, funny we just kept going and went down to the shark bay and by the time we got out it had stopped. The sharks were cool, there was a mother shark with a wee baby one swimming underneath, but I could not get a good shot as of course you were looking through glass and I could not figure out how to sharpen the picture up. Must ask Kris about that she might know. My favourite would be the polar bear, how cute!!!! A log flume ride was next, fantastic special effects. It went into a mountain where the whole theme was we had been abducted by aliens, wicked! Then off to a roller coaster, back around to watch the water ski wipe-out show which was fantastic, and then onto the Jet Ski rescue ride which was quiet new. Very fast!!! We managed to get a couple of hours break before going out to the Australian Outback Adventure show – fantastic and well worth the money. BUT.... we lined up for ages to get in and just got to the counter when the fire alarm went off so we all had to go outside again and wait for the fire engines to come. Once we got back in it was great, got a lovely cowboy hat to keep, the food and drinks kept flowing all night – great show, jade loved it too!

Wednesday – Dreamworld

Our favourite park! Chrissie, Daniel, Brooke and her boyfriend Ash all came down to come to this park with us. The best thing was hiring this machine called Q4U, meant you could book a ride, go and do other things and when it was your turn to go on you just rocked up and went on straight away without waiting in line – way cooler!!! Well worth the extra money! The first thing we did as you can imagine was go and see SpongeBob and have Jade’s picture taken with him and Patrick – jade was in heaven!!! The Claw, Rollercoaster, wipe-out and then Jade and I went to watch the SpongeBob show while Ralf watched some movie on the moon in the Imax theatre. While this happened Daniel went on the claw again and then wipe-out again, and he threw up everywhere!!!! Funny!! Even had to close the ride down while they cleaned up all the puke. From there we went and did both of the log flume rides which were very cool! Ralf and I got saturated on one of them!!!! Checked out the animals there, jade had her photo taken with a Koala, very cool picture, jade was very happy with this. Had some lunch while we waited for the motorx ride to come free and then Jade and Dan went on that. Off to the tower of terror – wicked!!!! Then through to Tiger Island and on to the nickelodeon store – everything SpongeBob to be brought here!!! Jade brought a new toy and a t-shirt. When she was not looking I brought some more for her birthday. Then onto a SpongeBob fly pants ride, back to do the log flume again and then onto the angry beaver ride and then the last rollercoaster ride before leaving the park for the day. We went into town for tea tonight and a quick look around the shops which was nice, brought the best bargain of the whole trip here – a $5 sweatshirt – I look hip LOL!!!

Thursday – Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary

30 minutes further down the coast is where this is situated, nice drive down the beach to get there. Fantastic park, could have spent the whole day there but needed to be on the road by 2pm to miss all the Easter traffic, which we only just did miss. Lots of koala’s here, we must have walked for miles!!! When we arrived we walked right to the other end of the park, missing the didgeridoo man altogether!!! Jade got to hold a crocodile and have her photo taken. Then we saw this amazing bird show, they flew down low right by our head – very freaky. Saw lots of snakes, some dingo’s and the tazi devil, but the wombats were hiding from us!!! We drove back up to Brisbane just as the roads started to get stupid! Thank god, we looked at the roads later and they were blocked up completely 3 lanes across just about all at a stand still!!!! Jade was sick at night, not sure why just threw up once and then was fine, so that was good to get that done.

Friday – Sutton Beach

We went down to Sutton beach today to see the Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race, and they had a big festival on down there at the same time. I think we were all a bit overwhelmed with the amount of people there – certainly more than in Sanson!!! The lions club organised big beach dig Easter egg hunt which jade thought was pretty fantastic. They even had camel rides on the beach – first time for jade, but apparently they have them al the time over here. Australia even exports camels to Arabia – amazing. Too long in the sun for me, I managed to get burnt, not too bad, but panda eyes and a wee burn on one shoulder, I was watching myself and putting on sunscreen but must have missed some of it.

Saturday – Kallangur

We did not much of anything today which was nice after rushing around the place. Ralf, Tony and Dan all went to look at golf shop, but they did not buy anything. Chrissie and I went to look at scrapbook shops, but they were all closed!!!!!! RUDE!!!!! So we did some grocery shopping, and the Chrissie, Jade and I checked out the mall for a bit before going and feeding the horse.

Sunday - Australia Zoo

What a fantastic zoo. Certainly lots to look at which was really great. We watched the croc show, and Terri, Bindi and Robert were there to do the show which apparently is not the norm, so that was very special. We saw lots of kangaroo’s and koalas and lots of other animals. Great day. They had a big Easter hunt on which was cool, when you found them you took them in and got a prize, the kids walked away with so much stuff it was amazing!!!

Monday – Bribry Island – Golf

What a day – what great weather – would almost make us feel at home! It hosed down and I mean torrential rain!!! Flooding everywhere, and a poor wee girl even drowned in a river here today, a very sad ending to a long weekend for some family. Ralf, Dan and Tony went off to Bribie Island to play golf at this resort, teed off at 9.30am and did not get home until 6pm – a very long 18 holes, and they did not even get wet. Chrissie, Jade and I went off to Bribie island following a friend of Chrissie’s to go out for lunch. Well her friend’s car broke down so we ended up ferrying them back and forward, then got to have lunch quickly before having to go back to Kallangur to pick up Brooke to take her to work at 2pm. And it rained the whole time, not sure how Ralf etc did not get wet, but we did!!!! Home to eat cheese and crackers etc, drink some beer, ouzo and jacks, so much that only the boys wanted pizza for tea – funny!!

Tuesday – Dreamworld

Well we got up early to drive down to surfers to sort out our apartment before going to the theme park, and were worried it was going to be a stink day, as it tried to rain the whole way down!!! Chrissie, Brooke, Ash and Dan all drove down as well, so we met them back at the park. Jade did wipe-out again, and then we raced to do a game of alien vs. predator which had only opened today – fantastic!!! Basically it is laser strike but some very cool special effects – loved it. Then we watched Dan do the surfing, which was pretty cool. Off to do the log flume again and then Ralf, Jade, Dan and I went into white water world. Ralf was not feeling so good, so he slept and looked after our bags while we went off to do the big rides – what is up with those stairs to climb!!!!! My goodness!!!!!! We did some more rides through at Dreamworld and brought the last of the SpongeBob stuff, I am sure we nearly brought some of everything!!!!! From there we went to the new apartment, over to the supermarket to buy some supplies and back to relax – we are knackered!!!!!

Wednesday – Surfers Paradise

Love the new apartment block would definitely come back to this one again!!!! Went to a scrapbook shop this morning, only 10 minutes away – Yay! Then out to pacific fair which is a large mall not far from here either. Had a wee shop, jade spent the rest of her money, she now has $4.40 left in her wallet!!! Had some lunch then back to the apartment. Ralf has gone to Jupiter’s casino to win us millions so we can holiday forever!!! Jade and I swam in the pool here and then I did a bit on the net while she played on her new psp game – well one of them she has brought 3 this trip!!! Ralf came home after 8 hours – what a great days work, turned out that the gambling was free and that the parking there cost $190 per 8 hours of parking!!!

Thursday – Surfers Paradise

A nice relaxing day for us today, which was great. We went out for lunch, played in the pool, changed apartments, and then out for dinner at the 4 winds revolving restaurant, which was fantastic. We had a bet as to how many times it would revolve before we left – jade one, not even one rotation!!!! Ralf ate and ate and ate as much seafood as possible!!!!

still a few more nights of holiday to go - yay!!