Wow! what a trip, we did none of the things I wanted to do, and everything I didn't - and I had a BLAST!
To re-cap, Flash, Charlotte, Blaise and I drove to Coffs Harbour last sunday, a very long drive, Monday we drove to the Gold Coast, arrived around 3pm, had a swim, walked around a bit, chilled out. Tuesday went to Dreamworld - I had plans to wander around the animal park, knit a bit, just take it easy while Flash and the kids imperiled themselves on the rides - fast forward to reality. "Please just go on one ride with us, pleeeeaaase", "ok", famous last words.
The "one ride" turned out to be the "Thunder river rapids ride" ok, all good except for the sopping wet linen shorts, yep yep yep, at least they were a dark colour, so lulled into a false sense of security I allowed them to drag me to the "Tower of Terror" I began to think the terror was the line, 1/2 an hour, no knitting needles allowed, and then it was time, locked into a pod the size of a mini, and fired up a track at 160 kph, then straight up a tower for 38 stories, and then the whole thing backwards, scarey huh!... well no actually, I had my eyes closed most of the time, and found the trip quite blissful, and can I say meditative, my (closed) eyes were full of golden light, and I was calm and serene, I enjoyed the rush immensely. Flash crunched his teeth the whole time, and the girls screamed, Charlotte of course posed for the camera.
and this set the tone for the next two days, no Brisbane (next time Rach), no Australia Zoo, just 2 days of adrenalin, laughter and fun with my family. We set up camp in the cafe at Tiger Island, and watched the tigers for an hour before their show, the show was amazing, but just watching them stroll around beforehand was great too, so I did get a bit of an animal experience. I have plans to tag along with Flash on his next visit to Brisbane, and hire a car so that I can spend a day at Australia Zoo (and catch up with Rach)
thursday we left the Gold Coast and drove south and inland, until we reached a small town called Glen Innes, we stayed the night in a lovely 2 storey apartment in a converted barn, and pushed on at 7 the next morning, with a 1/2 stop for lunch we made it home at 4pm, our trip covered more than 2000 km, thats more than twice the length of NZ or Britain, we were very proud of ourselves until we drew it on the map...
Australia is big huh!
a few insights:
- do not think that just because you are in merino country, and there are sheep everywhere, that the LYS will stock anything except courtelle and eyelash.
- your teenage kids do not always care about sugar cane/ banana/sheep/cattle farming or the history of the Australian Federation. They do not want to "name that bird" or play licence plate cricket, they would rather play roadkill bingo.
- if you find a roadhouse that sells salad, buy a couple for later, teenage girls do not function well in the absence of fresh food.
- if your husband needs to email a vital presentation, his ability to do so will be in inverse proportions to the importance of the presentation, needless to say, if we added it up, one day of the trip was spent trying in vain to dailup/broadband/wireless a blasted presentation, something he manages to do all the time, from all over the world.
Thank you Holly for looking after the blog while I was gone, yes I like chocolate, and with the move to Sydney, and the discovery of DJs chocolate department, Cadbury's black forest has been out the window for a while, Dolfin's dark chocolate with pink peppercorns is the treat of the moment...try it with fresh strawberries for an out of body experience.
I have to call my child and ask her which book provided her inspiration, everytime we go out we end up at a bookstore, and everytime she empties my purse! anyway, Holly, your Nana says that you look fantastic and are obviously very happy with your choice, that is all we ever wanted.
Thanks for the comments about the pink cardi, I am happy with the way it turned out, and managed to come up with a few more ideas while I was away, not much knitting done, just half of the other arrows sock, but lots of thinking.
Flash is off to India this week, yes Alison, he is going to the Taj Mahal without me.
