Back in New South Wales

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We are staying overnight at Tweed Heads and are on daylight saving, which Queensland doesn't do. We survived the drive down the Bruce Highway and over the Gateway Bridge, (yikes!), called into a shop I love in Brisbane, (Lily G) and then drove on to the Gold Coast.

From Bundaberg we have been thrilled to see the jacaranda in flower all down the coast and there were many beautiful flowering trees in Brisbane. Perhaps we'll actually see them in Grafton, we're always a week or so early. We'll be home to see Sydney putting on it's November jacaranda cloak too, so we're really being rewarded this year.

Surfers Paradise is getting ready for the big car race which snakes through the town, I think this weekend. We seem to be there the same time each year when the sides of the roads are barracaded. As usual with Surfers it's the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is the natural beauty of the place, long white sanded beaches and gorgous blue ocean, wide waterways and beautiful mountains in the background. The bad are the roads barracaded for the race every time we come ! not to mention the mad drivers on the roads anyway and the ugly are all the skyscrapers, more and taller is the order of the day.

We did find a nice quiet beach on the river for lunch there, then, after a quick look at my parents' old house at Palm Beach, we drove on to Currumbin. This time we climbed up the very steep stairway of Elephant Rock there. There were great views from there up each side of the beach and out to sea we could see the spouts of many whales. A lady I was talking to there said there had been lots of dolphins in the waves just before we came. I think we'll be seeing lots of whales travelling south as we travel south too.

Tomorrow we head to Lennox Head where the livin' is a bit easier.

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