18/05/09 Monday Day 276 After leaving Hervey Bay in beautiful conditions this morning, we had a quick look at the beach there. Nothing special. Then it was some 30k’s away to a place called Maryborough. This was where the Mary Popping Author came from and there’s a statue of Mary Popping there! For some reason I was expecting something huge. Instead it turned out to be the size of a normal person. Pretty neat though. Once we had that seen, we headed for Noosa and Noosa Heads. We were hoping to spend a day or two here relaxing but as soon [View Full Entry]

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DAY 57 - 3rd January 2009 Today is Saturday, Derek and Karen are due back from their New Year excursion to Sydney. They were due back at around 4.00pm. We had a 10.30 appointment with the Chris and Michelle, Franki’s mother and stepfather. We know Franki from Starbucks in Mooloolaba, in our discussions a long time before Christmas, Frankie said her parents may want their house sitting for a period whilst the family are away in the UK, for her sisters wedding. We arrived at their house in the wooded suburbs of Caloundra, and were greeted by Franki’s mum, Michelle. Michel [View Full Entry]

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DAY 58 Up nice and early as usual, not quite watching the sun rise, but certainly giving me the quiet time I love. I managed to recall and type out most of the blog for yesterday, then ask mission control to edit it for me. Though she does not have any control over artistic licence (Note from Mrs T: that's what he thinks!). We got out just after 10.00 am and headed off in the truck as we wanted to go and see Montville, a place up in the mountains. It was a fantastic drive up through, Mooloolah, Eudlow, Palmsprings, then [View Full Entry]

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DAY 56 2nd January 2009 Title(Seven, eights) Again it’s somewhat difficult to produce the blog for the 2nd January as not that much happened. We are somewhat restricted by our own acceptance that whilst looking after someone else’s animals, you can’t spend that much time away from the appointed property. What I do know is that we have been away 8 weeks today, that’s why we have given today’s blog the tag, (Eight Sevens). I hope you guys don’t think this just happens, these fancy tags, like beetle mania, they do take some thought you know. [View Full Entry]

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DAY 55 - 1st January 2009 - New Years Day! Well Happy New Year bloggers! I stumbled out of bed this morning, feeling very tired from our late night (early morning), that had to be the latest we have been to bed since being in Australia so we are not used to it. Andy and I had a great time at Ruth and Dave’s last night, it was great opportunity to relax and enjoy the company of and get to know other people too! Each person we meet along the way on our momentous journey, makes it that much more colourful. [View Full Entry]

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DAY 54 31ST December 2008 (New Year’s Eve) Today waking up on the sunshine coast you can definitely feel the difference in the strength of the sun compared to Port Stevens, 10.00am and it was already very hot. Andy got out of bed fairly early as usual, tended to the needs of Moffy and Charlie and settled down at the Internet with a cup of tea. I got up at 8.00, as the day was already blistering, I jumped in the swimming pool to cool down a bit. In this heat the water is naturally heated so is not freezing cold [View Full Entry]

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A 5:30am rise to be picked up at 6:30am to jump out of a plane at 7:30am. Saturday Aimee, Jess, Mariko, Jenn and I went skydiving. We all loaded into a plane so small you had to sit in between each other’s legs and then it was take off. Intelligent me, I ended up right beside the door which ment I was first to go. My tandem master opened the door and out I went with little time to consider what was about to happen. There was about .2 seconds (the length of time it took for your whole body to [View Full Entry]

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Hello all, Hope you are all fine and dandy etc. An update, partly to tell you about probably our greatest experienced yet. On Thursday we went whale watching in Hervey Bay. We were told it is one of the best spots in the world as the whales are 'funnelled' into the Bay as they migrate south - and they did not disappoint. It was amazing! We must have seen about 20 of them. Not really much else to say - words can't describe etc. Except... Bella spotted a few tiny jelly fish and although clearly as mesmerised at seeing humpbacks in [View Full Entry]

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Cheers from Caloundra!!!!! We are currently writing to you in the company of Jordan and AJ, two of our WYD crew from Spruce Grove who are with us at our host family's house. We are staying in Mooloolaba, which is about 20 minutes from our host parish, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. The rest of the kids are in 3 other homes in Caloundra. We met the kids yesterday at about 1, after all of them missed at least one flight from Sydney, and two of them missed TWO from Sydney. But they all made it ok. It's been raining [View Full Entry]

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There is a hidden beauty to Caloundra, it's the kind of place you want want to live in when you retire. The area itself elevated and the scenery at the waterfront is fantastic. An interesting point is that there are no tall buildings here, with hotels being around 6 to 8 floors. I was only able to spend a day here, a few days is recommended to relax. There is no abundance of nightlife in Caloundra, to find that, head 20/30 minutes north to Malooloobah / Maroochydore. Our hotel was situated on Kings Beach, opposite the playground. The playground was popular [View Full Entry]

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