Dawn, Dusk, Dogs and Unwanted Visitors

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We wake up in our new surroundings, Caroline proclaimed that it took her a while to drift off to sleep, where I must have gone as my soon as my head hit the pillow, she said that I was “herding the pigs in”. (Its great being a bloke)

I wake, and jump out of bed, gagging for a cup of tea. I power the notebook up, I need to review the blog page for yesterday, which Caroline laid down the outline for. To make the blog as factual as we can we like to write it up either, the same day or the day after at a push.

We draft them off line so they may not be published everyday, but at least we record them, virtually as it happens. It is not our desire to become a slave to the blog., it just gives us a feeling to closeness with home.

Caroline’s little brown face appears, all bleary eyed, and wanting a cup of tea. We managed to get a box of English Breakfast tea last night. (Lovely) She dive’s in the shower, I’ve told her before to put some water in first, then me next, the shower is better than the one we had at Rydges Southbank, far more powerful. I always think that if you can keep the same standards as you would at home, then you are less likely to feel “Homesick”.

I shave, and before hand manage to strop may cut throat, like I said its nice to be able to do the things we need to.

Caroline manages to conjure up some toast and vegemite, not quite the same as marmite but hey ho, once a Marmite baby always a Marmite baby.

We get our stuff together and head out, our mission today is “Just to explore” we head towards Mooloolaba.(Moo Loo Laba) and find a fantastic camping shop, loads of amazing camping gear, this gives us a taste of our forth coming adventure. Caroline buy’s a hat I think she looks fantastic in. Australian stuff is really well made and fairly in expensive in comparative terms to English prices, we get a mental list of the things we will need.(I can see us spending a load in here)

We drive past loads of car dealers, we need a vehicle. We drop in to a Jeep dealer, pleasant fellow,(American) Charlie Rounds, nice but a bit pricey, we really don’t want to commit huge sums of cash and have to end up scrimping somewhere else.

Now on to a Toyota Dealer, (Ken Mills Toyota) they got a couple of nice fairly low mileage Prado’s in, the one Paul Smith the Sales guy recommends, as we have given him précis, of what we want it to do, is a 4 litre petrol., go to Fraser Island he exclaims, I have been there 23 times I love it, for your Australian adventures you must go there. I have concerns over petrol, but he try’s to convince me that petrol is loads cheaper the Diesel, and this truck does 13 miles per litre of fuel. Can someone tell me what that is miles to the Gallon!!
We take it for a test drive, he’s really talkative, not in a selling type of way, but general stuff about his daughter and her British husband ,I can tell he likes his new son in law from Scunthorpe. J We complete the test drive, and get moving, were are hungry, so head back to the apartment, to watch the pennies.

Caroline swims this afternoon, in the apartments pool, she says it was nice and warm, the sun is very hot today.

Again we leave the apartment and head out heading for the Glasshouse mountains somewhere where we went to last time with Gary and Karen, on our last Australian adventure. We head towards Caloundra, and fall in to another Toyota dealership. Again we give a précis of what we want a vehicle to do, the sales says, if we are going up north we will need Toyota, because of the easy availability of spares. He’s got a land criser that is a 1990 model and its got ½ Million Kilometres on it

We move on, satisfied we are getting somewhere. Its getting dusk so we abandon the Glasshouse mountains until some other time and head back looking for an internet café.

All Starbucks places are WiFi enabled you just pay 3 dollars an hour (£1.30) not to bad, for internet access. we are just updating the blog and we receive a Skype call of Caroline’s mum and dad, (Shirley and John), they seem really pleased to have caught us on line,(Don’t forget the time difference of 10 Hours).

Caroline is delighted to speak to her folks, it makes it easier on her. We talked with video enabled for about 35 minutes. Technology is amazing..

We wrap up our internet requirements and head for home. We pass the Ocean on the right hand side and see a pull in. there is a communal BBQ that you do not have to put any money in, that’s in lovely clean condition. A couple are sitting having some dinner at the benches provided.(No mess, no graffiti, no damage) just the ocean as a backdrop.

Caroline needs to use the ladies, and wanders off to the public loo, and on her return I ask her if they are clean, she says of course so I go down and take a picture of the men’s toilet, not so I can send it to a famous Pop singer, but to allow you guys to see the picture, And It had toilet paper.

We get back and unload the car, and get in the apartment, we rustle up some food and Caroline goes in to the spare bedroom where we are keeping our gear.

I HEAR HER SHRIEK !!!

We have an unwanted visitor sitting on the wall, he’s quite big, I’m probably 10,000 times bigger than he is but you can smell my fear !!.
We do the Ol’e glass and card trick and remove him from the gaff, he is unceremoniously ejected, there is no place for this arachnid.
I don’t believe in killing these creatures, even though they terrify me, I do hope they show me the same compassion, if the situation is reversed.
This is a good wake up call, we need to check our boots every time we put them on. !!!

We have decided to include up to 6 photo’s per blog entry if we can do, to complement the days blog and make it easier to understand what the hell we are on about.

And so the end of the day is here, we are tired yet fulfilled.
Our thoughts of home, friends and family is not far away.

Happy bloggers we are.

Andy & Caroline
xx

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Photos

Hat
Caroline sporting her new purchase. Better than the old one eh Nikki "D'ya like daags"?

Barbecue
These Barbecues are provided for everyone to use, they are clean, free and no grafitti.

Barbecue
Plenty of seating for all to enjoy.

Toilet
Very clean toilet, with toilet roll and no grafitti.

Yikes
This was our unwanted visitor on Wednesday night.

Unwanted Visitor
The last one was not big enough for you.

Garden Orb
Well I think that the spider is perfectly harmless Garden Orb, although would not like it to bite me all the same.

Cup and Card Trick
No way were we going to bed with this critter still around, so Andy bravely ejected it, even though he is arachnaphobic