Australia Holiday, July 2015 - Part 2: Trinity Beach Cairns

The next part of our fabulous holiday was spent in Northern Queensland, in a place called Trinity Beach which is just north of Cairns. Wow, what a lovely place Trinity Beach is! 

(And yes, I did check out the real estate, schools and jobs in the area!) 

We stayed at some lovely self-contained apartments which had 3 swimming pools, a tennis court and a fitness room to keep us occupied. Not that we were particularly active - it was a very, very restful 10 days! 

Most days we spent some time at one of the pools... 

In fact, we used the pool day and night!

However, the pools were unheated so although the daytime air temperatures tended to range between 24 to 28 degrees, I wasn't always brave enough to spend very long in the pool as the water was relatively cool. That suited me just fine - I got through plenty of books and enjoyed the view instead with a few quick lengths and splashy games with Alfie every so often to cool off! But for a lot of the time, this was my spot!

The beach was also just a few minutes walk from our apartments, and was very pretty and lovely! (apart from the "Danger: Crocodiles in the area" sign). We spent a lot of time here too.

At one point Jake, Alfie and I were all swimming in the sea when we saw a couple of dolphins playing just a few metres away! Ever cautious about scarey Australian wildlife, I leapt out of the water straight back onto the sand at the sight of the fin and made Alfie do the same - note I wasn't the only person to do this!

More Australian wildlife stories.....early one morning I went to a local yoga class (a 5.30am start on holiday doesn't feel right, but I'm glad I went!). It had to be one of the more unusual yoga classes I've ever been to - the class was outside and there were wallabies hopping around us. Most distracting when you're trying to stay in your downward dog position ;)

Back on the beach, we had endless sandcastle competitions and made mermaids, sharks and real castles too!

Here's a photo I never thought I'd share! Look what salt water does to my hair!!!

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Along the beachfront at Trinity Beach are a handful of little bars, restaurants and cafes. We quickly found a favourite, and many a morning was spent enjoying coffee and iced chocolates while we played Uno and/or Scrabble.

We dedicated one day to a big long walk up the coast across several beaches and suburbs to Palm Cove. The walk was LOVELY. Just miles and miles of beach. The whole way there featured lots of giggling from Molly and Alfie and no one complained at all even after more than 2 hours of walking.

But one of our highlights was the day we spent at the Great Barrier Reef. We took the hard option but it paid off - we went out on a boat to the Outer Reef (where you see more marine life), and were based on a pontoon in the middle of the ocean for the whole day. Despite some initial nerves from Alfie about not being able to reach the bottom (of the ocean!!), the kids took to snorkelling like Pros and spent a lot of time in the water looking at all the fish - it was amazing!

We also took a glass bottomed boat ride from the pontoon and saw a couple of sharks, as well as a semi-submersible boat ride and saw some turtles, awesome!

Back at the apartments, we discovered that some kind soul had left an anonymous box of chocolates and card outside our door, wishing Molly well in the recovery of her fingers (which she had bashed on the wall at the swimming pool the day before). We still have no idea who sent it, but how lovely of them!

Other little things we did.... one day we took a trip to Kuranda, a little village in the rainforest, where we went shopping at the markets, ate crepes at a cafe and went on a bushwalk.

And in the evenings, we drank G&Ts on our balcony, read books, watched movies, strolled down to the beachfront, went out for dinner a couple of times, and generally just hung out together.  It was lovely! 

Australia Holiday, July 2015 - Part 1: The Gold Coast

We've just returned from an absolutely brilliant holiday around Australia! For a family who's travelled the length and breadth of Australia many times, and lived there for extended periods too, it says something about Australia that we can still see new places and get so much enjoyment from the place. 

For the first part of the trip we stayed with some old friends, the Lee family, who live in a place called Tamborine Mountain, in southern Queensland. It's 30 kms inland from the Gold Coast - and nothing whatsoever like the Gold Coast! We've known Stacey and Gareth since our days at Bridge the World in London, and as they are from Auckland we used to see them there too once we emigrated. They've been living in Queensland for 7 years now so it's been a while since we last caught up but it was so great to see them again! 

Of course, while we were there we did take the obligatory trip into the Gold Coast to visit one of the famous theme parks - we chose Sea World - and went on some rides....

And we saw lots of sea creatures....In fact, our stay on the Gold Coast/Tamborine was very much about Australian wildlife. Apart from the fact that the Lees have an insane number of pets, we saw - and touched - a lot of Aussie creatures. See below for more info!

We also spent a bit of time playing on the beach.

But for a big chunk of time we just hung out at Tamborine with the Lees. I would describe Tamborine as being to the Gold Coast what Nimbin is to Byron Bay. It's a bit hippy, a bit alternative.  There's even a fairy shop! There's also a lovely hotel where we had lunch and listened to a band all afternoon while the kids played (and Alfie had a scarey encounter with a big spider). 

There's also a Polish Cafe   with amazing views and beautiful birds flying around your table while you dine, and where you can get the most incredible hot chocolates - apparently it's a traditional Polish recipe but I have to say at no point during my childhood did I ever get traditional Polish hot chocolate. Just cabbage and potatoes. 

We spent our last day at the very special Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. This place is just lovely! We saw koalas and we stroked kangaroos! 

We even held a baby crocodile - yikes!!! 

 All round a great time. Thanks so much Gareth and Stacey - we really enjoyed ourselves!

Just some stuff

From recent posts it might sound like it's all been drama and calamity around here. But normal life has to carry on around it all. So here's some of the ordinary stuff that's been happening lately...

It was crazy hair day at school, and Molly proved that you don't need to have hair to join in on crazy hair day.

Then there was the school disco - and I somehow ended up hosting a pre-disco party here for 6 kids. The girls got ready together and had dinner together, listened to music and talked incessantly about make-up and boys. Well, to be fair, only one of them actually had any real interest in boys (and it wasn't Molly, thank goodness!) - the others just did lots of giggling and plotting and "gross" noises. Jake and I found it very entertaining! ;)

The next day was Molly's annual piano concert. She played a piece called Shadow Dance, which was a fairly challenging piece with lots of crossing over hands and staccato chords. She did really well! Alfie was still fairly soporific from his hurting leg and consequently managed to sit still and listen to the entire concert without any noise (apart from when he dropped his crutches loudly).

Last weekend, we held another of our Wellopecia get-togethers.

Wellopecia is the name of the alopecia group we've set up for the Wellington region. It started with just 3 mums who have children with alopecia and we've expanded it now so the group's much bigger and includes adults with alopecia as well.

It's all about just getting together socially for some
subtle support and also to normalise alopecia for the kids and their families by exposing them to others with the same condition.

It's a nice group, and we've done some nice things so far. This time we pulled some strings with Jake who got us a private tour of some of the film props at Weta Workshop. Lots of fun!

Tonight was Parents Night at ballet, so we got to see everything they've prepared so far for Grade 3. The exam's later this year and they've definitely all still got a lot of work to do, but they've come a long way and I was impressed!

I would however like to point out here that I do invest a considerable sum of money on the proper ballet uniform every year and I do go to the correct efforts twice a week to ensure said uniform is in her ballet bag. But by the time Molly gets to class she adds to/removes/adapts every item of the uniform so that she looks like she's not wearing one.

Other than that, we've had a simply gorgeous wintery June with plenty of blue sky and sunshine, with crisp mornings and sunny daytimes. So we've been outside lots enjoying our lovely city. This has included rolling around on sand dunes....

and it's included hanging out lots on our lovely city centre waterfront...

....and I have enjoyed taking several lovely street walks around our mountain suburbs. I've said it before and I'll say it again (and so will thousands of others) - you can't beat Wellington on a good day, and we are so very lucky to live here.

Next.....a broken leg

And then this happened!

The boys have stopped using the field to play soccer on at school, and have moved onto the netball courts at school.

Apparently the concrete makes the ball go faster.

I can tell you this: I have no idea how fast the ball goes but there are definitely a lot more injuries these days!

A fracture to his growth plate. Ouch!

It's been a funny old time...

We've been living for a while now as a family of 3 as Jake's been away for most of the last month. First he went to TRENZ (a tourism exhibition) in Rotorua for a week, then he came home for a few days, and then he went off again, this time to Europe for 3 weeks (working apparently, although his Facebook feed suggests otherwise).

While he's been away lots of stuff has happened.

First this....the result of some over-enthusiastic gym practise. (Lesson learnt - don't ever rush a bend-back).

While she couldn't do gym for a while, and she couldn't write or do schoolwork or get dressed or brush her teeth very well either, it's not easy to keep Molly still and she insisted on continuing to do as much as she could, despite my constant cries of "Stop!", and "Keep still!"

Then THIS happened. A week later, with her arm still in a sling, Molly came down with a (rather scarey) case of Bronchitis which had me on the telephone to the hospital one evening and a visit to the doctor's surgery the next morning.

We came home from the doctor's with a big stock of illness supplies, which included half the pharmacy plus a couple of Secret Seven books which I found on special at The Warehouse (it's not often you find books at $2.50 each in New Zealand). I thought they might keep her going for a while so I could get some work done....I didn't bank on the fact that she'd finish both books within 24 hours!

The virus was so bad that she ended up being off school for a week :( I decided that good nutrition was in order and made up endless batches of soups - in the process discovering that combining purple carrot and pumpkin doesn't make an appealing looking batch of soup (it tasted great, so long as we closed our eyes ;))  Next time I will revert back to the orange carrots.

This lengthy injury/illness in Molly might have given her the time to perfect her six and seven times tables, but it presented me with a major problem in Alfie. There was only one of me, Molly needed to stay in bed or on the couch for a long time, and Alfie is ALWAYS bursting with energy. So I had to get creative and energetic - I'm not sure I did the best job ever, but he was mostly kept entertained.

We went out a bit, just to places where we could place Molly somewhere in the sun under a blanket with a book while Alfie played soccer and went scootering.... and we played and played and played in the back yard too (cricket, obstacle courses, etc). Hope you had enough fun Alfie!

Thanks too must go to the other families who took him out to play tennis, soccer, and more soccer - especially one in particular who hunted around in the mud for ages with him when his tooth fell out as he saved a goal! They didn't find the tooth :( so the tooth fairy got the following letter:

Love the last sentence! And yes, she brought the ""monyay".

Only this weekend did Molly finally start to show small signs of recovery. We took it relatively easy and got old toys and games out that we haven't seen for ages like Battleships, Jenga and Hopscotch. The enforced relaxation was actually really lovely!

By yesterday evening she was just about well enough to go out to the FIFA Under 20s World Cup Quarter Finals - thank goodness, as the tickets cost me some $$'s and I would have hated for us to have missed out! Senegal vs Uzbekistan wasn't a game I would have normally chosen to go to, but it was what Wellington got, it made Alfie a very excited little chap, and Molly finally got to have a bit of fun again too!

Is it Winter?

1st of June marks the official start of winter, although where these dates come from I have no idea. We don't really get much of an Autumn or Spring in Wellington - it just drifts from summer to winter and then back to summer again. And sometimes in the summer we get wintry days and sometimes in the winter we get summery days.

Today, for example, was the first day of winter and my car thermometer read 26 degrees this afternoon.

However, over the last couple of weeks we had a big cold front pass over the country, This means we've had some very chilly Saturday mornings on the soccer pitch where temperatures have been almost in the single digits - agggghhh! Thank goodness for ski socks.

Then, here's how crazy it is - a few days later, here we are today (a public holiday) spending all afternoon playing on the beach! It's very hard to get dressed in the  morning sometimes!

A couple of weeks ago we had another stunning Sunday - you really can't beat Wellington on a good day, as they say. The kids had been asking for months if we could hire a crocodile bike and we decided it was a great day for it (well ok, we had a 50% off voucher which was about to expire) .

We had so much fun driving around the waterfront and over to Oriental Bay. Every member of the family had a go at being in charge of the steering wheel - except me :( - and there were some very hairy moments, but we had such fun!

To occupy herself on the occasions where the season is more indoorsy, Molly has taken to photographing herself - alot. I found 643 photos of her on my iphone this morning. It's taking me ages every day to go through and delete them all.


Molly went for her first haircut in about 2 or 3 years a couple of weeks ago. There's only one lady in Wellington that we know of who can do hair cuts on wigs and she happens to be a hairdresser who has alopecia herself. The perfect person as she understood what to do on so many different levels.

Molly really wanted to keep the length of her beautiful hair, so we got her to tidy it up and put some long layers in.

This lady was AMAZING - she totally understood everything Molly would be feeling, so she spent some time french pleating her hair, curling it, straightening it, and just generally prettying Molly up for a while and trying different looks out on her. You should have seen the smiles!

After paying (alot) for Molly's hairdresser experience, Jake decided to save money and get the clippers out for Alfie at home. Unfortunately something has gone wrong with the clippers since he last used them and within seconds there were screams of pain coming from Alfie and some almost bald patches on the side of his head. So the clippers were quickly put away and I had to take him to the hair dressers and ask if they could fix him up. Unfortunately the lady shook her head sadly/despairingly and gave him a trim but couldn't hide Jake's accident. So he's been wearing hats until it grows out. 

Alfie's hairdresser kept admiring Molly's beautiful hair and saying she wished she could grow hers as long as that. Hee hee! Molly and I were holding it in with difficulty but as soon as she walked away we cracked up! ;) 

Other news - last weekend Jake and I went out partying. My friend Bridget held a Charity party to raise money for Oxfam. Sounds very posh, and we do live in these posh mountain suburbs, but it wasn't really. Just a super fun night - and over $4000 raised. 

We pulled together a lovely table of people and we talked, we laughed, we played in a photo booth, and we danced until nearly midnight. I didn't know we still had it in us!

And finally, the sunsets over the last few weeks have been AMAZING. Apparently the stunning colours are due to ash from a volcanic eruption in Chile?

Recent Stuff

It's been a crazy busy time lately. We'll try to catch up a bit on what's going on here.

It was Anzac Day a few weeks ago, which means a long weekend. We had planned to go to the Dawn Service but because it was the centenary this year, it was a much bigger deal than usual and 40,000 people attended the service in Wellington. That's an insane amount of people for a city of this size! There was no way we'd be able to park and although we've got the train station on our doorstep, we decided to leave it for this year and take a weekend away instead.

So we headed up the coast to Waitarere Beach for a few days. And there we played. We played lots of tennis, beach soccer, tag, scootered, skateboarded. And occasionally we sat down and did some colouring in or read a book or went for an ice cream or to the pub for a G&T - but those parts didn't happen much. Mostly Alfie kept us moving!

The weekends away haven't ended there though! A couple of weeks ago, big thanks to my amazing husband, I managed to get a weekend away on a girls trip to Matakana, with some of my old antenatal group. Since we first met almost 10 years ago, between the four of us we've had 9 children, 2 weddings (soon to be 3), one divorce, 12 house moves (mostly mine), several jobs and a whole lot of other stuff.

We don't often get to see each other these days as we live in all corners of the country so it was great to catch up. We hired a bach deep in the bush where we were free to crank the music up and dance at 1am, sleep in as long as we liked, take dips in the outdoor spa at midnight under the stars, watch movies, and gossip, gossip, gossip!

Of course what goes on tour stays on tour and all that, so I can't say much more, but here are a few pictures...

Meanwhile, back at home Molly is now a responsible Road Patroller. This means every Tuesday we have to get up early and set up a road safety patrol outside school. I'm not quite sure how I got roped in to being a parent helper but my job is just to wear a flourescent vest and look pretty. Molly and her partner do all the hard work, with much loud shouting going on (These words ring out in my ears long after they've finished: "SIGNS OUT! CHECK! CLEAR! CROSS NOW!") - and much chatting too!

Molly also continues to train HARD at gym, with 5-7 hours a week at the club. Competition season is looming so they had a mock competition last week, complete with club uniforms, professional judges, the whole shebang. It went well, except her hair flew off during her bar routine. Lesson learnt - next time she needs to go without hair or I need to use more tape!

Alfie's been extremely busy too. He was delighted when he was awarded Fluffy the Kiwi (the class mascot) last weekend for sitting nicely and working hard. Alfie's been trying really hard for a while to earn Fluffy, so finally getting him was a huge deal. Well done Alfie!

Fluffy's job was to come everywhere with us for the
weekend, have photos taken and be written about.

He had a good time - he came to a soccer festival, visited the waterfront, climbed a tree and went to a Weta Workshop Crew Party where he met trolls, ogres, Gandalf and a whole host of other real people.

Molly and her friend Jess went horse trekking the other week, leaving Alfie and the younger siblings to play with ponies in the arena while they waited. Alfie and Abbie took turns leading each other around and even got a bit of a gallop in! They had a ball. I think the big sisters did too although they only stories they had were about horse poos. Obviously a source of great amusement.

Alfie's big new thing at the moment is that he's joined the local Keas pack (Keas is the junior version of Cubs & Scouts). He took a little cajoling as none of his friends from school go and it doesn't involve a ball and goal post, but within minutes he was hooked! He's been going for 5 or 6 weeks now, and was finally formally invested into the pack last night. So far he's been very proud and engaged - it's lovely to see this in Alfie! 

I have been studying lately, as Google require us professional digital marketers to requalify every year due to their fast changing products. It's been quite fun! I've done some of the study at my desk, some at the library, some in the cafe - and I took one of the tests on my bed with the cat, and passed!! 

It was Mothers Day here last week, and I had a very nice day indeed. Molly & Alfie woke early and dragged Jake in secret (except I knew) down to the dairy in their pyjamas to buy me the newspaper, then they brought it to me with a poached egg and some peppermint tea. Plus a lovely flower arrangement from the garden made by Molly. A very lovely way to start the day! I then got to choose everything we did.....so it was a coffee at Chocolate Fish Cafe and a play at Scorching Bay - where Molly did more gym training. And then home for dinner - cooked by Jake!! ;) 

And finally, Jake celebrated his birthday yesterday with a day at work, some chocolate, a game of backgammon and a birthday cake. This is what happens when you get to your forties. Personally I am hanging out for 45 when I will have my belated 40th birthday party....(a clever move as my aim is for everyone to think I am actually turning 40).