The Grand Finale!

After our gorgeous beach getaway, we headed south down the coast to a place called Nambucca Heads, where the Nambucca River meets the ocean. What a beautiful spot! I would love to go back there again, but I'm sure there are many other beautiful communities that we can explore instead.

We had to stop at the big banana and eat frozen chocolate covered bananas.

Jo was super happy about getting his picture taken.

We rented a house for three nights that backed onto the river, and I LOVED it. I kept dreaming of all the diy renovations we could do to it.

I beat the word-game-master at Scrabble!

Our view from the back deck one rainy morning.

All of the rocks along the rock wall had paintings on them done by whoever wanted to make their mark. We thought we should return one day, with paint in hand, to make our mark.

One of my biggest highlights so far was playing in the river and having two dolphins pop up in front of us. Of course, the excitement was mixed with fears of sharks playing in the water as well.

The kids had fun finding tiny crabs in low-tide.

Shelly Beach was a lovely place to play in the waves.

We fished in our backyard, but Rylan was the only one who caught this big guy!

Dad and I had a nice little hike to the beach just down river from us. 

Our drive back was long, but we saw some beautiful places along the way. Again, Kevin does not stop for pictures and dilly-dallying. So I caught a couple from the car. 

We had one more week with my parents in Dubbo. The girls had a fun shopping day downtown.

We had an Aussie themed dinner for my parents. On the menu: Vegemite and regular dampers for an appetizer, roasted veggies and salad, roasted leg of lamb with mint sauce...

...and pavlova for dessert - my new favourite (which we had twice during the week).

After dinner, we watched The Man From Snowy River (a classic Poettcker favourite) and Joey promptly fell asleep. We watched part 2 another night, and I got the pleasure of Joey falling asleep in my lap. (Note Kevin's new style of clothing.)

I love the big eucalyptus trees.

Another highlight with my parents was visiting a cotton gin in Trangie (about an hour drive from Dubbo) and getting an amazing tour and explanation of how cotton is grown, harvested, and processed.

These are cotton modules brought to the gin to be cleaned.

The gin runs for about 14 weeks, from the end of April / beginning of May. They mainly hire backpackers who are on a working holiday. Apparently, the backpackers work 12 hour shifts and make a whopping $30/hr! And, if the backpackers work for the full 14 weeks, they are granted another year-long visa to spend in Australia. A pretty sweet deal, if you ask me! (Just for interest's sake, we were informed that during the number of years they have been hiring backpackers, not one of them has taken a "sickie".)

Here, all the "chaff" is being cleaned out.

Here, the seeds are being separated from the cotton. Apparently, the seeds are quite valuable as well, and used as feed for animals and for growing more cotton.

Bales of pure cotton to be sent to China to be cleaned once more and made into thread and fabric. Check out the guy in the background. This is a classic outfit for anyone working in a trade in Australia - mid-thigh length shorts, work boots, and a fluoro (fluorescent shirt).

We also had a chance to visit the Aboriginal cultural centre in Trangie to learn a bit more about Aboriginal history in Australia (along with the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo that we visited with my parents). We briefly discussed Canada's horrific history with First Nations people with our guide at the Aboriginal Centre, who stated that she figures every country has its ugly pieces - past and present. I look forward to learning more about this culture that has been in existence for 10's of thousands of years.

We had the pleasure of the kids performing a few fairy tales with twists for us. The innocent ways they play (most of the time) tugs at my heartstrings. Here, Joey is taking our homemade tickets and giving us wristbands to get into the show.

And that brings me to the end of our adventures with my parents. We had a lovely visit, and I am so thankful that they were able to make the trip out to see us.

Easter Break Part 2...

On to our next leg of the epic road trip with my parents...we booked a week at Surfers Paradise in the Gold Coast. Our apartment was in a great location - right on the beach, and right on the border of 

Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach. So we avoided the party atmosphere of Surfers Paradise, but were able to walk to the shops and watch surfers from our balcony while drinking our morning coffees. It truly was lovely and relaxing. The weather forecast did not look too friendly leading up to our week on the coast, but we had a good amount of sunshine in spite of this, and were able to play in the waves and the sand. 

Lunch pit-stop. I can't get over how many parks there are in this country. And you can almost always count on toilets and BBQ's!

Prickly pear (I think).

We arrived at our apartment in the dark, but this was our glorious view in the morning. 

The big boys (Kevin, my dad, and Rylan) got up super early that first morning to go ocean fishing. The rest of us had fun at the beach and in the pool. 

Calla was beautifying her sand castle in this position. The painful side plank. Oh to be 9 years old and pure muscle again.

We had a lot of fun finding treasures on the beach. We noticed a few jellies washed up on the beach in the beginning of the week. Later in the week, we had strong winds and currents that brought a lot more jellies onto the beach. One of us ended up having a very painful encounter...

Meanwhile, on the fishing boat, only my dad was able to catch a big mackerel, and the other two boys caught little fish that they threw back into the ocean. Thankfully, none of them got sick as they bobbed up and down a few kilometres out at sea. Gravol for another win!

One of the parties on the boat gave us another fish to give us a couple of big meals. I think we were all a little tired of the smell of fish once we reached the end of these two beasts. But they were very tasty the first night!

Another highlight - Seaworld for the day! Highlights there included:

touching stingrays, the dolphin show (which brought this non-crier to tears, it was so beautiful), and the roller-coaster.

Kevin ran around on land and doused us all with water canons on this wet ride. We barely sprinkled him from our little boat. 

Jo and I watched the others scream on the big roller-coaster.

Kevin and the big kids are in the first two rows. 

Jo was so excited to have a roller-coaster his size and he ducked his head down the entire time (he's in the front with Rylan). Funny kid. 

Beach and pool-side fun.

Poor Calla was the unfortunate one of us to be stung by one of these nasty jellies - the bluebottle, otherwise known as the Portuguese man o' war. The jelly was stinging her leg when she came out of the water, and it ended up stinging her hand as she quickly wiped it off. We headed to the lifeguard station where we rubbed something on it (I'm guessing some kind of vinegar-like gel) and were told to throw her into a hot shower; the best remedy for the pain. Our friendly Aussie lifeguard went on chatting about how painful stings are, especially when it's your first one, oh and how a sting on the hand is the worst, while poor Calla was standing there crying. Eventually we escaped and threw her into the hot shower. In about 30 minutes she was just about back to herself, and back playing in the sand and pool. But there was no more playing in the waves that afternoon for any one of us. 

We watched a few of these kite boarders in amazement. They flew way up into the air, and also went quite far out into the ocean. Very impressive.

Our Easter egg hunt was in a pretty spectacular spot this year. We normally have our Easter egg hunt in the spectacular Rocky Mountains, but this was a great alternate location.

Before our Easter dinner, we went for a waterfall walk in the rainforest to see glowworms. It was really really cool.

The glowworms were in this cave (which was also full of bats) and beside the trail. I accidentally deleted the only decent picture I got of the glowworms in the dark.

Easter dinner

They are so adorable. They made the trip out to Australia to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and we had a wonderful time celebrating at the beach!