Canberra school camp... more awesome than expected!

Despite  the twins and myself coming down with colds/flu/stomach bugs the day we arrived back in Townsville, I'm pleased to say Canberra was awesome!

Found craft & colour inspiration in the most unlikely of places...
Parliament house was pretty cool, loved the colour graduation in the public galleries of The Senate & House of Representatives.

The huge Tapestry inside the great hall was impressive.

 Mt. Ainslie, looking down from above the War Memorial toward Capital Hill.

The War memorial & amazing Lead lights & Mosaics inside the unknown soldiers tomb.

Coolness indeed!

The AIS pool where the Australian Olympians train.

Got to catch up with family, including my dad & a nephew I'd never met.

Somehow wrangled the night off on Friday and nip into Civic...
Shop Handmade, but no Posie Patchwork in sight, she was on Holidays in Queensland :)

And finally a day trip to Thredbo.

Phew, now off to heat up the wheat bag & make a cup of honey & lemon tea.

Thanks Canberra we had a great time on school camp :)

I'm grateful for...

The people who work behind the scenes to make our lives as they are.
We moved to Townsville a year ago, it's a small city in the Queensland tropics. The roads North and south flood often and sometimes for weeks on end as we experienced over Xmas and new year. That meant that fresh food became scarce along with many other things essential and non essential including mail.

I know that a parcel bursting with new fabric (that i forgot i bought on some up late bender of etsy & flickr) makes my day. And just last week i received a lovely hand written thank you note from a lady who lost all her sewing gear in the floods.

This picture was taken from the passenger seat of our car while we were travelling back to Townsville from Mackay after Cyclone Yasi. When we saw this Australia Post truck we new the roads where open. What a lovely sight indeed.

Pop on over to Maxabella loves... to see what's making peeps grateful 

Easter trip to Mackay

Still recovering from Easter here having had too much chocolate & alcohol & not enough water.
Thank goodness it only lasts a weekend so now it's back to watching the weight and running.

This is how our Easter went...

Grandad arrived from Perth on Good Friday night then next morning we took off down to Mackay for a short break.

The hotel we stayed at had an easter egg hunt for the kids on Easter Sunday and the kids all had a ball finding the eggs Inside the hotel & out in the garden


We then ventured out for a bit of Geocaching to walk off the sugar rush..



This cache was found just over the edge. It turned out to be one for the adults only.




We found this beach but sadly you can't swim in the water because of the poisonous jellyfish that like to swim here too.



The rain came in so we headed back to the hotel.



Monday morning we went up to Airlie Beach but it was very rainy so we didn't get out. It was just so grandad could say he'd been there.

An hour north was Bowen.

Well Bowen are famous for their big Bowen Mangoes...



And of course Meeka spotted some wildlife, she just loves lizards and stick insects!
Grandad got to have a hold too. Dman thought it was fab but wasn't quite brave enough to have a hold.



We stopped at Horeshoe Bay in Bowen for lunch before heading home. The next day a tourist was stung here by a jelly fish.



Two more hours in the car and we were home safe. the traffic was really good, there is such a big difference between how the city drivers behave to the country folk here. And I like it a lot.

Hope you all had a lovely relaxing easter too xox

weekend trip away

Last weekend we made a snap desicion to go down to Mackay to meet up with my lovely cousins from Canberra. We drove down on saturday & back on sunday.

On the way down we stopped off in Ayr to do some geocaching. It's so lovely and green in this part of Queensland due to all the recent rain and so of course the mosquitos were out in full force and had a feast. Dman & I raced back to the car covered in mozzies while con, meeks & fox weren't far behind. It didn't stop them, they applied reppelant and went back to it and came up with the goods. This cache is a film canister that has a film type log. The kids thought it was cool.


AYR

After our quick stop we were back on the road towards Bowen (famous for their mangos & the movie 'Australia') where we stopped for lunch. Then on to Mackay. Where we caught up with our lovelies, ate, drank & were merry.


BOWEN

We headed back home early sunday morning with our sights set on Airlie Beach for lunch. word of warning just incase you go there... lunch doesn't start til noon at most places but thankfully we found a sweet spot which overlooked the cafe strip called 'shipwrecked', the food there was fab.
Words can not explain how special this place is and not even the pictures do it justice.
The only bad part was that it is stinger season so there was no getting in the water, but look out Airlie Beach, we'll be back and you'll get to see us in all our bathing glory. yeah, i think that's a threat...lol

As we left it started to rain., then we had another quick stop in Bowen again before heading for home.

road trip - mackay

We left Yeppoon on Boxing Day and headed north to Mackay for our last stop before Townsville.
it was a great day to drive, there were very few cars on the road and we only had 3 trucks (road trains) pass us going south.

Mackay was like a ghost town with hardly a soul to be seen on the streets, No one out walking but we did find quite a few blokes with their kids fishing and lots of boats on the water
I had a massive sigh of relief when we entered our hotel room, it was just lovely and a vast improvement on the previous.

We did some geocaching here too, some great hides.



the quest mackay, a welcome change, lovely staff, gorgeous rooms & pool :)



sandfly creek board walk



looking back into mackay from sandfly creek look out



mackay, no one on the streets... like a ghost town

road trip - yeppoon

xmas eve we drove from Hervey Bay to Yeppoon where we experienced the good the bad and the ugly

The good - xmas! watching dman open his presents and talking to all the fam. Yeppoon itself is very pretty with great beaches, rock pools to explore and lovely walks & lookouts.

The bad - con & meeka went to perth for xmas (they do this every second xmas) so it always feels a little empty with out them :(

The ugly - our smelly & mouldy hotel room in the 'resort' we stayed at. the air con wasn't working either when we arrived and the maintenance guy said it was because the filters were dirty, yep not surprised. they cleaned it and the air con worked after that. yep, once i've recovered from this road trip i will muster up the words and be writing a complaint.



exploring rock pools at Yeppoon



Yeppoon Beach



Look out near the sailing club and ferry to Great Keppel Island



On the way down from the look out



Looking back toward Rockhampton

road trip - hervey bay

we left brisbane on 23 Dec and after a quick stop at Eumundi we arrived at Hervey Bay.

what a beautiful place! there were discussions on moving here when we won the lotto or when we retire, not long after we arrived.

there are lots of great parks along the water front, i think we checked them all out... and the ocean was warm!

we did some geocaching here but without much luck, will blog about geocaching later :)