A final two week holiday

We sat at the Pizza Restaurant down by the lake a fortnight ago, musing on the fact that with only 14 days to go we should treat every day as if we were on holiday. Tempting as it was to take 5 days sick leave to help the "holiday feeling" I soldiered on bravely to the end. Finishing my experience with only 16 out of 27 children on my last day (It is a bit of a trend over here). I managed to say most of my farewells in an amicable and friendly manner, avoided one or two people and the same one or two people probably avoided me. A guarded but pleasant farewell was had with the principal. I had written ALL my thoughts on the experience in a 5 page "essay" to him. He shook hands with a smile either because:
a) He appreciated the effort I'd made and my professional opinion
b) He had not got round to reading it.
c) He'd read it and smiled as he put it in the bin.
Much more contented smiles were had in the evening when a hardcore 5 of us shared several pints/ glasses of wine etc. in the General Roberts in Newcastle.
This helped to relieve the stress of it all and another stress relieving activity was selling the car. After several surreal, late night and curious conversations with a man from Melbourne 14 hours drive away, who insisted he wanted it. We finally sold the car on the 19th December to a family from Tuggerah 1 hour away. $2850 dollars which added to $1700 hail damage insurance meant we have made a $450 dollar profit on the car.
Better still we were not left carless as Michelle's Mum Gloria lent us her Mazda!!!!



There are some uptight people in Australia and boy have they enjoyed going on and on and on about the Ashes but Gloria is the epitome of many people we have had the pleasure to meet. Always ready to help you out of a spot , making varying degrees of sacrifices to do so. Gloria has really missed Michelle and the family but has always been welcoming to us and rounded it off by inviting us all round for a Christmas dinner during the final weekend, giving us lovely gifts and dutifully sitting through one of Jessica's shows. What a star!



Two late nights, focussed on walks in the dark. One to see the Christmas lights in the area which involved 18 of us strolling around the local neighbourhood. Then a much quieter affair, strolling in bushland by the lake, possum spotting with the secretary at school with her husband and her son, the latter being our expert guide. The longest day though was our final farewell to Sydney.
Could not think of anything new to do; nothing we could afford anyway so re-did a couple of our favourites. First stop Darling Harbour with its giant Christmas tree. This of course was not the actual reason for our trip but more so that having grown 9cm, little Alex was tall enough to go on the Harbourjet speedboat ride. Little Alex was nearly sick too but survived the ordeal. We think he liked it. Tina certainly did (It was her first time too) whilst Jessica was a third ride veteran so was a bit more laidback about it all.
Back in the water after this but in a more sedate fashion as we took a water taxi across to the other side of the Harbour.



This was to satisfy the childrens' final request of a trip back to Luna Park. Well here was the penultimate ride that the children went on with Dad. Jess had no height restrictions so was able to do everything her Dad did. So after her eighth ride she acheived what Alex had failed to do earlier and did a blue powerade vomit in the middle of the main walkway.



We made a quick exit but not quick enough and missed the cross harbour ferry; waited 40 minutes for another boat to Circular Quay and completely missed out on a poignant farewell to the Opera House. Instead we ate chips at breakneck speed, walked swiftly to the station having no time to even glance at the eighth wonder of the world and hopped onto the 9:15pm train. Two and a half hours later after stopping at every single poxy station imaginable (Woy Woy, Wyong, Dora Creek, Booragul etc......) we made it home. 5 hours on a train altogether for the sake of a 20 minute boat ride and 3 hours in a second rate theme park was probably not the best way to spend one of our last days in Australia but Sydney must be thanked for the many highlights it has given us. We never did get round to doing the Bridge climb. Oh well we'll do that next time!
Back at Lake Macquarie, the day after our dinner with Gloria and two days before Christmas we were on the water again. This time for our final "Pateman adventure" doughnutting in their tinny. Trying to pull someone along in a rubber ring whilst you row is really hard though.



Only kidding. The tinny, which they had won in a raffle, came with a pretty handy motor. As is usually the case it was Alex we were most concerned about but it was he who could not get enough of it.
Sometimes though he just liked chilling out.

Flames of Polynesia and the big acc'n mess up!

Before we mention the highs and lows of our Australian "Polynesian Evening" we need to explain our slight mess up with our cabin. Whilst at Hamilton Island we got a call asking when we were checking out. "Tomorrow morning" we said " But you are due out today and someone is coming into your room. When can you get back here?" Well ordinarily we could have re-arranged our plans and sorted something out. As it was we were on a two island cruise and had also planned this special evening and we had allowed ourselves 10 minutes to whizz in the Cabin, get out and be on our evening boat 30 minutes later. Their original confirmation e mail had got the dates wrong, we rang to change the dates, they had said it was OK .but we did not check when we arrived and unbeknown to us we were still being kicked out on Friday. Anyway, the final solution was that they would move all our stuff (We had not packed at all) to their sister camp site. The only blessing was that it was closer to the boat, so after a day buggying and beaching we had the luxury of 30 minutes to check in, find all our stuff, wash and get out. We got to the bus stop, with ten seconds to spare ,before our transport arrived. Little were we to know that this ricketty old bus was to be our best transport of the evening. This is because when we arrived at the harbour and walked along the Jetty towards what looked like a really plush catamaran, we took a sudden turn right and stepped on a miniscule yacht, designed for 30, which was taking 70 of us!The first lucky 20 got the musty broken sofa inside... the rest had to stand, or risk life and limb outside. Tina forgot to take a photo.She was too busy scowling. Well, we survived the journey and our final destination was South Molle Island. Apart from the luxury boat cruise, we were also tempted by the seafood buffet. I say we, but realised that once we arrived that Tina was the only one really into seafood. I was game though and grabbed myself a lump of crab shell. Jessica was more intrigued by the implements I had to use to extract my 2g of crab meat from my 1/2 kilo of shell. I approached the oysters in the same way as I did when I ate the chocolate covered cricket at Marchwood, before I left and the mealworm at the Australian Reptile park. Well after the dubious boat and food we were slightly anxious at the sight of luminous painted signs with three middle aged blokes in front, in Hawain shirts doing Beatles classics and signing off with the "Benny Hill chase" theme tune. When the dancers finally arrived things got better, but a bottle of wine and a couple of cocktails might have helped see things in a better light. Fuelled by her glass of "Pink Panther" Tina spent the rest of the evening chasing the resident thick knee curlews. This was as close as she got. A testament to the fleetfootedness of these curious birds, or more likely she was half cut. Needless to say, the boat journey back was not as unpleasant. J and A sat down inside, with Jessica's new friend and we had a bracing seat outside, reflecting on the fact that this was the final night of our final holiday and in 2010 we might be able to afford to go on a holiday somewhere else. A farewell shot of Airlie beach. After this we whizzed to the airport to find out that it was so small that it was basically shut. We saw two people manning the cafe and a security guard eating her lunch. We went to the nearby town, Proserpine, and returned an hour later. Finally arriving home 10pm on Saturday night. This left one day to do all my term four programmes. Bring it on!