A Change of Seasons

We came home from Queensland to the coldest June on record in Hobart. It's been FREEEZING! Ice everywhere most mornings.


Last night I was at Bruny Island again. My collection of Bruny photos continues to grow.


Last week I spent a night away with my pastor's retreat group. This was a photo from my phone, so the quality is not as good.

Memories of the Gold Coast

Last night we flew back home to Tassie from Brisbane. The holiday we waited so long for is all over and nothing but a memory. I've selected a few photos all taken in our last week at Surfer's Paradise. We finished our trip off with a couple of days back in Brisbane and were able to catch up with some friends from years ago. We also got to see the old South Brisbane Baptist church and the house where Jo and I lived when we first got married. The church and the house is shortly to be demolished, so maybe we have seen them both for the last time.

Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef

Well they say it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We have just returned from a few days at Airlie Beach in north Queensland. We were a little take back at the price for a day trip to snorkel the reef, but decided to seize the day - and what a day it was. We traveled by high speed catamaran for about two hours out to sea to reach the reef.



They took us to 'Reef World', a floating pontoon which was our base for the day. It was more like a small town. The boat docked at the pontoon and you then had the choice of underwater rooms, submarine rides, or actually getting in the water yourself and snorkelling.

I choose a very glamorous outfit and decided to take to the water at once.
Sarah and Emily joined in as well, whilst Jo opted for what she considered to be the safer options.

Now you will no doubt be able to tell, we didn't take all these pictures ourselves, but wanted to give you an idea of what we saw.


There was an amazing array of fish of every kind, size and colour. Im not sure if Nemo is still lost, but I found him.
The sites were every bit as good as the pictures.
Some of the fish were very large. There were a number of larger gropers very similar to this fellow. They were bigger than me and very playful. I actually got to ride on the back of one.

Well it a marvelous day. My wallet will need time to recover, but the memories will last a lifetime. The Great barrier reef is definitely one of the wonders of the world.

Yesterday we traveled back to Viv's place in Bundaberg and will stay the weekend here. On Monday we head back to Brisbane, pick up Simon at the airport and head straight to the Gold Coast for a week of theme parks and fun.

Holidays in Queensland

Well we have waited and saved and planned for a while - but at last we are away on holidays and have arrived in Queensland. It's much warmer than Hobart, so the warmer weather is fabulous. We flew up last Thursday night. The next morning the girls had a sleep in whilst Jo and I traveled into the city on the River Cat along the Brisbane River. What a change to the Brisbane skyline since we used to liver here over 20 years ago.

We went into town to pick up a hire car. It was then back to pick up the girls and then straight onto the Bruce highway heading north.

We stopped off at Caloundra and strolled along the board walk. I was so impressed I thought I could spend my whole holiday at Caloundra. It was photos all around.

We stopped again at the Big Pineapple at Nambour for some lunch before moving on to Hervey Bay for an overnight stopover to visit some friends. Our friend Alan cooked up a BBQ with helpful suggestions from Jo.

We are now at Viv's place in Bundaberg for the weekend and will head much further north tomorrow for a few days at Airlie Beach.