Home!

We arrive home on Friday 19 August as planned, one of our first tasks was to organise a play date for our girl and her boyfriend, Gus.  Saturday morning down at the park and it was true love!  They had not forgotten each other, a wonderful play, lots of tumbling, running and just having fun!  Sunday morning, another date, within 15 minutes, our baby was down!  A rush to the emergency Vet, and our true little St Kilda girl, needed a full knee reconstruction!  Monday morning off to our Vet, and with in the day she was on the operating table, with a stay over night on the Monday, she was back home!

We are supposedly to keep her still for 6 weeks and after that she is able to go on gentle lead walks!  This is very hard for our girl, as she does like to play!  Bonnie is very brave, has not cried once, no whimpering from her, however maybe from us as she bumps her leg as it gets in the way!

She has now got her bandages off, and on Friday she will have the stitches out.  Her leg looks very clean, swelling going down and the stitches are drying up nicely!  We have borrowed a crate from Elly and Clive, more Frenchie friends, so we are able to control her and slow her down!

It's been a busy week, nearly two weeks since we arrived home!  I am off to work on Thursday and have some teaching days in the next few weeks to look forward to!  We also have the September Birthday season to look forward to, lots of celebration ahead!

Wellington and beyond

After leaving Lightning Ridge, we needed to move fairly quickly to get back home and so many places along the way, we had to say, "next time"!  Wellington is one of these places, not only do I have a great great, maybe even another great grandfather buried in the cemetery, we haven't explored the Wellington caves or enjoyed the beautiful rolling hills and countryside of this area. This sculpture is placed at the entrance to the Wellington Caves and Caravan Park, we only had one night here, but next time we will stay longer.

This is an amazing sculpture made of mosaics, tin wind chimes and other bits and pieces.  The shapes are very organic and flow in weird and wonderful ways!

As we neared south, we started to face the cold weather and even faced rain!  Out came the gumboots and the raincoats, Bonnie even had to put on her St Kilda raincoat!

We arrived at Orbost on Thursday 18 August and our Orbost Caravan Park was basically flooded with all the rain!  Packing up and cleaning was a miserable time, there was no where to put things as we tried to strip down the van and make sure we remembered everything to take home!  Our beautiful clean van that we had been able to clean previously was covered in mud and we had to pull down the pop top when it was wet.  That will be a nice bit of mould to look forward to when we head off again!

Our drive home, thankfully was uneventful, we stopped off for a delicious morning tea at Stratford, our starting point for breakfast when we set out in June!

We arrived home to a beautiful clean house, lovely flowers and muffins prepared by our lovely house sitters, Hannah and Ky.

It is great to be home!

Lightning Ridge

What a visually, exciting town is Lightning Ridge.  We stayed 3 days, but could have stayed a lot longer!  We found a new caravan park that had only been opened since Easter and this was the view from our van!  It was in walking distance to the artesian bore, so once again there was lots of floating around in the water.  However, this water was a little too hot so we didn't spend too long there!

We followed the Car Door tour around the town, maps and description set out by the tourist information centre!  We would have liked to do the official tour around town but it would have taken too long and we would have had to leave our baby!  This is the only time we have had to rethink our travels, she has been such a good little traveller and companion!

We did get to visit the cactus gardens, amazing!  Bonnie was allowed to come, but the lovely owner of the park suggested that it may be more treacherous for her, than the cacti!

She stayed in the car, and I was able to play with the new Iphone to capture these arty shots of the cacti!

We left Lightning Ridge and headed for Wellington.  A 400km day, we have decided that is a good mileage to do, especially with this being the holiday of mishaps!  My turn to drive, it seems to happen when I am at the wheel, a large road train, and our caravan mirror just disappeared from the car after a rather loud bang!  We were lucky, no damage to the car, it must have hit the van as a cupboard had been flung open.  At least it wasn't as messy as the drippy peach tins, but I did have the contents of a cupboard on the floor, including a jar of Vegemite which didn't break!

The weather has started to get cooler, the long pants will be on soon and we will have to farewell our shorts and T-Shirts!

On the road!

After a stop at Crow's Nest, again, to get ourselves back on the road and ready for our travel homeward bound, and with a few delays on the way it didn't take us too long to get back into travel mode!   A stop at a "fisho", for a kilo of prawns, our first night's dinner on the road at Mitchell.  We had stayed here before in the year 2000, and with fond memories of the artesian spa pool we made a return visit!  Staying 3 nights, with the luxury of an en suite, we filled in our census form, and did enjoy the relaxing float around the spa.  Each morning we wandered up the street, chatting to the locals and lapping up the sunshine!

A hard day in the sun for the baby!

Our hideaway, with en suite close by and a nice shaded site to escape the full sun!

Next stop, St George, a new experience for us, what a beautiful town, situated on a massive river, if fact it is known as the great inland fishing centre!  We spent 2 nights here, in an old caravan park with the cleanest toilet/bathroom block we had seen!  Many people in the park had chosen St George as their winter escape so there was quite a few caravaners in for the haul!

A tasting stop and a little spot of lunch at Riversands Winery.  We bought some muscat, but haven't opened it yet - it would be a good Cape Conran drop!

On the road again, through Dirranbandi, a tiny town close to the Queensland border, beautiful old pub and and lots of charm!

A sign for our Sophie, (Niece) who loves her rabbits!

Hebel, what a grand pub on the border, just a little too early to settle in for a beer!

We finally leave God's country and hit NSW!

Farewell to family and southward bound!

The time has come, we have to pack up and head south, leaving our beautiful family and our home away from home!  A family reunion of the Grant's, a great day spent at Ben and Natalie's catching up with everyone.  Ross' sister and brother live in Queensland and his other sister, Sue from Melbourne who is up on holidays with her husband Barry made up the clan with John's beautiful daughters and family joining us.

A delicious snack of "cheerios" for Paige, we call them little boys, but this was a particularly big one!

A bath for the sea monster, thought she needed to have a scrub with the close confines of the caravan to look forward to!

Final breakfast with our beautiful grand daughters

Farewell to Nat and the girls

The night after at John and Sheryl's after solving the problems of the world!

Farewell to John and Sheryl, hopefully we will meet up with them next year on the road as they have just purchased a lovely caravan!

We are now on the road, planning to take 2 weeks to return home.  Will enjoy the warmth of Queensland as long as we can before hitting the depths of cold weather in Melbourne.

Our home away from home

Ben has started back at Uni this week, he has already started to prepare for his new subject of Biology - borrowed lab coat and my reading glasses!  He certainly looks the part of the intellectual University student!

Our caravan site at Ben and Natalie's!  Our van fits beautifully beside their home and we are enjoying our new camping chairs!

Morning tea at the caravan site!

Pa took a fall on our last walk, spent the afternoon being cared for by Dr Paige!  He is feeling much better, just a little worse for wear with a few grazes and a sore shoulder!  He certainly was well looked after and followed the Doctor's orders to be brave!

A dream home - morning tea at Susie's home, a new home that is built on a canal near the Marroochydore River.  Absolutely beautiful home, with a gorgeous view over the water, it was lovely and warm sitting out on the deck, we could all enjoy living here!

View of the pool!

Looking into the house with a lovely sunny spot to settle in with a good book!

Congratulations to our beautiful niece, Phoebe and Karim who have just announced their engagement!  We are very excited for them and will have to start saving to enjoy the celebrations in Morocco!  

More sunny days!

Another week and time is flying by and we have started to think of home!  Our time is so special here, spending time with our wonderful family.  Bonnie enjoys the routine of the beach in the morning and then the afternoon is spent following Paige around.  She shares tea parties with Paige and her friends and is often sitting amongst them with her own tea cup to drink out of!

Ben returns to University next week for the 2nd semester.  He has done brilliantly in his exams and is already started reading his text books in preparation for his new units.  We had a celebration lunch last Wednesday at Fish on Parkyn, a beautiful restaurant in Mooloolaba.  A very delicious way to spend the day!

Paige, reading the menu and deciding on fish and chips for her meal!

Beautiful photo of our very special family!

Entree share platter, how delicious!

Ross' seafood chowder, was it as good as the chowder at the Drunken Admiral in Hobart?

It was yummy, loaded with lots of fresh seafood.

Ross' whole snapper, what a handsome looking character!

Not much left of him now - he has seen better days!

Room for dessert! Pomegranates, brandy basket and semi-freddo!

Sienna's first time in the high chair that belonged to my Dad when he was a baby!  She loves her food and looks forward to her yummy fruit and vegetables.

Paige is a beautiful artist, a morning spent in the caravan drawing a bright red spider, with lots of legs!

Have had latex overlays made for the caravan and picked them up on Thursday, we are sleeping much better, and without the old stiff bones to contend with when we wake up!

Ben and Ross have done all the running repairs on the van and all we have to do now is to take it in for it's service before we head home.  We are leaving Ben and Natalie's on the August 3, down to the Coromal Dealership in Brisbane, to drop off the caravan for the service while catching up with Ross' brother and Sheryl before we head west.  At this stage we are heading towards Kingaroy, Dalby, Mitchell and then south to Lightening Ridge.  However, word from home doesn't entice us to return with such cold weather Melbourne is experiencing!  

Mid July and life rolls by in sunny Queensland

Friday, and time to update the blog!  Have had an eventful week, leaving last Sunday for Brisbane to spend time with my friend Cath.  Monday was a busy day for Cath, an appointment with her Bone Marrow Transplant Specialist who has given the go ahead for her transplant in August.  They have found a perfect match for her in America and with a successful transplant she will be cured from the hideous disease of Multiple Myeloma she has been suffering from for the last 5 years.  Her hospital visits take up most of the day but we were able to squeeze in a delicious Vietnamese soup for lunch at West End and a lovely wander around the shops in New Farm.

Ross was left at home to babysit the baby, this included discovering a pesky cane toad which he had to do battle with!  Luckily, Bonnie had not seen it, after her cane toad episode last year we were much relieved to exterminate the varmint before she got to chomp on it!

Ross and Bonnie kept up the lovely walk routine, down to Mudjimba to frolic in the water and sand.  A lovely photo of Bonnie sun baking on the beach.

Ross has had some miraculous visits with his Mum, from nearly losing her and not being able to wake her to her sitting up, conversing and hungry, ready to eat lunch!  She enjoys being taken out into the sun in her wheel chair and admiring the lovely gardens that surround the nursing home.

Ross picked me up from Brisbane on the Wednesday and we drove down to Coomera, south of Brisbane to catch up with Bob and Elaine.  Bob and Elaine, are another couple we met on the road in the year 2000, same time as we met Robert and May who we just met up with in Kingaroy.  They have just moved into a Retirement Village, looking over the Coomera River, what a lovely view, water, gumtrees and lots of bird life to enjoy from their deck.  We enjoyed lunch at the Boathouse Tavern, an interesting pub that housed a large boat set up as the bar!

We returned home on Wednesday night and Thursday was the big day for me to pick up my new phone!  So I am back with my new piece of technology Iphone 4, I think Ross is a little envious as he likes new gadgets and mine is now much more up-to-date than his phone!  He will now have to wait for the Iphone 5, or accidentally drop his Iphone in the dog Bowl!  This photo of our girl is taken with the new phone!

Latest photo from Natalie of our beautiful granddaughters!  We also received a beautiful letter from our other granddaughter, Sarah in Melbourne.  Another poppet who loves to draw, what a special treat for Nana and Pa!