Blessings from Above

some time last week, this article came out in the local papers - the queensland tourism board is looking for someone to be a care-taker for one of the islands on the great barrier reef ! within hours of news break, the site crashed due to overwhelming response! if this position came about a couple of years back, i would jump at the opportunity! afterall, who in the right mind will reject a pay packet of A$150,000 for 6 months, with paid accommodation, transport and return airfare - mainly to blog about the fantastic island living?!?! i love the gorgeous beaches, relaxing lifestyle and mind-boggling number of activities available down under... go apply for the job, if you don't have a care in the world and dun mind being paid that obscene amount of money to enjoy yourself for 6 months!

how time flies - we're on the last (full) day of our holiday - we've to be at the airport around noon tomorrow. i left the day 'unscheduled' just in case we were unable to cover any of the attractions that we set out to do but with God's blessings, we were able to cover all the places we wanted to go and in good time! we did not even need to activate any 'plan b' aka 'emergency plans'. so we left the day again in the hands of God - Praise Him! he made our family holiday a truly enjoyable and memorable one with a beautiful ending. we woke up early, enjoyed a good breakfast in the apartment before heading out - byron bay is roughly an hour's drive away from gold coast, roughly at the border of queensland & new south wales. its a nice, little bohemian town with excellent diving (i started off my passion for diving here) and gorageous beaches. cape byron is australia's most easterly point and on a good day, you can see dolphins frolicking...

how can a holiday to australia not include visiting their native animals, right? as planned, we drove an hour+ north to the lone pine koala sanctuary . after five days of relatively mild winter with temperatures hovering around early twenties... i decided this was how claire should be dressed and what do you know? the rains came falling down and the temperature went below 20 degrees... our 1st stop was the barn animals - claire was really excited to see the animals - she couldn't stop squealing in delight and kept pointing at the animals for us to give her the names so we didn't manage to take many shots of her looking at the camera! and after a while, her hands felt really cold so i took off my jacket to let dh 'wrap' it around her. a photo with the free roaming skippies - you can't actually tell that it was raining but it was! many, many skippies! close up of a skippy - can u spot the joey? daddy & bb tan with the other key res...

since we started the day earlier and we didn't get lost finding natural bridge (arch), we had plenty of time to explore the other 'touristy' stops nearby. we had no particular destination in mind but my dear friend who visited us on day 2 (the one who brought us lots of yummy seafood) did mention that the flowers in the botanical gardens on the mountains shd be blooming so we decided to check it out. along the way, however, we made several pit-stops... 1st up was Mount Nathan Winery - a small boutique winery that was apparent churning out winners - several of their wines won gold medals in competitions and their secret? additive free honey extracted from bee hives established on site, resulting in some rather unique wines. while dh was busy tasting the wines, i took claire to check out the sheeps that they reared on their premises... and also sang her 'baa baa black sheep' to help 'associate' the song with the animal (now she keeps singing 'baaa ba...

the plan today was to cover the natural bridge (arch) , located in the Springbrook National Park, Queensland. i visited this beautiful glow worm cave twice previously when i was still in college. for this trip, i thought it would be better (and safer) to go in the day instead as a night visit would mean doing a rainforest trek in the dark with claire in tow, but we missed out on seeing the glow worms since they only 'appear' at night. as always, God is good! he blessed us with fantastic 'trekking weather' - it was a nice cool day and the rain held up until we go into the car after the trek. information about natural bridge (arch) map of the area daddy & bb tan @ the entrance mummy & bb tan @ the cave our only family photo for the whole trip!

with a baby in tow, its just not easy to follow any form of schedule, which is why we decided to do a free and easy holiday vs a organised group tour. unfortunately though, its winter time in australia and the days are much shorter (the sun usually sets @ 5+) so it leaves us very little time to do things in the day unless we start the day earlier. the original plan was for lil' princess & myself to visit the weekend markets while dh 'withdraws' the funds deposited in the casino a few years ago and then grab lunch before heading back to gold coast. while we managed to get up and leave the apartment about an hour earlier than the day before, the problem we have about the lack of time was compounded by the flat tyre that we dh had to change. we never had to change a flat tyre in our entire life and here we are on vacation, having to do that. amazing, isn't it? lil' princess slept through all that action. :) it was way past noon by the time that was do...

we're back... i'm sure everyone feels the same way as i do, coming back from a nice holiday - that it could have been longer! i'll just come right out and say this - i love australia - i've always had! it is a great place where one can have the best of both worlds - bustling cities and quiet towns. relaxing when you wish and plenty to do at other times. we had a great time the past one week... think i'll just let the photos do the talking (with a little commentary)... enjoy! pre-departure travelling with a baby - we had 2 luggages, 1 backpack, 1 infant car seat and 1 stroller (we came back with 4 luggages, 1 backpack, 1 infant car seat and 1 stroller though. i might add that we used 3 space-saver compression bags for our dirty clothes - otherwise, we might have ended up with more than 4 luggages) running amok in the airport - we wanted to let her expend all her energy before our midnight flight so that she will sleep on the 7.5 hrs journey there. o...