Mantra Broadbeach On The Park

... Yum Yum. That parmesan cheese toast is delicious.

Sunday 23rd August
Another day enjoying the beach and sun. And the Bouwmeesters final day in the sun! We will miss them. Beach in the morning, we all tried to surf, Adam stood up ;)

Kids tired slept in the afternoon

We saw a hump back whale from the balcony. Probably about 500m from the beach & heading north, amazing.

Then walked up the beach for an ice cream
Broadbeach, Queensland, Australia adwubby

Back through "Brissie" to sort out rental cars and then we continued on the road to the Tambourine Mountains with a stop in at a small town for lunch and some touring around of the area where we found loads of farms with stalls of Avocados for sale on the side of the road (The idea is novel for a South African - You are encouraged to pick up what you want and leave ...

... a km, not to mention the ages it took for us to figure out HOW to get on the bridge!! We also took a ferry to Manly one (overcast) day, which is one of the beach/suburbs, and the train out to Bondi on another. We spent another day in Paddy's Markets/chinatown (the markets were not so impressive as we had been told!). Probably the coolest thing that we did in Sydney was attend the Jerome Robbins: a celebration ballet at the opera house! We got ...

... that week i just sat at Daiji's feeling very sorry for myself!! My last week at work crept around really quickly and i was really sad to be leaving. For the last week i was working in the Director Generals office and got on really well with everyone there. The Secreteriate Manager has offered me a permanent position should i decide to come back to Brisbane and gain sponsorship which is brilliant. I'm not saying that i will take her up on it but i ...

... I felt really awkward buying a winter hat and mittens when it was nearly 90 degrees outside, but unfortunately I hear it is quite cold up in the northern hemisphere right now. We shopped for hours on end, got groceries, and headed back to the hostel exhausted. The second day we booked a tour to Byron Bay which is a little hippy town about an hour south of Gold Coast. It actually took us more like 4 hours to get ...

... given the money that we are saving Harding. So, I opted to go. It was cool, I probably could've spent that time studying, but I honestly did enjoy it. In fact if they were selling their DVD's for free I would fork out the money to buy that-though that would mostly be 'cause I'm a cheapskate.

... from the locker and have a wander round taking some pictures at Rick's Cafe Americain and a few other spots before heading for lunch at the Gotham City Diner. Lisa has the inappropriately named Cat chicken burger while I opt for the Gotham City Seafood platter. Not bad for theme park food. Then it's quickly off to the Roxy Theatre to catch the Shrek 4D show where we queue for ages, get some 3D glasses and into the building. We then have an even longer ...

... The only words we could string together were 'skate skate skate' to Mr Tibbert on the way home and left Nick abusing Pompey for a few minutes (sorry Matt :-0 ) we got back to our dorm and passed out. Day 53. Woke up with the hangover from hell and to make matters worse no water and it felt like 50 degrees in our room. The only bonus was hearing from my good friend Mr Cloke about arsenal thrashing Liverpool again in the league cup ...

... Gabba didn't have a problem with this. As he drove past my stop I got up to have a word with him. I asked why he didn't stop and he started going off into one saying that the bus was only stopping at Chermside. I told him that was no good for me as it was miles away, he then asked where I was from and started slating me for being from England. After a couple of minutes row without raising my voice I managed to get him to pull over, as I left the bus I gave him the V's and if it hadn't ...

Just arrived from Singapore and got another four hour wait. Plane food update: much better, cabin crew took pity on my meager vegan 'delight' and fed me lovely dairy-rich pastries each time they went past. The stewardess was from Newcastle too (as in Australia, not UK). Lots of babies on the plane and a bizarre conversation with a french couple who needed help completing their quarantine ...