While we were at Varsity, we went on a Whale Watching cruise out of Southport. This is our second whale watching trip and I'm again left a little bit (unreasonably) disappointed.The boat and staff were great, the weather was good and we did see some whales but as we all know they live under the ocean and we didn't get to see too much of them above it performing their antics as we would have liked. I know, I'm the unreasonable one!
My brother Simon and his family come to stay with us at Varsity for the weekend. Harry and Yasmin loved Ninja and Mishka and I'm sure the dogs enjoyed their company too. Their play time, walks up the hill and at the park has never been such fun. The dogs also had a day out when we took them to my brother Chris's place for the day. They were both spoilt rotten.
Now with these 2 housesits behind us , it's back to the van and some serious "nest building" It has been very frustrating, having a new van and not spending much time in it but now we are able to enjoy our new home at last.
While we have been around the area we did the health checks as mentioned in the last blog but we also had our eyes checked, only to find that Chris had cataracts, one quite bad and the other, the start of. We decided to see about getting the cataract fixed before we headed off again and were lucky that Chris could get in pretty much straight away. He has now had both eyes done and hopefully he will not need glasses any more. It has been an expensive business with a few trips back and forward to the eye specialist and a huge regime of eye drops which will continue for a few weeks yet but so far, so good. What ever happened to no more major expenses for a while?
Jo and Phil had another trip up the coast for the school holidays and we were able to have Olivia for another sleepover when we were back in our caravan. She is such an easy child, good company and a wicked sense of humour, two and a half going on 20!
We always enjoy our time around the Tweed area, catching up and spending time with family. This time it's been a few months but so much has happened and the time went so quickly.
After leaving the Tweed, we headed up to Tewantin and Simon's place where we spent a few days with them. We played surrogate grandparents to Harry and Yasmin for grandparents day at their school. My mum doesn't make it that far up any more and their other grandparents live in the UK so we are the closest thing to it for them. We looked at their school work, joined in on their assembly, had the best morning tea and watch the sporting events after that. It was a good day! We checked out the house Simon and Kerry are having built. It coming along great and we look forward to seeing it all finished when we head back down the coast again in a few weeks time. Chris needs to be back for an eye check up at the end of August.
We enjoyed a day at Pomona, watching the "King of the Mountain" race where all these mad people run up and down Mount Cooroora. 26 minutes was the quickest time completed with the others coming in thick and fast!
Now we're sitting here on a free camp at Calliope, parked next door to some friends we met four and a half years ago at Seaforth. We have met up with Bob and Ellen a few times on our travels and we always enjoy each other's company. This time we will be travelling together for a while. We are heading up to Seaforth before we start down the coast again. We will then leave each other around the Bundaberg area as we go our separate ways.