Eric and I walked to Umina Beach today and sat for hours reading our books and watching the surfers. We had lunch on the beach and really enjoyed ourselves. The beach is a 15 minute walk from Lesley's and is a scenic stroll along a creek which is home to a variety of ducks, birds and wildfowers.

This evening we finished planning our trip North to Queensland. Our stops along the way will include Coffs Harbor, Yamba, Byron Bay, Brisbane and Hervey Bay. Lesley has arranged for us to stay with friends and family at all our stops so we are feeling very blessed about that. We have decided to splurge and go to Heron Island for three nights. Heron Island is part of the island chain that is in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef. We will take a two hour boat ride from Gladstone, 79k off-shore, and stay on the reef at an all inclusive. On the way home we are going to take The New England Highway, which is slightly inland and stop in a town called Tamworth. The entire trip will take 12 days and we are leaving bright and early on Wednesday morning.

Before we finished our planning we had a family outing to Dan Murphy's. This is the big discount liquor store that is about 20 minutes from Lesley's. Beer is ridiculously expensive here. Actually everything is ridiculously expensive here. To give you an idea of how expensive - Budweiser was $44.90AUD that is nearly $50USD for a case of Bud. We chose a case of Australian beer and some wine to take with us on our trip.