Maroochydore - The Sunshine Coast! Saturday 22nd January - 24th May 2011 Hello everybody! We arrived safely in Maroochydore last Saturday after a really good night out in Sydney with the Tatts! We went to an African restaurant in Newtown then for a few drinks in a cool bar. It's really good to get taken to different parts of a city that you wouldn't normally know about. Newtown was relatively rough for Sydney and very gay and alternative and even more so on a Friday night! It reminded us a bit of Paddington or Clapham. We parked in the Italian suburb of Sydney and we could actually have been in Italy! Katie baked Joe a birthday cake and it was a really lovely send off. (I am also now a converted fan of The Hills. I love Spencer and Audrina. J). The flight was beautiful over the harbour and you could spot Bondi and Manly beaches along the coast. The flight up the NSW coastline was also very impressive. We saw Byron and all of the other famously long beaches and headlands which looked spectacular from the air and completely endless until we landed! When we were coming into land we had an amazing view of the Glasshouse Mountains, Mount Coolum and the beaches of the Sunny Coast! It felt quite exciting to think that this is going to be our home for a while! It's such a beautiful place. Sam picked us up in Conan (the Camry!) and took us back to the apartment in Banyandah Towers on Duporth Avenue. Sam said that, "you can just about see the river from the balcony", and I think it's safe to say that he was being sarcastic! The apartment is unreal! It is fully furnished all the way down to the tea towels and scatter cushions and the décor is very nice! It has an open plan living room, dining room and kitchenette and a balcony with a seating area and BBQ! Ideal! The view from the balcony is beautiful! It is right on the river with views of Cotton Tree beach, Maroochydore beach and the Maroochy River, Mount Coolum and the Glasshouse Mountains in the other direction. The apartment block also has a private swimming pool overhanging the river, a Jacuzzi, sauna, games room and fishing pontoon! (Me and Sam went down for a little fish on arrival but were unsuccessful. J). Me and Joe have our own bathroom and double room and wardrobe! I am very excited about the wardrobe as I haven't hung any clothes up or even put any away (except for in my rucka) since September! I've even been out to buy hanging storage as we don't have any drawers or shelves! I had so much fun tidying my clothes away (and so did Joe!) (NO I didn't J). On Saturday we went for a BBQ at the house we stayed in at Kawana when we house sat with S&H then Sam and Joe went on a horrible bender in Mooloolaba for Joe's birthday (pleasant night out actually at the local tapas bar, loads of finger food and dips. Splendid. J). They came in absolutely steaming at about half two after playing dares in a club. That's all I've been told. Thank God. On Sunday - Joe's Birthday! We went to La Balsa Park at Point Cartwright for a BBQ with Uncle Phil and Eileen (Sam' aunty and uncle) and some of their friends. It was a scorcher of a day and we sat in the sun drinking and eating and playing cricket. (I brought down the heat on the convicts turning it on average 90 degrees and bowled uncle Phill around his legs. Boom! J) Ideal! For Joe's first hot birthday it wasn't a bad one! We went back to the apartment in the afternoon and Joe and Sam sat on the pontoon fishing with a few beers before a BBQ on the balcony. It's so nice sitting outside so close to the water and at night you can hear the waves on the beach and watch the kite surfers. I started work on Monday teaching swimming at the local swimming pool but it's still 4km away so all this week I've walked there and back twice a day some days! I felt like a right Aussie power walking to work in my bright white running trainers, running shorts, white visa, and backpack with my ipod in! But it was quite enjoyable! It was a very hot and sweaty affair and I have some very sexy tan lines but I actually quite enjoyed my little self and I'm not going to complain about it as I wouldn't be able to do it at home!Although it was taking me 40mins there and back! So we've bought a bike to make my journey a bit quicker. We got it from K Mart and it is called The Cyclopse! It's pretty special. We love it here so far. Eating outside on the balcony with a million dollar view and the weather has been amazing, spending Joe's birthday in the park and being able to walk or cycle to work in the sun is just a brilliant lifestyle and we can't get away from that fact. But we still miss home and although we aren't desperate to come home just yet, we are really looking forward to seeing everyone, having a proper bacon sarnie, a pint of wrongbow (proper wrongbow!), and a pub lunch! (and real wine gums. J) We are pleased we decided to come out for as long as we did so we can really experience Oz but we both agree that it would be very difficult to emigrate (You wouldn't get me out here for longer than a year, too many convicts and Sheila's charging around. J), despite the fact that it really is The Promised Land! We have been here a week now and I still haven't got a second job and Joe hasn't got anything either. It is really soul-destroying when you can't get work as we both came from established careers at home (my career probably a bit more established than Elle's. J) and we are starting from the bottom out here, desperately trying to find work in shops, bars or labouring and still getting turned down.If we don't get anything soon we will have to go back to Sydney. On a brighter note, it was Australia Day on Wednesday (26th January). It's a public holiday and everyone celebrates what a great country it is and basically just get absolutely bungalowed! The parks and beaches everywhere were a sea of gazebos and picnic blankets decorate with Australia flags. There were also street and house parties kicking off as early as 8am! We went to Mooloolaba beach which was crazy! You couldn't see any sand on the beach for umbrellas and gazebos and sun tents, there were speakers pumping music out (Mum would of loved it! Haha. J) and a sea of huge inflatable Haviannas. Every Aussie day they try and break the world record of as many inflatable Haviannas in the sea at any one time. And they did it again this year.It's a pretty stupid record really but it was funny watching all the crazy Aussies get battered on the beach! We had our little picnic and a few beers then headed back to do some fishing up the river from out place. As a fishing novice I was the first to catch a fishy! I caught a baby Brim (too small to eat unfortunately) but I still bloody caught one! Joe caught one too (and a crab. J) but Hayley won by catching a huge puffer fish! Ha! It looked just like the one off Nemo! Unfortunately you can't eat them either as they are poisonous but it was very funny! None of us caught anything that we could actually eat so we just had a BBQ instead, for a change! I went second job hunting yesterday which involved a picturesque walk from our place to Cotton Tree along the esplanade. It was such a pretty walk with amazing views of the river and Glasshouse mountains and I handed my CV into some lush places! Most were water-front restaurants and bars with cool outdoor seating areas right on the river. Fingers crossed I get to work at one of those places. We went for a swim and Jacuzzi last night, it's such a luxury and we're going to enjoy it while it lasts as there's not much chance of finding this as part of a rental in the UK! Ha! We are all doing fine over here (as you can probably tell) and we will keep you updated on the job front. I'm going to watch Baywatch now (TV here is prehistoric, it's no wonder everyone is outside being sporty - it's enough to make me want to train for an iron man!). (She says that, but she is sat with a beer ENJOYING Baywatch, sprawled on the sofa next to me. J) Hope all is well at home, don't forget to keep the emails coming! Love you all lots! Elle and Joe x x x (Joe and Elle) Hello again from the Sunshine Coast! It seems like ages since my last update! I'll try and keep it short and sweet but you know what I'm like! The day after I uploaded the last blog we went to the One Day International at the Gabba in Brisbane. I wasn't too optimistic about the banter potential after going to the Ashes but it was so much better! The atmosphere was unreal and the crowd were so much more excitable compared to the Ashes in Sydney (probably because there were no Aussies there by the fourth day of the fourth test! Ha!). There were so many Aussies at the game we were seriously out-numbered! It was also a ridiculously hot day and we had no shelter so it was roasting! The Aussie banter was horrendous though, they have NO crack compared to us! All they shouted was the names of players closest to the boundary! Whether it was an English player or an Aussie one! Dire bants. But it did pick up later when the police started to kick people out for starting Mexican waves. There were a bunch of English guys in front of us who kept starting them and they got kicked out, much to everybody else's disgust and the police got so much abuse for that! Eventually one of the guys was let back in and he got a right cheer! There was also an inflatable shark flying around and the police couldn't catch it which was also funny to watch. The funniest thing ever was when a couple of police women circumstantially ended up following two grannies up the steps towards the exit and the entire stand went wild in protest as if they were kicking them out! Even the police couldn't help but absolutely kill themselves laughing! The only time any Aussie banter made me laugh was when I saw a group of Aussie supporters wearing armbands! I thought it was quite risky considering the Queensland floods were less than a month ago and they are still cleaning up most of Brisbane! We got stopped for speeding on the way home and the very nice policeman let us off as he felt sorry for us losing the cricket! Ha! They are SO relaxed out here! That would never happen in England! The weather here is so extreme! The floods have just destroyed most of Queensland and now there is a category 5 cyclone on its way, it's the biggest one to ever hit Australia and I am very concerned for the koalas on Maggie Island! But it's too far north to affect us. There has also just been a bush fire in the National Park where my restaurant was in Sydney! We have just missed all the big events. I know, to a certain extent, we have been unlucky with the weather but we have also been lucky, especially compared to A&F at least we got to see QLD! I've been cycling to work now for weeks and it's so hard in the heat! Its sometimes 35-40 degrees and I have some hills to climb! Even my shoulder and forearms sweat and I get burnt most days despite the factor 30 that I wear like moisturiser! It's actually a treat when I cycle in the rain! I've managed to get more hours at the pool and a few extra hours at another pool just down the road at Cotton Tree. So I couldn't actually do a second job now as I'm working most mornings and afternoons teaching swimming. It also means that I'm covering 60km a week on the bloody Cyclops! The pool at Cotton Tree is amazing, it has a 50m Olympic pool and two training pools, its right on the mouth of the Maroochy river about 10m from the water and surrounded by palm trees! It's so nice teaching swimming in the sun! Joe is working for the surf lifesavers' charity and absolutely hates it. Unfortunately there is no work on the sunny coast at the minute and that was all he could get. He is lucky to even be working as most people around appear not to be. People are so laidback (lazy) here and if work is slow they just go surfing and don't worry about it! That makes it so hard for people who NEED to work! He is going to stick it out until something better comes along. On a brighter note he is loving playing rugby for the Maroochy Swans! Him and Sam are 10 and 12 and are really enjoying it. They got free gym membership through rugby too. Their coach, Doug, loves them both and can't do enough for them, he has even offered to get Joe a car! Ha! On Saturday 5th February (ages ago!) we met up with Jamie and Jade! They had just arrived in Aus' after being in Fiji for a month and had actually enjoyed it as they went MILES away from where we went! Ha! We took them to Cotton Tree and Maroochydore beaches and Jamie tried to teach S&J to surf but Joe just sank his board and Sam got caught in a rip and nearly died! Not a successful surfing venture but funny to watch! They are driving their camper from here to Melbourne! Very jealous! That night we went to picnic point and had a BBQ and a few beers, we still love being able to do that on an evening! On the Sunday we went to a BBQ at Graham and Yvonne's, who are friends of Sam's Aunty and uncle. They live in an apartment block overlooking Buderim golf course and the views are amazing! You can see an entire fairway and hole as well as the hinterlands and beach in the distance! We drank sparkling shiraz and had the nicest fillets ever! They really spoiled us, it was so nice of them to invite us over. I was quite concerned about the poor golfers trying to put after a few wines though and thought they were going to get some abuse but we controlled ourselves! ***BLOG UPDATE!!!*** As if I have left it this long without a blog! I am going to try and fill you in with everything but it's going to be hard backtracking this far! Money is tight as usual. We are coping but only just! The prospect of seeing much on the way home is dwindling! Fingers crossed that picks up though. We made the decision to come to the Sunshine Coast to live with S&H as rent in Sydney would have been extortionate but work would probably have been much better. It's the sacrifice that we made and I think it paid off. Joe eventually got out of the god awful 100% commission job and now has a cushty job with a landscaper for cash in hand and an hourly rate! Yey! He has to drive the guy around as he lost his license for drink driving so it also means that we have the use of the van on the evenings and weekends! It's so much better than the other job, Joe enjoys it and he finishes before 3pm everyday so he can enjoy the Aussie lifestyle! We got him a surf board and he surfs most afternoons now, as well as goes to the gym. He is much happier to say the least! I am thoroughly enjoying work and the lifestyle too! I only work 20 hours a week in an open air swimming pool on the top of a hill in a rainforest! And swim and sunbathe either at the pool or beach the rest of the time! Bliss! The school I work at is unreal, the sports facilities are incredible and the school has its own rainforest! We teach the nursery children in the afternoons and just walk them to and from the pool in their "togs" (swimming costumes). The uniform looks just like the one of Home and Away! The big sun hats and dresses make me laugh every time! S&H have decided to go home now. They originally came out with the aim of getting permanent residency but Sam misses home too much and their visa applications would not be processed within their holiday visa time restrictions. So, they have decided to go travelling down the east coast when their lease runs out on the flat at the end of May. That means that we are on the move too! Originally we wanted to do Asia on the way home but we can't afford then we considered Bali instead but we can't afford that either! Ha! So we are (hopefully) going to do Melbourne after spending a few days in Sydney to say bye to the family and Becky and Jamie. Although I never found a second job, I still really enjoy teaching swimming out here. Getting up is so much easier out here too. The sun rises much earlier than at home and most people are out paddle boarding and kayaking on the water before 7!The sunrise really is incredible over the water, the rays look exactly like how a 5yr old would draw the sun and it is so still the sea sounds like the M25! The North Star also doesn't disappear until late morning and the moon is there most of the day! Weird! When the moon is full it looks like the sun and lights the sky up it is so pretty I've never seen it like that before. When the tide goes out you can see the imprints in the sand where the stingrays have been overnight and someone caught a bull shark off our jetty a few weeks ago! Sam has caught a few flathead which are lovely! But no sharks yet! Me and H watch the rugby when it is at home and it's so nice being able to sunbathe whilst watching it! No wellies and thermals required! I am missing home now though. I had the good news that Lizzie Ella was born on 7th April and every time I Skype Josey I get upset at how grown up she is! But then I go and sunbathe with some old school RnB on my ipod and I try and consider if missing family and friends is worth the sacrifice for this lifestyle. I am undecided. I am looking for a teaching job in York for September, the application forms are disgusting! But also looking forward to spending some time at home and strangely looking forward to the responsibilities of a proper job and unsurprisingly, the security of a regular and slightly more decent wage! But we are still making the most of our time here. Now we have a bit more disposable income, we have been going for breakfast in Mooloolaba on Sunday mornings, taking some wine in a plastic bottle down to picnic point at sunset and chilling out and visiting the Boat Shed for the odd afternoon vino! We have also been to the surf club a few times as the prices are actually quite reasonable in there! We went up to Buderim for a coffee one morning too, it's so good having the van so we can get about at weekends! Spen came out over the Easter hols! I was off for a week so I got to spend loads of time with her, it was lush to catch up! It was nothing but Speno (and vino) fuelled carnage obviously and we spent most of our savings, but had a very good time! We did loads of stuff (mostly involving alcohol!) but she got to see our beach, our river, our Boat Shed (very expensive wine over the bank holiday at $40 per bottle!) and loved our pool and Jacuzzi!!! (Hence the long arm!) Me and Spen drove out to the Ettamogah pub and bought ourselves some real Australian Uggs from The Skin Thing! The brand is different to Uggs from the UK as they are an American brand made in China, but ours are authentic Australian Uggs made here! We visited Montville in the Hinterlands (near Maleny), another hinterland town that reminds me of the Wild West! The views were incredible from up there! We also visited Eumundi market (obviously!) and Spen bought some hippy trousers (I have converted her to the baggy side of life!) as well as a wooden frog (only Spen can explain). On our way home we made a music video to a soldier boy song in the car, obviously. On Easter Sunday we went to Noosa and played in the sea and on Monday we climbed Mount Coolum! You could see most of the Sunshine Coast beaches from up there! Then we had a much deserved breakfast BBQ at Coolum beach. Me, Joe and Spen went to the driving range in the afternoon and had to dodge the kangaroos chilling out with their baby roos! I only had 3 air shots out of 90 balls! Yey! (And my knee didn't break). I had such a good time with Spen it's made me really look forward to coming home. We are really excited but also dreading leaving. I keep having a reoccurring dream that I am devastated when I get back to the UK and want to come back straight away! I am so going to miss the view from the balcony and having the pool, Jacuzzi and beach! I also love walking to Cotton Tree, on weekends and bank holidays as it's full of families having picnics and BBQs with huge Eskies full of beer and wine! It's such a good atmosphere but you can't drink in public at home! It's rubbish! I can't wait to see everyone but I know we are going to miss the heat and the lifestyle. Peeling Joe away from his surf board is going to be tough! We fly to Sydney on 24th May, Melbourne on 29th May, London on 9th June and Newcastle on 10th June. So…we see you all VERY soon! Lots of Love Elle and Joe x x x