Thanks for all your patience over the last couple of weeks. I had a rather urgent visit back to the UK and having arrived home in the early hours of Sunday morning, we are off again tomorrow to visit project 1770 (a little town in Queensland).
Just going to leave you with a mug-shot of me and some other Aussie Authors who were mingling at a local book signing a couple of weeks ago.
G’day everyone! (did I really just say that?)
I am posting my latest article on my blog this week, it has just been published in Australia & New Zealand magazine, over in good old Blighty…
At the end of the week, I’m going up north to visit the Town of 1770, the second landing point of jolly old Captain Cook and his crew of scurvy-less men.
So if I don’t get chance to blog-on again, I will tell all next week about my adventures…. good, bad and no doubt downright weird!
Have a great Monday x
A big thanks this week goes out to everyone who has been in contact with me about my latest article in the Sunshine Coast Daily (Sunday 19th July ’YOU’ feature)…. I am just awaiting the PDF from the (very busy) editor, so those of you who aren’t lucky enough to live in Queensland can read it too.
Great news this week, while I answer the influx of emails, I have a fantastic (and pretty damn hilarious) guest to write the weekly blog…
… Over to you - my good mate, Mike Harling!
Hi… again,
I forgot to mention about my new article that has just been published in the fabulous Australia & New Zealand magazine…
Click below to read ‘A home to roost’ on PDF…
Also, you can check out the magazines website www.getmedownunder.com
…and now have a good week!
Tags: a home to roost, article, Australia & New Zealand magazine
This week I have had to resort to using a post which I have written for Australia & New Zealand magazine…
I’m not simply slacking off, it’s just that I have two of my three children at home with various school-related ailments, so I could write a post on ‘how to apply anti-fungal ointment to the scaly epiderm of a female impetigo sufferer without the need for restraint?’
But I have decided it would be best all round to write the other post – as it is probably more relevant for a website about moving to Australia.
The Sunshine Coast is renowned for its fantastic beaches and its simple laid-back way of life – but that’s not all it has to offer. So taking the time to find some other hidden jewels really is worth the one hour drive north of Brisbane.
Along the Bruce Highway, swing a left at the Glasshouse Mountains Tourist Drive (#24) – known also as the Steve Irwin Way – not only is the Crocodile Hunter’s Zoo along this road, but the most jaw-dropping collection of volcanic mountains you could possibly imagine.
But the best position to view these mountains at their full glory lies a little further ahead at the quaint township of Maleny.
At Landsborough turn left again at Tourist drive #23 and up the hill to Maleny on the Landsborough to Maleny Road. Turn left onto Mountain View Road at Cairncross Corner, just before Maleny.
Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve is just along on the right.
Plenty of parking is available and once you’ve got out and stretched your legs – go and behold the beauty of the Glasshouse Mountains… utterly spectacular.
This isn’t the only reason why I have hiked you up here – there is also a reserve set in 52 hectares of sub-tropical rainforest where you can meet the wildlife and explore a small remnance that once covered the southern end of the Blackhall Range.
Just make sure you are wearing covered in shoes (not sandalls or thongs) as both times I have visited I have had the pleasure of transporting a shiny black leech around between my toes. They don’t particularly hurt – its just that I could do without the pricking sensation that they like to administer – plus when you eventually prise them off, they suddenly extend to approximately six times their original size and lunge at your face. Very unnerving.
Still, once you have finished your walk and breathed in the oxygen-rich air – you can stop for a bite to eat at the adjoining cafe. They offer fabulous morning and afternoon teas and also light meals while you relax and enjoy the magnificent vantage point.
All in all, Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve is an educational day out with a difference.
And if that wasn’t enough excitement for you, you could always all in on Terri, Bob and Bindi on the way back – but that’s another story….
For more information on Mary Cairncross Park visit:
……. and next week I’ll coach you on how to stay focused on writing blogs, while sickly children dangle from your mouse-wire and sneeze a gentle haze of swine flu particles on your computer screen.
Have a good week. x
Tags: Landsborough
Sorry for my leave of absence last week, I was in the recovery position for most of it….
I was roped into doing a charity walk for Breast Cancer – which is fine, I’m fit enough to walk 20 kilometres – and several of my friends were doing it – ‘so why not!’ I thought.
Now you may have read in one of my past blog entries (What’s the story – mornin’ glory, April 2) I’m no athlete, in fact my fifteen minute hike up and down our ridiculous incline of a road can barely be counted as an exercise routine – but I am getting slightly fitter and at least I feel like I’m doing something.
What I hadn’t banked on was that the friends I chose to ‘walk’ with were actually capable of running the 20k’s without breaking out in a sweat… and they were extremely competitive and took the ‘leisurely walk on the boardwalk along the coastal fringes’ as an excuse to elbow past the 600 other participants in a bid to get to the finish line first.
The first kilometre wasn’t too bad, I managed to jog behind them in their slipstream – apologising to the normal people who were walking at a sensible pace. But when the crowd was out of sight and we had made some headway… and we were still running, I started to seriously doubt why I had agreed to this madness.
10 kilometres later I finally sucked up enough oxygen into my poor withered lungs to shout ‘OK, have we got enough of a lead to slow down a little now??’
By the look on their faces, this wasn’t an option – and I was too weak to try and convince them otherwise. So I saw a golden opportunity to loose them – a toilet block was up ahead.
‘I’ll catch you up’ I shouted as I veered into one of the cubicles….. and there I stayed for at least 10 minutes while the blisters on my heels had a chance to fill with synovial fluid.
I cautiously crept out, and to my joy they were nowhere in sight. Instead what greeted me in the mirror was someone who had had their head amputed and had it replaced by an oversized radish.
I took this as a warning - that I may have overdone it somewhat and carried on the next couple of kilometres at the speed of a three legged tortoise. It was only when I found I couldn’t hold my water bottle anymore as my hands had swollen up the size of those comedy Mickey Mouse gloves, that I thought maybe I wasn’t feeling quite the full ticket.
I lay down and took a moment to recover, while the people who I had overtaken hours before walked casually past me, uttering tortoise and hare scenarios… then one lady crouched down over me and said ‘you better go and get those hands checked out – the paramedics are over there’
Paramedics??… I thought this was meant to be a fun way of raising some money for charity… not life-threatening!
Anyway, I dragged myself over to them and they informed me that I was dangerously dehydrated and hyperventilating – and to stop the walk immediately. They then offered me a lift to the finish line… you can see where this is going?
Yes, there I was – all re-hydrated and bandaged up when my friends arrived at the end of the race. It was quite obvious that I hadn’t beaten them – but it made for a great laugh when they saw me.
We all sat and drank icy cold lemonade and they decided that they would dress up in fancy dress for the walk next year.
…..NEXT YEAR???
This weeks blog is dedicated to all the mothers of children who are living over here in Oz….
Please don’t feel rejected by your heartless children on Mothers Day back in March, when your gift or card didn’t arrive… it’s simply because the UK and Australia celebrate this occasion on different days.
So we are sorry that you sat gazing at the letterbox, awaiting the gentle landing of your Mothering Sunday card onto the hall mat…
… or if you watched eagerly as the Inter-flora vans floored it past your house – with no intention of delivering even a wilted gladioli.
It’s not that we didn’t care enough to send you flowers or cards.
Its just that we totally forgot!!
Mother’s Day is celebrated in May in Australia – and it is hyped up to maximum proportions with TV commercials egging everyone to ‘treat mum to a brekkie at McDonalds’ , ‘take mum to KFC for lunch’ and ‘Don’t let mum cook dinner – go and get her a Whopper at Hungry Jacks’
….is it just me, or on Mother’s Day, sitting in a fast food joint with my elbows nestled in the last customers tomato sauce spillage with my feet glued to the floor by various sticky solutions, isn’t my idea of relaxation.
But after being woken excitedly at 5.45am to open three homemade cards with green dried pasta sellotaped furiously into heart shapes; a baked bean tin with a small shrub growing in it and a Dustbuster…
…How could I be so selfish??
So a compromise was met, brekkie at McDonald’s then later in the afternoon, a picnic up in the hills – to watch the sunset over the Glasshouse Mountains.
Beauty on Mother's Day
How romantic…
…it could have been, if I hadn’t been wiping tomato sauce of my children’s elbows and standing in sticky puddles of our own spilt lemonade.
Never mind – it’s more than my own mum got back in March…. OOPS!
I’ll leave you with this newsflash which has just been released in the USA; you are about to find out who is officially the best Mum in the world!..
(One more thing, don’t forget – Father’s Day is in September!!)
Have a great week.
Australia is host to many different festivals and carnivals – probably the most famous being Sydney’s flamboyant Mardi Gras and Melbourne’s International Comedy Festival, to name just a few.
But this week, we attended Australia’s leading regional Food and Wine Festival in Noosa.
Although I love great food, and I have definitely be known to partake in the odd bottle of wine or three, the reason why we decided to check this festival out was for the live entertainment.
Topping the bill on the opening night was Bjorn Again - the world-class ABBA tribute band… and they were fantastic!
No amount of driving rain could stop us from gyrating like lunatics at the back of the outdoor concert to all the ABBA classics like Waterloo, Mama Mia, Fernando, Living on a Prayer….
Huh?
……yeah, I think they just threw that one in to prove they aren’t just a one-trick pony.
Anyway, while we danced about soaked through to our undies, waitresses carted about delicious gourmet treats on silver platters for us to sample…. the wine flowed and the food kept coming – could it get any better?
Well, we didn’t get thrown out for sneaking in tuna mayonnaise sandwiches and Cheezels for the kids – but then what would they want with ‘delicate degustations of oak-smoked salmon inuendos’ or whatever they were.
A great night was had by all. Just another example of Australia’s wonderful festivals - even though we looked like we had joined an all-in mud-wrestling competition by the time we left to go home. Who needs Glastonbury?
SPLAT!
For more information on the festivals of Oz, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_festivals_in_Australia
Have a great week.