queensland

Pocketful of Sunshine

| poppypeach

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The time finally came to say goodbye to a favourite place of mine – the Sunshine Coast! It’s name just says it all – Sunshine, which is one of the reasons why we are still in California enjoying all its sunshine.

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We couldn’t leave the Coast without a party and my uncles band playing their own range of ‘swamp music’ as they call it – a mix of old classics to sing along to! We also had a couple of their friends bring their djembe drums for some drumming action. The highlight of the evening was a surprise CD my uncle found of one of his friends Herb playing the Cherokee flute – here he is playing it while we enjoy the amazing flute sounds. The funny thing was that my uncle thought I found the CD and sent it to him from California and as it turned out I had never heard it before! Still it was a great way to end the evening with a bit fun for Herb hearing his CD and playing some live tunes for the gang.

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It was a night of enjoying glasses of wine from the Waeco camping fridge that also comes in handy for a party! It keeps your wine nice and cool but be careful that it does not get too cool and turn into a slushy wine, which is what happened to mine – yikes!

AS it was a big night out – I stayed up till 2am drinking and chatting about the classical music and arts scene in Australia, it was very insightful?!? Then comes Sunday after sleeping in a bed full of 3 children I was pretty knackered – the day was way too beautiful to sleep away so we went to Alexandra Headland for a bit of a relax by the sea and it was the perfect tonic but just remember if you swim in the surf to be between the red and yellow flags.

The day before we left a friend of my Uncle’s took us out for the afternoon to Point Cartwright for some incredible photo opportunities. We felt so alive with an energy when we were rock hopping right by the crashing waves that it could have been the adrenalin from an unseen danger! The super spry kids found many shells in between the massive flat rock islands and enjoyed the rock hopping the most, moving along the rocks very gracefully.

The rocks themselves were pieces of art in themselves – the colours, textures and shapes creating this amazing space to walk and rock hop through.

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Point Cartwright has a huge lighthouse sitting atop the coast and right next to it is a massive water tower holding 6 mega litres of water which recently scored a facelift with beautiful mural and we enjoyed finding the different animals like the square tailed kite.

Then finally the time came to say goodbye to my sister and the kids favourite Aunty. It was a sad farewell as who knows when we will be back home to Australia to see my sister and my nephew who is already 5 years old!

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Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

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The next stop in our journey was an hour or so up North to the beautiful Sunshine Coast to hang with my sister and my 5 year old nephew. The day when we arrived the weather was warm and sunny – a perfect Queensland winters day. As it was the perfect day for a drive we headed on up to the lovely town of Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Wandering through to the local town centre we found these lovely blooms on the way to a hot chocolate. The local town had a co-op and a fabric store that I love, called Sapling Textiles with fabrics from India – I was sad that it was closed! Also we found a cool local non-profit with beautifully designed clothes from India called The Industree where I found a lovely hummingbird jumper AKA sweater that matches my tattoo!

On our way to The Shak for a Sunday brunch to meet up with family we found this secret sacred garden called Wunya Park in honour of the Indigenous people of the area. A lady places random crocheted items around the garden for wanderers to find and follow.

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Finally we made our way to The Shak a legendary local, organic cafe for brunch and excellent coffee. The menu was just amazing and I enjoyed the Avo’ Smash, just delish!  Check out the iced chai with their coconut mylk made in house, just perfect!

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These amazing Moreton Bay fig trees are just a walk down from The Shak on King Street in Buderim and are perfect photo subjects.

Some more of these beautiful trees in colour. They are the best trees for climbing.

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We enjoyed some winter beach time and hanging out with my friend from Portland while we serendipitously met at the Sunshine Coast for our Stateside summer vacations!

Farewell my Fine Feathered Friends

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Today I say farewell to the first part of our journey down under… We came to Redcliffe my hometown first to see my family and from here we are going up to the Sunshine Coast (a place where I also lived up at Peregian Beach). Then we will be going down south to feel the real winter of Melbourne and traveling over to Adelaide for a weekend getaway to see my husbands family. Whoa I am exhausted just thinking about it but time is flying by – only 11 days and I see my hubby again! Still it is always paced gently and generally centered around food with family and friends, which I like very much.

Thursday we travelled by train – a trip I know all too well when I used to work in the city and did the journey every day. This was when I returned home from a 2 year trip to the United Kingdom and need to save some $. Sometimes you wonder when will this day to day cycle ever end and it sure did with moving down to Melbourne, finding a partner, having a baby, buying a house, getting married and then relocating to the Northern Hemisphere. The finding a partner, baby, house, marriage and relocating happened in a mere 3 years!!

I digress, so back to our day trip to South Bank in Brizvegas and it was a sunny and warm winters day in Queensland. We visited the rainforest walk and the Nepalese Peace Pagoda from World Expo ’88 – such a beautiful piece of craftsmanship created in Nepal over 2 years transported from Nepal and assembled for the Expo. I remember going to the Expo in 1988 and visiting the Pagoda and it is wonderful to see that it is still here. The area of South Bank by the river is a thriving tourist hub and a very beautiful place to visit and I am sure in the summer it would be a lot of fun to go swimming at the man made beach. It looked inviting with life guards there at the ready for those brave enough to jump into the chilly waters.

We had a pub lunch at the Plough Inn that has been in South Brisbane forever – more beer battered chips, so good! The smoked salmon on rye bagel with the chips was a treat but my uncle who took us out for the day enjoyed his roast lamb that the pub serves every Thursday. How I miss pub meals. After lunch we needed a walk and took the kids to the museum to see the dinosaurs and the fantastic collection of taxidermy animals including lots of Australian animals. We finally saw a platypus plus and the kids enjoyed checking out the possums and flying foxes who we have been watching traveling the sky at dusk.

Friday was my last day and we had a farewell lunch at Pipel By the Sea and we ate at the cafe. The food was amazing and Mediterranean is one of my all time favorite cuisines. This platter of dips was divine with roast capsicum, blue cheese, olive and hommus with toasted pita bread. The desert was a lemon sorbet in a lemon skin outer with turkish delight and baklava with caramel and coconut – certainly a wonderful treat. I love eating new foods and I have certainly had a fair share of seafood since coming to Queensland, the shish kebabs I enjoyed with lunch were Lemon Myrtle Calamari and Garlic Prawns – my two favorites from the menu.

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The kids found it hard to sit and eat at the cafe so after they had eaten as much as they could they could go and play with the soldier crabs at the low tide. We could see them from where we were sitting and they had a blast digging out the crabs – it was probably a bit cruel! Then they relocated the crabs to a resort they built out of sand leading out to the waves with a pool for the crabs to swim in?!? That kept them occupied for a long time and with the weather at a lovely 21 degrees C they wanted to dip their toes in, so off went the shoes and in they went. I must say the water did feel a perfect temperature unlike the chilly waters of the Bay Area in SF.

My dad enjoyed taking some pictures of the silhouette of the monkey tree on the sand and the shades of blue in the water. It was such a perfect day. Soon it was time to say goodbye to the soldier crabs and head on back to the house for a cuppa and to FaceTime California.

 

There are a few things I discovered in the first part of this holiday –

The trees planted by the beach are called Norfolk Pines not monkey tail trees!

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Pic taken by Ash

These mechanical sounding birds are cool and called top notches by my uncle. Actually they are crested pigeons!

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My kids can actually smile for a photograph.

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More evidence of kids smiling in a photograph – this is the photo shoot we did with the kids when we went to the shops our first week here.

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I do really enjoy the beach and spending time there, it is in my genes and makes me feel at home.

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I also enjoy watching the sun set in the evenings – I can only can do this on holidays when I am being a slacker and not working in the kitchen making dinner!

Steppin’ Back in Time

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Going back home and finding funny pics from back in the day!

Something that I enjoyed the other day when I visited my parents place was looking through the photo albums from back in the day – just seeing what we wore and the memories of what we got up and that hair – now that is some long hair do!

On a mission down to the local shopping precinct for supplies for cat toys (for my sisters kitten Milly) we passed a few icons and met some new ones like this kissing Gourami at the candle store. The button box was at a place called JJ’s Bargain Center where my sewing adventures began, I am sure that some of the stock from the 1980’s is still there as I saw some pastel stretch fabric that bought back some sewing memories from when I started sewing in Home Economics class.

When our craft supplies mission was over we grabbed a juice and headed on down to the lagoon and the kids couldn’t resist going in even though it was winter. In the end we said strip down to your undies and go as deep as you can. At least it was sunny for a winter’s day and being in Queensland this is a tropical winter so dressing in layers is best with the cool air in the morning. The kiddos enjoyed our walk along the beach collecting shells and writing graffiti on the beach as we were looking for shells we found a little sea caterpillar – very exciting! On closer inspection and reseaching this little fella we discovered it was a toxic marine animal AKA a Bristle Worm, yikes lucky we watched Australia’s Deadliest Animals for some reminders on the many venomous critters that inhabit this large island.

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Still getting through all the junky food we have been missing since moved to the US and we enjoyed some very tasty pastries from Big Dad’s Pies – the Spinach and Feta roll is delicious. Ash is enjoying a sausage in some pastry here called a BBQ Smokey. I love the pastry sold here as it is flaky and very tasty. Funny how savory fast food is what I miss when I’m away from here!

 

 

Dream on at Dreamworld

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Friday was a day out to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast! We have not been to Dreamworld since we were little kiddos! Back then we used to go on all the rides but these days there is a very low tolerance for the rollercoasters. We all had a blast with the kids and their favorite ride was the log ride even though you get drenched riding a log downhill. Afterwards we had the best time drying off in the drying machine – we have this great video as we paid $5 to stand under ultra violet light and be blown by a blow dryer for 5 mins!

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Yay we made it!

The fun never stops at Dreamworld and we went on lots of rides mostly with the kiddos. The rollercoasters were out and I would say the log ride was the scariest ride we went on – the other exciting ride were the dragon dodgems! The kids did enjoy the day and say they had an awesome time, without the need for huge thrills. I do think that my days of crazy rides are long gone.

The photo opportunities are endless with so much fun and colour so I had a blast being the tourist and taking pics with all sorts of characters. The Dreamworks ride area was super cool and set up beautifully focussing on their range of characters from their films – Madagascar, Puss In Boots and Kung Fu Panda. My uncle who gave us the day out wondered where the Chinese restaurant was, maybe Dreamworld should add a dumpling place to compete with the crazy priced food that was on offer. We shared a pizza between the 7 of us and it cost us with drinks $4.80 for a water so the grand total for lunch was over $70, that was insane!

Another favourite spot of ours was Tiger Cub Kindy where you could get very close to tiger cubs. These pics were taken by the trainers who took your camera into the enclosure to take shots for a donation to the DWF (Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation). They are such incredible creatures with their numbers dwindling in the wild we as humans need to do whatever it takes to save these majestic creatures. Most of the cubs were born at Dreamworld which is a success for the tigers as their habitats decrease dramatically. Any cat fan will be so excited to experience these animals up, close and personal!

And indeed we found a happy place at Dreamworld for the day – next time we will bring a picnic lunch or some sangers.

 

 

A piece a Week – An orange top highlighted with yellow

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I am posting later in the week as the weekend was a busy one with dinner parties over friends places and the Mountain View Spring Parade and to end it all a little friends birthday party! Whew no wonder I did not get any time to sit and write! This week I made a lovely summer top from a favorite pattern of mine that is a dress and I altered it to make a casual top. The fabric my sister gave me for Christmas and it is from this Sapling Textiles in Maleny, Queensland, Australia – yay!! The weather is getting warmer now so it is just perfect to wear with a skirt of pants.

The Spring Parade was a lot of fun and we got to dress up as pirates as it as a Sail into Summer theme and our school were the Pirates – what fun! My friend got this great shot of a pirate in action!!

Flying the flag for Stevenson!

At the moment I have work to do for a friend and I need to make pillows so that is taking up the time I have in my sewing room for now. I will have to find a super easy project next week to post 🙂 Here are some pictures of the top.

The orange part of the top

A close up of the fabric

The top with the highlights of yellow