Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and Surfer's Paradise

Tuesday..

Oops! I am getting sorta behind! Time to catch up..
Tuesday I was signed up to sew/quilt in this “improvisational curves” workshop. Instead I did three loads of laundry to get all of Mom’s and my clothes clean and then down to the pool. How nice to relax! This trip has been wonderful but extremely busy! I had the pool to myself. There wasn’t a soul in sight. How relaxing.. I believe I finished book # 4 and started #5 on this day! Between the airplane/bus and nighttime/morning (while Mom runs) reading, I am running out of stuff to read. Back to the pool... lol...all this pool needed was an open swim up bar...and an all inclusive wristband. Unfortunately because its “fall” the bar wasn’t open... not surprised since I was the only one using the pool! And it was probably just about as hot as Cuba too.. warmer than the windy days anyways! I would have preferred lying on the beach here but there weren’t any chairs..
I met up with mom in her workshop just before lunch to see what I was missing and then we went and ate and I went back to my book by the pool (and my water bottle..) and she went back to curve designing.. At 3 she musta decided she was jealous of my sunny state and she came and joined me.. with a pina coloda from the restaurant  mmm.
At about 6 we went for supper and I had lamb.. on a Fred Flinstone bone! And a really yummy coconut and passion fruit desert with these baked meringue cookies in it.. hard to describe – not hard to eat at all 
Wednesday
Up early today – the concierge needed our bags outside our rooms at 7. I thought that was dumb –couldn’t I haul my own bags down to the bus at 8:30? Turns out my bags sat outside our room until 8 anyways.. grr.. On the bus by 8:30 and hitting the road to the Gold Coast – first stop was a town I like to call Maclain.. and Mom thinks it was Clarence.. either way.. tiny Podunk type place where we stopped for a “comfort” break on the way from Coff’s Harbour to Byron Bay. Maclain is Scottish and the neat thing about this town is that all their power poles are painted with clan tartans. As our stop was at the info centre I was able to read on the wall there where to find the specific tartans for each clan. There were 3 Cameron poles.. 2 were Cameron of Lochiel (sp?) and the 3rd was something else. I decided that not only do I need to brush up on Canadian history.. but maybe also family history.. ie. What Cameron clan are we from?
Have I mentioned that the rivers here are either HUGE or non-existant? I seriously haven’t seen a river yet that you couldn’t take a houseboat or similar sized something up. It would be no fun for river boating AT all. I noticed in once place people were actually out on the river with their “lake” boat and wakeboarding! Looked like fun..
We only had a short stop in Byron Bay.. which was unfortunate. This is one of the first places that really excited me! It’s a bit of a “hippy” (for lack of a better word) type place but it is exactly what I expected Australia to be like. We had an hour to explore. Ya.. 30 mins for a “comfort pee” back in Maclain and only an hour in a place I really wanted to see!! Grr.. We walked up the street towards the beach deciding that we would spend all our time exploring and then pick up something quick to eat for lunch on our way back to the bus. All the stores along here were great and totally cute. One store even had a ladybug surfboard for any of you that might be looking for one! Lol.. Neat hats, cute clothes, roxy, quicksilver, billabong.. etc plus fun bathing suit cover ups.. and like 10 places I would love to go and eat at. The beach here was awesome.. well you can see that on my last post.. I took that pic from the bus as we were driving up this big hill to the lighthouse (see other pic). Spectacular view! I have a few more pics of the beach from closer up as well.
Next Stop.. Surfers Paradise! And paradise it is.. 70km of golden sandy beaches.. There is seriously beach as far as you can see in either direction. Our hotel for three nights here is the Mantra Legends and it is about a 1 min walk from the beach. It also has an infinity pool that is quite nice. Mom and I jumped off the bus, were first in line to check in to our room and back out on the beach in like 5 min.. then we walked for like an hour. This beach is nice to walk on because about half the width of it stays damp and “hard” so your feet don’t sink in.. We walked until we decided it might be getting dark and maybe we should turn around. About halfway back we found a nice little mall that we explored and then there is street that is just for walking down that has bars/restaurants on either side – so we had a beer and dinner. By this time it was dark and I was still in my tank top and it wasn’t a tad chilly. Very nice..
Thursday
Today is our “day off”. The only thing that was preplanned for us today is supper. We are going to the “Australian Outback Show” tonight.. and it sounds like a western/Aussie version of those medieval places where you eat and cheer the fight or whatever is happening in front of you.. Should be interesting – we go there at 5 I think.
This morning after Mom’s run and breakfast we went straight back to the beach. No chairs on this one either.. but we snagged a couple towels from the hotel and went and hung out on the sand. I went for a swim too. The tide was coming in so we eventually had to get up and get our stuff moved so we headed back to the hotel to check out the pool there.
For lunch we headed back to our “restaurant street” and had these really good salads and drinks..mmm.. icecream for dessert and now I am sitting on the balcony of our room typing up my blog. I can see the beach from here and it looks like there is a surfing school going on down there. I will have to post some pics of this beach too.. although it is hard to capture the greatness of it as it is soo big!
Later 

This view just speaks for itself :)

I will post an actual blog tomorrow.. but I couldn't wait to share these pics from today in Byron Bay. Beautiful.

Say Cheese Australia!

cuz I have my camera out!
Sunday.. cont.
Well here is one of the dolphin pics :) and ofcourse some beach pics! On sunday after the show and tell and meet the quilters of Port Macquery we were supposed to go to the Koala hospital. Mom and I decided to go for a walk instead. So we walked across town to the hospital.. and had extra time.. so back to the beach :) There was a little girl there that looked just like Decklyn - at least from a distance! It was beautiful out! I managed to even get some color.. and sore feet! Met up with the bus when they were done their tour and hit the road. Boring. haha.. good ole bus trips. Luckily it wasnt sooo far this time.

Monday
We are now in Coff's Harbour at the quilting conference. We arrived yesterday late in the day and got all checked in and registered. Supper was canape's at the welcome party!

We are staying at the Opal Cove Resort and it's pretty nice. Fairly in the middle of nowhere though - about 5km out of town. I got up this morning and checked out the beach (our room faces the parking lot.. so no nice views here!). The waves sorta surprised me.. I was standing on the beach taking some pics and poof all of a sudden I was wet up to my knees! Ha Ha so much for that pair of capris! Up to the room to change and then down for breakfast with mom. Mini pancakes are the thing to eat here! Totally cute and almost as good as homemade. Definately a welcome change after toast and bacon or cereal everyday. Gotta love the continental breakfasts!

After breakfast we found our workshop and begun figuring out the rented sewing machines. Oh brother. Lol.. they were Brother's and I totally couldnt keep my needle threaded - I think I threaded it a 100 times today! sheesh. Anyways.. after cutting, sewing, cutting those, sewing those.. all day.. I have 36 blocks ready to go for what I think will get to be a baby quilt. Anyone feel like giving me a years notice? Apparently it takes that long for me to finish these things.

Tonight mom and I caught a cab into town to hit the supermarket and the liquor store.. and ice cream :) mmm.. tomorrow Mom is sewing and I am playing hooky and hitting the beach.. not super duper hot.. but hot enough :)

Morning!

Good Morning! Went for a walk on the beach this morning to play in the sand! How fun! Very nice weather here on the coast :) Just wore a tank top and shorts at 6 am! Beautiful. Also.. there was a pod of dolphins swimming along beside us! How cool!!

Anyways.. off for breaky and to meet some local quilters.. I will post dolphin pics later!

PS. Scroll down.. I added photo's to all the previous Aussie posts :) Just a few to show you all the cool things we keep seeing.

Australia 3

Thursday..
Well we left the rainy blue mountains behind! First stop: Jenolan Caves.. and only one bat! This were the hugest caves ever.. and very neat.. the "walls" are all sandstone and the caves were created by water rushing in and dissolving the stone and leaving the caves behind. Some water still drips in through cracks in the caves and create these very neat formations that look sort of like masses of dripped candlewax. After about a km of stairs up and down through the caves we had lunch and then hit the road. We took a LONG and very WINDY (curly not air blowing..lol) road from there to the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley is wine country. Vineyards such as Lindeman's, Wyndham Estates, Tyrrell's, etc are found here. Apparently there are 100 vineyards here. We arrived in the dark and Mom wasn't feeling very good from the roadtrip so she went to bed while I went and found some nasty $20 appetizer thing (softshell crab that even I couldnt tell was any sort of crab and sooo extremelly salty I could hardly eat it.. ick..) and then off to bed for me too!

Friday..
Time to tour the wine making areas.. First stop though - grocery store! No more nasty spur of the moment $$ dinners for me.. Then off to the Tulloch vineyard for a quick stop. One of the ladies on our tour's last name is that so she was hoping for a souvenier. Next stop Mount Pleasant Vineyards. Beautiful landscape here.. older buildings built into the hill looking like a postcard (ofcourse I took some pics! haha).. Wine tasting of some of their best vintages - 3 white and 3 red. I made mom write them down in case we can find some at home.. all three whites were really good and not too dry or oaky. Just full of flavour. Two of the red's were Shiraz's (very popular grape in this area.. and also my fave so I was in luck!) and both were good but I could definately tell the difference between the two and conveniently the better one was $15 more a bottle! hmm.. Dad you would have also liked their Merlot.

After this we were supposed to tour the Hunter Valley Gardens.. but we instead got the bus driver to run us over to the Tyrrell's vineyard to check it out while everyone else was checking out flowers. The gardens had some neat shops so Mom and I just peeked in those once we got back.

Back towards our resort.. with a quick stop at a cheese shop across the road.. couple cheese tastings and some landscape photos! Mom and I bought a little chunk of brie to have with our crackers and fruit from the grocery store stop in the morning.

Mom was asleep by 7:30 and I read Jodi Picoult until 10 and then went to sleep myself.. well eventually.. had to get used to the snoring through the walls first! Not very soundproof!! :(

Saturday..
Travel day again today! Off to Port Macquarie on the coast. But not without a surprise stop at the Kurrie Kurrie Anzac Day festivities. Kurrie Kurrie is a small down just outside Hunter Valley and Anzac Day is sorta like Remembrance day but more specifically for the Australian New Zealand Army Core and their fight at Gallipoli (Winston Churchill wanted to take over Turkey.. which was a gorey loss for the Britt's who had drug the Anzac's in with them.. which I learned at the War Memorial back in Canberra). I am now feeling like I need to brush up on Canada's history! :)
Anyways.. back to Kurrie Kurrie (aboriginal name by the way) we went to the RSL (Returned Soldiers League) for lunch and then 2up. 2up was cool! Ty would have loved it.. It is a heads or tails gambling game that is illegal here except for on Anzac day between 2pm and 7pm. Mom got right into it and won $10 (doubled her money) and then promptly lost it the next round! haha.. which is exactly why my money stayed in my wallet! One lady in our group walked away $60 ahead and we only stayed to play for like 10 min.. I cannot imagine how much money was won and lost throughout the day.
We also me some guys from the army, navy, and airforce all suited up in uniform. Thats always nice! ;)

Then back on the bus and down the road to the coast. We arrived at about dark and found our rooms and got settled in. Mom and I went for a walk down to the "ocean".. I actually think it was a tidal river and that we didnt walk quite far enough for the ocean cause there were no waves. We are getting up in the morning to explore further in the daylight!

Have a good night :)

Next couple of Days...

Tuesday
What a busy day! Looking back to yesterday it seems like soo long ago (writing this Wednesday). Tuesday morning we were up early.. down to breakfast at the Travelodge in down town Sydney.. and then off to the Opera house for a tour. Fantastic! The tour guide was a (Jodi please fill in this word.. the guy from the book you were reading on the way to Kenny Chesney??).
The opera house is actually in two sections.. there is the opera/ballet stage and then there is the concert stage. Our tour was just prior to the Australian ballet doing a full dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker. I was VERY tempted to just hide under my seat quietly for an hour or so and wait for THAT to come on.. talk about missing out by days.. it starts on Friday! From there we walked around the wharf to the ferry terminal and hopped on the most crazy ferry ride I have ever been on! Apparently where the Sydney harbor meets the ocean.. there are some big waves.. HUGE.. so huge.. that when you are standing outside on the ferry you get soaked! Talk about a blast! Mom and I were giggling like crazy while some of the more mature ladies in our group were not so impressed. I would sooo pay to do that “ride” again. Anyways.. the ferry was to Manly Beach.. cute little town.. with a beach.. yay! Where it was pouring rain.. boo! But there were still people surfing! So neat that there are just little bays with beaches right beside such a huge city!
From the beach all of us drowned rats went to the prerequisite quilt store for the day.. it smelled like fresh waffle cones outside here so going to the quilt store instead of for dessert was difficult! The fabric is starting to all look the same.. so similar in fact that there are ladies that have found out after that they have bought the same fabric twice.. in one case even three times!
Back to the hotel for a freshen up and then back down to the wharf for our dinner cruise. This boat was much smoother sailing and we all stayed dry.. well aside from champagne and wine consumption. Haha! The champagne they served was super yummy. “Tyrell’s Brut” (can someone maybe tell me if they sell this at home? Otherwise I will bring back a bottle..) – I will always love the Martini Asti.. but this stuff was really going down good! After the dinner cruise and right at my usual early bedtime we went to this lady’s house where she showed us a bunch of antique quilts.. I swear mom was pulling an umpa and totally nodding off beside me.. and yes.. it was kinda boring.. zzzzz
Wednesday
Up and on the bus this morning by 8. Goodbye Sydney. First stop – wildlife park.. stay tuned for pics from here. We saw every Australian animal imaginable.. cept for this echidna thing.. my favorite was the little fairy penguins! They were SOOO cute.. they were totally playing in the water.. rolling around and splashing like little kids!
On to Mount Victoria.. cute little heritage town where we had lunch at the Imperial hotel. Welcome to the Blue Mountains. Very pretty mountains that are more like hills/rimrocks.. highest altitude is about 1000 metres.. and it’s a big rainforest. Views very much like Costa Rica – and foggy like that was too.. Then the land just sorta ends.. and you are on the tops of these cliffs.. and you can see the edge of the cliffs all around. Google “three sisters + blue mountains” and you should find something about them. We went to two different viewpoints for pictures as well as to “Scenic World” where we took a railcar thing down an old mine shaft tunnel to the bottom of the cliffs and then walked a boardwalk through the rainforest.. we picked the 30 min walk.. on the slippery wood.. I being the clutzy one on this trip ofcourse fell on my ass.. again.. LOL – at the end of the walk we were able to take a cable car (like in Jasper) back up to the top of the “mountain” again. Unfortunately they cram you into those things like sardines so so much for taking pictures of the scenic views..
Our hotel tonight is in Leura, which is near Katoomba (I think).. we went to the “RSL club” (legion equivalent) in Katoomba for supper.
Tomorrow we are going to tour some caves and then tour on to Hunter Valley. Crossing my fingers for no more rain!!

Thursday..
Sorry no pictures.. I have taken a ton but this internet cant even login to facebook let alone upload photos!
And ps. as of now it is pissing rain - hope its nicer where we are going today!

Australia the first couple days!

Saturday..
Hello all!
As many of you all know – absolute photography (me) is currently travelling Australia! I landed in Sydney yesterday at 9ish am.. after approx 26 hours of travelling from Vancouver. Sad part is I left GP Tuesday afternoon and got here FRIDAY – thanks to the international date line! CRAZY.. poof the week was gone.
We immediately left Sydney and headed to Berrima to our first quilt store (did I mention I am on a quilting tour?). This is a little historical town with totally fun stores such as pottery, antiques (the most organized antique store I have EVER seen), jams, soaps, candy, and kids stuff – as well as little cafes. We had two hours to just roam around and browse – I took some pictures of the local landscape and enjoyed some ice cream. On to Canberra from there and straight to the hotel. Mom and I walked to the grocery store and stocked up on water and some food to eat in the room. I was literally asleep by 7:30 Aussie time due to jet lag! (that’s 3:30 am GP time.. so I guess that’s ok!)
Today we went to a suburb of Canberra called Gold Creek and found many more cutesy stores, galleries, etc – and ofcourse a quilt store! I even bought fabric.
I saw some kangaroos too! About as close as some deer in the field – looking much the same from the distance cept for sitting on their bums! We then went to their parliament building – Canberra is the capital. We went on a tour there which sounds incredibly boring.. but it was great! This lady had been leading tours around for 15 years and she made it all incredibly interesting. The building is really new.. it opened in 1988 and it is beautiful (for a big building). They also had really great art inside and our tour guide made sure to specialize the tour around tapestries, quilts, etc.. This one massive painting was duplicated for their great hall.. as a tapestry – it literally weighs a ton and from across the room you cant tell its even woven. HUGE.
While outside taking pics.. I made a complete ass of myself and fell on my face.. I had decided to get mom to take a picture of me on the roof (which isn’t high and scary sounding cause the building is built mostly underground).. and I hopped up onto these concrete stool things – cept for I didn’t actually make it.. I ended up banging my knee, landing on the ground with all these old ladies around asking if I was ok – who’d a thunk that me the youngest most agile person here would be the first to fall on my face! Lol.. how embarrassing!
From the parliament building we went to the War memorial. I recommend that if Trevor or Uncle Al are ever here.. you guys should check it out.. and give yourselves all day! I spent about an hour checking it out – but all I could think was “Trevor would be here all day!”.. and then I got to the part where the actual planes were hanging and sitting and thought “Uncle Al would love this!”.. My excitement was outside – there were two weddings getting photographed.. so I snuck a few shots.. haha.. oh and I found some(possible) Australian ancestors of ours.. there were Mason’s and Cameron’s listed on the memorial – even a F. Mason! Maybe the Fred’s travel further up the ancestry line than we even know!
This evening we went up “Black Mountain” and up a tower that is like a small version of the stratosphere.. or the CN tower? We had a great view of the sunset and mom and I shared $6 worth of cookies.. seriously $3 a cookie! So much for Mom’s rule of 3 cookies at a time..lol 
Well – its now 8:30 and past my bedtime! Lol it sure takes a bit to get used to being just about an entire day ahead.
Monday..
Well! Right when I went to post my blog on Saturday night.. we had a little computer issue..
The power here is 240 volts.. and there are little “silly” switches on all the sockets that you have to turn on.. Turns out they aren’t so silly.. apparently you have to turn OFF the switch before unplugging. Mom has no recollection of this from her last two trips – but what essentially happens is it messes up your stuff.. sooo it literally killed the adapter for my laptop and unknown to me I was running on battery when I was typing Saturday’s entry. Then poof.. 2 min til the battery was dead and my blog DIDN’T get posted. We also didn’t send as many emails as we would have liked either!
Soo.. on Sunday after waking up at 4 am and not being able to get back to sleep (I felt like grandma!).. we went to this really big farmers market thing - without the farmers.. jewelry, fresh bread, photography, artists, neat clothing, etc.. then we went to a quilt store. This was my favorite quilt store so far by far. They had all the more fun and hip fabric from younger designers! I even bought some 
After the quilt store we went to their national museum – kinda boring.. but the building was HUGE and with very creative architecture.. maybe futuristic looking? Mom and I walked through there fairly quickly and then went for a walk by the lake just outside..
Back to the hotel.. and out for our first REAL supper – Italian.. it was really good. Prior to dinner Mom and I went for a walk to a trail with “nice big trees down either side that would make a good photo op, and is only a couple blocks away” (mom) – WELL.. more like 2 km.. I was literally sweating and it was to dark to take a picture once we got there!
Today we got up and drove to Mittagong. There were two quilt stores there within 3 blocks of each other.. and a computer store where I managed to buy a universal plug in for the computer. After browsing the cute but not so bountiful quilt stores we went for lunch at this “sturt” café. Sturt is a arts school – teaching things like creative woodworking, jewelry making, basket weaving, and even photoshop. They had a really nice gallery with things for sale as well. I almost bought a very cute ring..
Then we drove back into Sydney and found the hotel - it is right downtown. Mom and I walked to this “arcade” which is a MALL not a video games place (sorta like Edmonton City Center). All the stores are as expensive as “coach” and similar.. we wandered around and checked out a few places (Oakley, quicksilver, coach, and some unfamiliar named places), and then off to the foodcourt for dinner.

Tomorrow will be BUSY.. a tour of the Sydney Opera house, ferry ride over to an island to take pictures of the opera house from.. a quilt store.. a dinner cruise in the harbor.. and a visit to this lady’s house (she wrote a book about Australian quilt history).
These pics are from Saturday.. enjoy!
Miss everyone :)

Happy Easter!

So I did the unmentionable.. I showed up at a family function - with not one.. but TWO dead camera batteries! This cutie is the only shot I got :) Happy Easter all!!

A little "commercial" fun :)

Capture the Beauty of the Peace Art Competition

Hello to all of my wonderful fans! I have recently entered the Capture the Beauty of the Peace art competition in Grande Prairie, AB. This competition is held at Picture Perfect, upstairs in the Robert Guest gallery. The winner of this competition is chosen by peoples choice - so I need YOUR votes!

Voting has to be done in person @ Picture Perfect - they are located on main street in Grande Prairie and are open 9-5 Monday to Friday and 9:30 - 5:30 on Saturday and voting can be done until April 25.

The photo (below) I have entered is called "Granddad's Lantern" and I believe it is #19.


Thanks for your support and happy voting!!

Baby Girl T