Forbes Family Blog: August 2015

Letter No. 226

Dear all,

Katie went to England at the end of the last letter: What We Did Without Katie… I had arranged to leave work every day at 4:30pm while Katie was away which worked really well. The kids really pitched in -- Matt cooked dinner almost every night, I stacked and emptied the dishwasher and Jess helped with the clothes washing. They finished school a few days after Katie left, so they didn’t have as many commitments as in term time.

The first weekend we went to see Jurassic World which was by far the best one in the series so far, even if it did have a very similar story line to the last three. We also had a Molly problem -- she has been barking at something in the hedge for days and we finally found out that it was a possum. She was going mental when we got home and I spent 20 minutes shaking every hedge tree to see if anything moved. Eventually a possum darted along a bit. It was right at the top and very hard to see. Molly was so excited that we had to lock her inside for over an hour. It seems the possum lives in this spot and Molly was driving us mad for days afterwards barking at this exact spot. Eventually I got so fed up that I spent two hours rousing at her every time she made a peep. It seemed to work and now the possum lives in harmony with Molly. Molly does go and peer in the hedge quite a lot but no longer barks.

On Sunday 21st June we set off on a day trip to Mt Warning, which is on the NSW-Queensland border. We left at 7:45am for the 1½ drive and Matthew drove most of the way. Our plan was to do an 8.8km round trip hike to the top. Mount Warning is 1156 metres high and dominates the Byron Bay hinterland landscape. As Byron Bay is the most easterly point of Australia, Mount Warning is the highest point in the region and this is where the sun first hits mainland Australia. It has been named by National Geographic as one of the 10 Best Mountain Climbs in Australia. After about 3km Matt had a heavy fall on slippery rocks and hurt his hip. We stopped for a while and I was worried that we weren't going to make it, but as we got closer to the top he perked up and was really enthusiastic. The path got steeper and steeper until the last 400m was an almost vertical scramble up the cliff clinging on to a chain fence. The chain was so cold that it was difficult to hold on to, but impossible to make forward progress without it! It was very hard but Jessie sang happy songs to keep us going! It was also quite cold. As we got higher the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. It took two hours twenty minutes to get to the top. The views were spectacular and we sat in the warm sun and had lunch.
We thought it would be lots quicker to go down but it still took us two hours and ten minutes. I promised everyone a hot chocolate when we got down but the first café from the car park was so outrageously expensive even the kids were shocked. We pushed on to Murwillumbah and went to the McCafé which was a welcome break to sit down and have a warm drink and snack. We made it home by 5:10pm and all had baths to warm up and get clean. We were pretty muddy.

On Monday, Jessica managed to lock herself out of the house while Matthew was at work at Miku and he didn't have keys. Jess had also used the spare keys and left them in her room a few days before. Jessica went to Indooroopilly to kill time but due to a spectacular miscommunication on Jessie's part, poor Matthew sat outside for three hours until I came home as I had a bid due out that afternoon and had to stay later. Jess didn't get home from the shopping centre until after dark and didn't have her phone. We had a big discussion that night about all the mistakes that were made that day!

The next day Jessie had a Sleepover with ten of her friends. Matt and I hunkered down avoiding them while the girls hung out in our cabana. We all had pizza for dinner. They are all nice polite girls but are driving me mad slamming the front gate going in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out and in and out. Did I mention they are constantly going in and out? God knows why. They all slept over in the Cabana, almost on top of each other! In the morning I made them a huge fruit salad and left some money and they all walked down to the bakery in their PJ’s for breakfast.

The next weekend we had a candle-making morning. Jess and I set up a production line and made 48 soy candles in about 2½ hours. Jessica is going to sell them at her school’s Twilight Fair in July to raise money for her Antipodeans Abroad trip next year. On Sunday we went to the Queensland Museum and saw the Dinosaur Discovery. It was a special exhibition which had a heap of animatronic full size dinosaurs. It was very good. Afterwards we had lunch in Viet deLite in Little Stanley Street and went for a wander around the markets and along the river.

In the evening we went to my sister Lisa's and had dinner. They have two new baby sheep, also a baby kangaroo. The kangaroo is very small. Its mother was killed and Dad found the joey and gave it to Lisa. It spends all its time in a pouch they have made for it, being carried around by Isabelle. Jessica stayed with the cousins for two nights while Matt and I fended for ourselves. She had a great time spending time with her cousins, doing craft activities and feeding the animals. Lisa kindly dropped Jessie at the orthodontist on Tuesday as one of her wires had broken and then she caught the train back home.

The next Friday the three of us set off on a Road Trip for a long weekend. We left about 7am and Matthew drove to Landsborough about 86km north. We stopped and had morning tea and went to the Landsborough Historic Museum which was very quaint. We drove on to Maleny for a wander around the craft shops. It was quite cold and we found a warm café and had hot drinks and played Jenga in the sunshine. As we were walking down the main street there was a girl with a huge parrot on her shoulder, advertising the Maleny Botanic Gardens and Bird Aviary. We decided to go as it was only a short drive. There was an animal nursery which was okay but we decided that my sister has a larger petting zoo at her house now with more animals. On the other hand the aviary was brilliant. There were so many beautiful birds and they would come and sit on your head and shoulders. There were four huge blue macaws and we spent ages with them. They were really cool.

We drove on to Montville and browsed the beautiful craft shops before going on to our hotel. We had a beautiful two bedroom apartment with spectacular views over the mountains. The owners let us go down and feed her horse when we arrived and Jessie had a long bounce on the trampoline. We had a quick shower and went down to the pub for dinner. To our surprise, they were having a “Christmas in July” evening. We had a nice meal and played cards while waiting for Santa to come. He arrived and distributed chocolates and carollers sang Christmas carols. It was a fun evening.

The next morning we set off early again and Matthew drove to the Eumundi Markets. It was a stunning drive down the mountain range along a very winding road with steep drops off the edge of the road. It simultaneously tested Matthew’s driving skills and my nerves! We had a wander around the markets for a few hours and snacked at the market stalls in lieu of lunch.

We went on to Gympie and stopped at the Gympie Gold Mining & Historical Museum. There were 33 different small buildings which gave an interesting account of the gold rush days around Gympie in the 1800s. We went on to Maryborough and checked into our hotel. We went for a drive around the town and were surprised to discover that the musical Mary Poppins was on at the entertainment centre. The afternoon matinee show had just finished so we went to see if there were any tickets left for the evening show. Surprisingly there were ten seats left (in Row Z) and so we decided to go. It was really only a small theatre (26 rows) so the view was not that bad. We whizzed back to our hotel, had a shower and a quick dinner before going to the show. It was really quite good and we had a fun time.

The next day was the Mary Poppins Festival. Apparently the author of Mary Poppins (P.L.Travers) was born in Maryborough and they have an annual festival there to celebrate. We thought it might be a bit lame but there was a lot to do and we spent six hours there. There were steam train rides, market stalls, all the town museums were open and free, a Grand Parade, costume judging, camel rides, a pram race and a chimney sweep challenge as well as bars, food and live bands. Jessica entered the pram race and thought she would win easily as the rest of the field in her heat were 8 year olds. She took it a little casually and was whipped in the 100m walking pram race by a couple of 8-year-old boys. It was very funny. In the afternoon the kids decided to paint an umbrella while I watched a band. Matthew soon got bored so Jessica, the creative little perfectionist, was left to finish it off. We popped back every once and a while to see if she was finished but she was still hard at it after over an hour. When we came back the last time we couldn’t see her anywhere. We walked back and forth between all the places we had been in the last hour. After about ten minutes of searching, I reported her as a lost child to the security guards. She was found within only a few minutes, sitting quietly on a bench right next to where we had left her, waiting for us to come back. The seat was under some shrubs and was slightly hidden from view when we looked from the road. We were pleased to find her so quickly and she had done exactly the right thing, waiting where she was until we found her, although she was a bit cross that she had been reported as a missing child! We went back to the hotel and had pizza for dinner and slumped in bed.

The next morning we got up very early and drove to Rainbow Beach. I had booked a 1½ hour horse ride along the beach from 9am. There were the three of us and four other riders plus two instructors. We had been riding for half an hour when one of the other horses startled and threw its rider off. He was a 60-year-old man, and his daughter totally freaked out. She started screaming abuse at the instructors which was not helpful at all. I grabbed her horses reins and stopped her getting off. She was such a novice she couldn’t get off the horse by herself and we didn’t need her flapping around scaring other horses or getting kicked. The instructors were looking after her dad but he was obviously quite winded and getting up very slowly, as it was quite a bad fall. One instructor rode off to the surf lifesaver, who came and picked him up in his 4WD and took him back to the road where an ambulance picked him up. The instructors were both young girls in their twenties and they were really shocked as well. Once the injured man and his agitated daughter had left, both instructors started to cry! They said nothing like that had ever happened before. Eventually they pulled themselves together and we all continued on our ride. It was really a very beautiful ride along beach and we had a very pleasant time after that. After the ride was over we went for a swim on the beach which was quite warm for the middle of winter.

We had a quick bite to eat at the bakery and Matt drove back to Brisbane. He had done a lot of driving on our trip which is great practice for him and really boosted his driving hours. We arrived home about 4pm and had a two-hour scramble tidying the house in time for Katie’s arrival home from the UK the next day. I was up till midnight washing and ironing so there wasn’t anything for her to do.

Next evening the kids caught the train into my office in the late afternoon and we had dinner at a nearby burger bar before driving to the airport for 7:30pm. Katie had a problem with her visa and there was some concern that she might not be allowed back into Australia. I will let her tell you about that in the next letter (What Katie Did). Eventually she emerged and we drove home. We had all missed her a lot and were so pleased to have her back.

Love

Derek, Katie, Matthew and Jessica