Merry Christmas 2016

 Letter No. 237

Dear all,

October 2016  On Sunday 2 October Jessica did another stall at Manly Market selling candles to raise money for her trip to Vietnam. Thankfully she is very close to her final target now, as we are all a bit tired of the candle business. In the afternoon we went to our friends the Tods for a tennis afternoon on their court and an easy Sunday BBQ. It went on a bit longer than expected so the kids had to fend for themselves for dinner again.

Jessie was dancing with her dance group STAGE at two events in October, the school quiz evening and the Music Grande Concert. They were the last two dance events for the year so I went to them both.

On the 8^th October I went to Oktoberfest with our friends the Brodies. Katie was not feeling well so she stayed at home. I was astounded how big the whole event was. There must have been 10,000 people there. The queue for the bar was 40 deep and there were about 50 lines! I decided to get a beer before I went and found the others. This was a frustrating experience. After twenty minutes in the queue I discovered that they did not accept cash in that line, so I had to go and stand in another queue (for 20 minutes) to get a wrist band you could preload with credit. Then another twenty minutes back in the beer line and finally I got my first beer an hour after I started! The Brodies had a similar experience and when we met we were all feeling quite frustrated and ready to go home. We forced ourselves to have another few beers, then a huge feed of pretzels and pork knuckle, then a few more beers and then a few schnapps and by that time we were quite into the whole event and started dancing on the tables to the chicken dance. It was a fun evening in the end.

Jessica was away that same weekend on a trial camping weekend for her Antipodeans Abroad trip to Vietnam. Unfortunately she was sick all night on the Saturday but somehow she did manage to drag herself along for the five hour hike on Sunday, which we thought was a good effort.

It was our 20^th wedding anniversary on 12^th October. You get less for murder. It was also my sister’s 20^th wedding anniversary the week previously. Well done all of us. Not many siblings can rack up twenty years each these days! Katie and I went into town for dinner at Madame Wu. It is a modern Chinese restaurant on the river with fantastic views of the Storey Bridge. It seemed appropriate (as we got married in Hong Kong) and it was the best Chinese meal I think I have ever had!

On 22 October we had dinner with our friends the Biddles and Simonsons at a lovely Greek restaurant called Amphora in St Lucia. We always have a great time with that crowd, although we don’t see as much of each other now that the boys have left school.

The next few days were very busy with Katie organising/involved in five events in five days. We had the STAGE Celebration Breakfast at St Aidan’s on Friday 28 October. Katie had to get up at Sparrows and be at school before 6am to help set up and prep the food. I arrived with Jessie at 6:45am. It was a nice breakfast. Jessie was surprised to win the Nikeisha Plumridge Award for all round dance excellence, commitment and leadership. After the breakfast, Katie cleared up and packed everything away and then went straight to work where they were setting up for a BBC event that afternoon.

Katie had to call into BBC again on Saturday as there was another school event that day, then on Sunday 30 October, we had to set up for Halloween. Jessie and I did most of the set up as Katie was busy with final arrangements for the Melbourne Cup lunch which was the next day. We had bought 1000 sweets this year and a few new decorations. On Monday night Katie supervised the trick-or-treating to ensure most kids only took one and I ran our sausage sizzle. Matthew has a job teaching English once a week to a four-year-old Korean boy who came over trick or treating so he went up and down the street with the boy and his parents. They were really chuffed that Matthew had invited them and had a great time.

Trick-or-treating started at 5pm and we ran out of sweets around 7:30pm. It was bedlam as usual, with hordes of kids arriving in packs. There were some amazing kids costumes and every year more adults turn up in costume as well; it is really like a street party. Someone mentioned a website listing “the ten best streets to go Trick-or-Treating in Brisbane”. Matt googled it and sure enough, there was Mortlake Road, and it said that it is really well established with loads of sweets!! No wonder we always get so many kids coming over. Jessie loves Halloween so she was off with her friends trick or treating all evening and just made it back with all of them just in time to have the last few sausages for dinner. I had saved her the last vegetarian one (actually it was the only vegetarian one)!

November 2016 We packed up most of the decorations that evening while Katie loaded her car for the St Aidan’s Melbourne Cup Lunch the next day. This event had been a bit of a lame duck the previous year and the organisers had nearly ended up cancelling it. This year was the first one that Katie had been involved with, so she had offered to handle the event marketing and sales, as well as the decorations, raffle and models for the fashion parade. With some well-timed advertising and anticipation building, the event sold out quicker than any other St Aidan’s event in recent years. Katie and Kylie were the first to arrive at the Brisbane Golf Club to decorate the room and it looked fabulous when it was all set up, with beautiful flowers and a horse motif throughout, using horses which had been kindly printed by Katie’s brother Chris.  The event was a success by all accounts with a “Fashions on the Field” parade, sweepstakes, a raffle, a silent auction, the race shown on the TV screens and a “Best Dressed” competition. Katie and a group of ladies went back to Wings Malins’ house for drinks about 4pm (Wings was one of the models) and there were some sore heads the next day.

On 4^th November we went for dinner at Tocco, a local Italian restaurant with Katie’s dog walking group (WAGS) and husbands. Katie and I rode our bikes over to the restaurant which was about 1km from home. Everyone thought we were mad to cycle but it was all on quiet back streets. It was a fun evening for the twelve of us but the waiter told us we were making too much noise which put us off a bit. We wobbled home on our bikes about 10:30pm.

The next night we went to a Pink Party. Shelly Hillis was holding the dinner at her home to raise money for a Breast Cancer charity. They had 24 people for dinner. The theme was Caribbean and they had really gone to town with the pink decorations, inflatable flamingos and huge palm trees all over the dining room and pink tables with pink flowers in pink vases accessorised with pineapples spray-painted gold! The meal was fantastic – three courses of delicious Caribbean-themed food. We all made a donation to Shelly’s Breast Cancer charity the next day and she raised around $2500. Mind you I would have paid that much to get out of the washing up bombsite in the kitchen! It was a great evening.

The next day we went to the STAGE Support Group AGM, the final meeting for the year. It was at Helen and Gary’s home.  Actually I only went to chat to Gary. We decided to take his speedboat out for a burl on the river with a few beers. It is really nice looking at the houses from the river. We went up Oxley Creek until the water got too shallow and then turned back. We were nearly back to the main river when the boat ran out of petrol! Luckily we had paddles so we paddled over to a pontoon with a person in the back yard. Luckily I had my wallet with me. The guy whose pontoon we pulled up at gave me a lift to the petrol station to fill the tank. He also gave us another couple of beers. We made it back to the Brodie’s house just as the STAGE meeting was winding up, which was a bonus! Katie has now been elected President of the STAGE support group for 2017.

It was the Sherwood Road Street Festival on 11 November. The kids were both too busy to come down so Katie and I went by ourselves. We had a wander around all the market stalls, watched the nativity play with live camels, sheep, donkey and baby, before having some stall food for dinner. We didn’t stay long but managed to bump into lots of people we know in a very short time.

On Sunday 13 November we went to a Farewell Party for Candice, the Chinese exchange student who has stayed with us a few times. Her parents were over from China to see her final school graduation and then to have a holiday in Australia. Candice is planning to go to Uni next year in Brisbane and is hopeful that she will get into UQ. Matt and Jessie both practiced their Chinese on Candice’s parents as they both spoke only a very little English. We were super impressed at how good a conversation they seemed to have. It was the first time we have heard them actually speaking Chinese in a conversational setting.

The next night it was the St Aidan’s Speech Night. Jessie was singing in the choir so we went along to watch. They had a very motivational speaker – an ex-St Aidan’s student who had had a horrific horse riding accident while in Year 11 of school. This had left her permanently disabled, both physically and mentally. She told the story of her road to recovery and on to the Paralympics. St Aidan’s always manages to find old girls with the most amazing life stories to tell.

We went to Wayne and Libby Penning’s home for Christmas Drinks on Sun 27 November. Christmas drinks in November is a little too early if you ask me, but it was a nice relaxed afternoon. Well, it was for me. Poor Katie had to go to work for a couple of hours that evening as BBC had another big function on.

December 2017 On 1^st December we went for a special family dinner at our local Greek restaurant. We celebrated Matthew’s and my birthdays early, as Jessica was leaving for her Antipodeans school trip to Vietnam the next morning.  She managed to make it to her fundraising target by a whisker (and by me selling the final few candles at my office), so that is the end of the candle business, phew. Jessie gave us both our birthday presents and we had a lovely meal out. The next morning I dropped her off at the airport at 5am which was a bit of a rude start for a work day. Some of the girls were crying but Jess was quite relaxed and excited about going on a three-week trip. I only stayed for a little while and was in at work by 5:30am. I have been very busy at work lately and have been going in quite early – the earliest was 4:20am! Katie was quite cross about that.

On 3^rd December we took Molly for her annual beach day out. It was quiet without Jessie but Molly does love the beach. We went to Caloundra dog beach this time, which we hadn’t tried before. It was nice but there was no shade like at our usual dog beach (Palm Beach Currumbin). I had a bit of a sun-screening failure and burnt my stomach quite badly for the first time in about 30 years! I won’t do that again. We went for a lovely seafood lunch and drove home before the afternoon storms.

We had a busy week. On the Tuesday we went to see Coldplay. Matt’s best friend Mitchell gifted him a ticket for his birthday and we bought two tickets at the last minute. It was a fantastic show with terrific light effects, especially bracelets that lit up in different colours during different songs. The band and music were really great, although it was so loud that you could hear it in our suburb about 8km away. The next evening Katie went to her WAGS Christmas dinner. They did a kind of Thieving Secret Santa with $30 gifts, which was quite amusing. Luckily they didn’t break into fights and all the girls seemed happy with the end result.

It was Matt’s 18^th birthday on 8 December. We went for dinner at the Regatta Hotel. Matthew bought his first round of drinks at the bar. I paid though! We had a great dinner and gave him his presents.  His main present was a Scuba Diving course and some fins which he was very excited about. He also got some clothes, some money and an excellent State of Origin T-shirt from Chris.

On Saturday 10 December Matthew had a birthday party with 55 of his closest friends. Matt was the youngest boy in his school cohort and all his friends are over 18, so I bought quite a bit of alcohol for the party. Katie organised party food with a couple of her friends, while I went to a 50^th birthday for our friend Tom Dawes which was on the same night, just down the road. I came home from Tom’s party early in time for Matt’s birthday cake. I had every intention of going back but got caught up doing a bit of cleaning up. The cake was a beautiful black forest gateau. There was quite a bit left over. Some of the girls had had a bit too much to drink and didn’t think it would go down well with the vodka!

Katie had insisted that we provide a non-alcoholic punch and lots of soft drinks. As soon as the first boys arrived they made up an alcoholic punch with a full bottle of vodka in it. The next morning the alcoholic punch was all gone but the non-alcoholic one and all the soft drinks were still there. Towards the end of the night about ten boys and one girl ended up in the pool in their underwear. It was very funny. The party wound up about 11:30pm when they all went off clubbing in Fortitude Valley. Matt got home at 3:30am so he had a slow day the next day. We cleaned up together, then he opened his presents which were mostly alcohol! Matthew thought the party went brilliantly. He had such a great time and was on a high for the next few days! Amazingly he didn’t even have a hangover.

The next Friday it was my 50^th birthday. I decided to have the day off. I did a bit of pottering about, mowed the lawn and the three of us went out for lunch and I got my presents. Katie gave me a Mystery Weekend away at the end of January. I can’t wait to find out what it is! That evening it was the AECOM Christmas party. Katie decided not to come and spent the evening at home instead making lamb & mint filo rolls and other party food.

The next day was our Christmas Drinks party at home which Katie said was also to celebrate my 50^th birthday. I didn’t want to make much of a fuss but Katie was unstoppable. We had guests from the UK arrive in the morning, Bernard & Eleanor and their kids Robbie & Jamie. Eleanor and Katie had shared a house together in Oxford in 1985 and she is one of Katie’s oldest friends! They were staying with us for two nights, including the night of our party. We had about 55 friends at the drinks party, including some of my old friends from school and uni. Katie had made tons of canapés, ordered a large Christmas ham and a fabulous chocolate birthday cake for me, and made a very nice long speech accompanied by photos which was quite a surprise to me!  I made a quite impromptu response. The party started at 4:00pm and the last people left just before 10pm. It was a really lovely evening.

We left all the cleaning up to the next day. Rather than stay at home cleaning Matt selflessly volunteered to be a tour guide, taking Bernard and Eleanor to City Beach and the Gallery of Modern Art and then to Southbank for lunch, where they were meeting another of Eleanor’s friends. They made it home by 5:00pm and we walked down to Miku for a Japanese dinner in the evening. They were all still jet lagged so it was an early evening.

Eleanor and Bernard left the next day; while I went to work and then on to a client Christmas party function at the Gold Coast. I had a nearby hotel for the night so I didn’t have to drive home. The party started at 3:00pm. It was on the beach at Surfer’s Paradise. There was a comedian who organised games on the beach including sand-building competitions, Frisbee-throwing competitions and the like. There were pretty good prizes like dinner for four people! There was also a close-up magician who went around entertaining the crowd. There was a great BBQ with heaps of king prawns. I went back to the hotel about 11:00pm.

I was up again at 5:30pm and made it back to the office by 7:00am. That evening we went to yet another Christmas party, this time at our friends the Brodie’s. It was a lovely party with a fantastic baked ham and some interesting Christmas Carol singing with good company. I was out five nights in a row so was feeling pretty jaded by this time. It was good to have a night in the next day.

Jessie comes home from Vietnam tomorrow and we can’t wait to see her and hear all of her stories. Katie is doing our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at home as usual and then on Christmas Day we are going to Brookfield to spend the day with Lisa & Andrew, my Mum & Dad and Andrew’s family. We wish you all the very happiest of Christmases and all the best for a great New Year celebration.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

20 years ago!

Halloween.

Octoberfest.

Matthew's first (legal) drink.

At the Regatta.

Melbourne cup.

Whales at Frazer lsland

 Letter No. 236

Dear all,

July 2016 On Sunday 10 July the Tods had organised a Touch Football game in the park. They invited quite a crowd. There were two teams of about 12 and about 20 spectators and ten dogs. We had a great game for about an hour. The rules were a little loose and the refereeing a little arbitrary but we had a fun time. We all went back to the Tods for cheese and drinks around the fire pit.  

The next day was the start of Term 3. It was also Katie’s birthday on Tues 12 July. We went to see the Queen musical We will Rock You that night with a big group of friends including Helen & Gary Brodie, Shelly Hillis and Gary McPherson plus quite a few others. We had a quick dinner at “The Charming Squire” before the show. The show is absolutely brilliant. It is very cleverly written (by Ben Elton) and is one of the best musicals I have been to, featuring almost all of Queen’s hits.

Katie managed to go out for lunch or dinner every day that week. We had lunch with my Mum and Dad on Thurs 14 July at the Sofitel in the city. It was a buffet seafood lunch, but it also happened to be a special Bastille Day celebration and they had a choir singing loudly in French. I think they were a bit insulted when we asked to move to a table as far away from them as possible. It was a great lunch and was nice to catch up with Mum and Dad.

The next day it was one year since Katie was refused Australian citizenship so she was able to start the whole process again. We sent the paperwork in that day. Hopefully it will go more smoothly this time. That weekend Jessica and I went to the Tertiary Studies Expo after her school volleyball game. I can’t believe that in a couple of years both kids will have left school. We looked at lots of different courses but Jessie was most interested in Psychology. 

That night Katie and I went out for dinner with our friend Pip McGlinn who I went to Uni with and we all lived in Hong Kong at the same time. We went to Fromage in Milton. The tiny restaurant had about a quarter of its floor space devoted to a cheese fridge. All the dishes had cheese in them and we had a lovely meal. Afterwards we checked out the walk-in cheese cellar. The cheese was eye-wateringly expensive. The owner gave us a detailed run down on each type of cheese and it took us a good ten minutes to get away! It was nice to catch up with Pip though even if it was quite a cheesy night.

On Sunday we went to the Brodies lunch celebration for their exchange student Candice’s 18^th birthday. They had a nice lunch for a group of her friends and a select group of parents. Candice is a lovely girl and has stayed with us a few times when the Brodies are away.

Katie started work at BBC on 19 July. She was a bit nervous as she hasn’t had a “real” job since 2003. It was a bit of a learning curve. She started off five full days a week but after a few weeks it settled down to a much more manageable three days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Katie got her new work computer, new work phone and new car all in the same week that she started her new job. She was quite frazzled by this as she is not good with new things or technology in general! Her new car is the latest model Toyota Rav 4 in metallic grey. We had actually ordered it quite some time ago but had to wait for weeks because she wanted a manual rather than an automatic and she also had it customised with leather seats. Katie was delighted with the car but is still coming to terms with all the new features such as keyless access, Bluetooth, reversing camera, automatic lights, automatic wipers, automatic locking...

On Fri 22 July Matt had his Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award presentation in City Hall. It was presented by the Acting Governor of Queensland, the Hon Chief Justice Catherine Holmes. It was quite a formal presentation, which seemed fitting considering the enormous amount of time and effort that had gone into it. He was the only BBC boy receiving the Gold Award and we were quite proud.

The next day we drove out to Jessica’s final dance eisteddfod of the year in Katie’s new car. It made me slightly jealous! Jess had a good day at the Eisteddfod but was a little disappointed that STAGE didn’t place in any of the dances.

We went for dinner on 29 July at Billycart Kitchen, owned by local celebrity chef Ben O’Donoghue. He was having a special London Calling theme at the restaurant, serving his contemporary “take” on traditional British food. The theme probably has nothing to do with Katie’s animated conversation with Ben about Great British Food at a recent cocktail party. Anyway Katie was keen to attend and we assembled a group of Great British Friends for the occasion. We shared entrees of scotch eggs, onion bhajis, black pudding sausage rolls and duck terrine. For main course Katie loved her poached beef fillet with mini Yorkshire pudding. Other mains were the roast halibut with zucchini chips or the lamb shank pie. We shared desserts of blackberry crumble with elderflower jelly and a Yorkshire curd tart with clotted cream. It was a real culinary trip down memory lane for Katie and was all absolutely delicious. 

We caught an Uber-Max home and went down the road to Tony and Wings’ house for a nightcap. Tony has a walk-in wine cellar with about 600 bottles of wine in it! You really have to stay to finish the bottle at their house as you know it will be good stuff! We perhaps stayed a little too long and it was another slow day the next day. I actually went to have lunch and see Tarzan at the movies with Matthew. It was really nice to go and do something just the two of us. Matt is so busy these days with Uni and his job at Miku that we hardly see him!

August 2016 Now that Katie has less time and more money she has employed a cleaner. Christine is amazing. We should have got her years ago! Katie and I went to see the Absolutely Fabulous movie on 3 August. We went after work and met there. They had champagne included with the ticket price which was nice. A very funny movie.  On 6 August Katie did yet another candle stall with Jessie at yet another school fair and had a fantastic result, selling nearly 30 candles and raising nearly $350 for Jessie’s Antipodeans fund. Jess helped set up but she had tickets to the Troye Sivan concert at Riverstage and could not stay. She went with five of her school friends on the train. They all met at our house and then caught the train back to our house by 11pm. Jessie absolutely LOVES Troye Sivan and said it was the best night of her life!

The next day Matt and I went and played tennis early on the Sunday morning. He gives me a good game now but I can still (usually) beat him – thank goodness. The next Saturday afternoon my sister Lisa and family came over for drinks and then we went down to Miku for dinner. Matthew wasn’t working so he got to eat with us. Afterwards we stopped at Lick, the ice cream shop next door, and walked home.  It is so nice having great restaurants just walking distance from home. Andrew had just got back from Las Vegas where he had been to a huge pet supplies convention and had lots of interesting stories to tell.

Jessica did the 40-Hour Famine on 19-21 August. She raised $165 for World Vision. I was astounded that she managed to go so long without biscuits! She did it without a single complaint. I was very impressed. Jessie is also thriving on her vegetarian diet. She seems to eat very healthily these days and cooks up a storm in the kitchen. She always seems to be stir-frying something or making Acaii bowls or healthy fruit-based snacks.

On Sunday afternoon I discovered Molly’s had a terrible injury. She had a huge gash on her chest about 5cm long, 2cm wide and had peeled her skin right back to the muscle! It was really horrible but she didn’t seem terribly bothered by it. Katie phoned the vet and by a complete stroke of luck it turned out that he was doing surgeries that afternoon and said to bring Molly straight in. We whizzed her there and she had a general anaesthetic immediately and was straight into surgery. She had 15 stitches and a huge shaved patch on her chest. We spent the afternoon trying to work out what had happened to her. We couldn’t find anything obvious in the garden and decided she must have run into a sharp stick at speed. When we collected her the vet said that she shouldn’t run around for the next two weeks. Despite our best efforts she was tearing around the garden again after a couple of days. I took her stitches out myself two weeks later which was surprisingly easy.

The next weekend Wings and Tony popped in to admire the red British telephone box that I have been constructing out of timber for the last year. I had a trial erection of the walls that afternoon and it is starting to look like it is almost completed, although there are quite a few finishing touches to go. We had a fire pit and nibbles by the pool which was nice.

September 2016 Father’s Day was 4 September. Katie and I went for a hike up Mt Cootha which was nice but the kids were far too busy with study etc to join us. I did get a great book called Two Brothers by Ben Elton. It is a novel based on fact about Jews growing up in Germany prior and during the Second World War. It is quite moving and an excellent read. The Malins invited us back for an impromptu Sundowners drink, which extended into dinner and we left the kids to fend for themselves.

Jessie’s birthday was 7^th September. Hard to believe that she is fifteen already! She invited her whole gang over to celebrate and they went out to dinner at the local American Diner. I drove a cake over and the twelve girls walked there themselves. I just went back at the end to pay. Easiest birthday party ever!

Katie went to the BBC Fashion Parade on 9 September. She had been invited as a VIP guest of Parent Connections group in recognition of her past efforts. She had a nice relaxing time and caught up with lots of BBC friends. I came to pick her up on the way home from work at 6:00pm. I ran back to the golf club with Molly in the morning to pick up the car. The next night we went to an event called “Jurassic Jam”. It is at a music venue in Fortitude Valley and there were cover bands doing mainly 80s music. One of our friends knew people playing in one of the bands and got a huge crowd to go along. It was a really great night. We arrived at 5:00pm but had to leave quite early to pick Jessie up from Suncorp Stadium where she had been singing with Australian Girls’ Choir at the Wallabies game that evening. Probably a good idea we left a little early as the next day was not wasted. 

Katie sat her Australian Citizenship test on 21^st September and passed the exam with 100% score, on 20 multiple choice questions. She had been studying hard on her Australian history and system of government, but the test questions were fairly easy. I think it is really to determine if you can read English more than anything else! There is a 4-6 month wait for the Citizenship Ceremony when she will make her pledge and then she will be a true Aussie! It is likely to be on Australia Day in January which should be fun!

Jessica had her first ever job interview at a new restaurant which is opening up soon in the village. She was the youngest person they interviewed so wasn’t very confident that she would get offered anything. A few weeks later she got a nice rejection letter, which is probably for the best as she is going to be away for most of the school holidays with her school trip to Vietnam in December and then our family holiday to Fiji.

We went to Frazer Island for four days on 23 to 27 September (school holidays). We had lunch in Noosa en route and then on to Hervey Bay in the afternoon. The next morning we caught the early ferry to Frazer Island which took about 40 minutes. We didn’t take our car as the resort is right at the ferry pier and after about 500m the paved road runs out and you can only get around by 4WD. We had two hotel style rooms which was really nice. In the afternoon we walked down to the jetty on the beach and had drinks at the sunset bar before dinner, with amazing sunset beach views.

The next day we went on a full day 4WD tour of the island. We had talked about hiring our own 4WD but in the end we were glad we went on a tour. The tracks are narrow and ROUGH with lots of deep soft sand. They are mostly one way and if you meet a tour bus going the other direction they have right of way and you would have to reverse a long way in the sand before they could pass. We had a great day exploring the island, hiking and swimming along freshwater streams, looking at the wreck of the SS Maheno. This is an ocean liner which ran aground during a cyclone in 1935 and is now a spectacular rusting hulk on the beach. There were also some light planes which took off and landed on the beach so we treated Matt and Jessie to a 20-minute joy ride flight around the Island. They flew over the many freshwater lakes in the middle of the island and out to sea. They thought it was fab. We had a nice buffet lunch at the resort on the ocean side of the island, then a lovely 40-minute hike through the rainforest. We ended up at Lake McKenzie, an impossibly clear blue freshwater lake where Matthew and I went for a swim. It was a great day trip. The following day was a Whale Watching boat trip into the bay and around the island. I was astounded at how many whales we saw. There were several young whale calves with mothers or small pods. They were not at all bothered by the boat and swam around and around us showing off for ages before we moved onto the next pod. It was awesome. There are not many things I want to do twice in my life but this was definitely one of them!

Cheers,

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Duke of Ed - Gold Award Ceremony

Jessica's 15th Birthday

Mary Poppins Statue - Maryborough

Frazer Island Spa

Term 2

 Letter No. 235

Dear all,

Katie worked at Brisbane Boys’ College for three weeks in April, organising the annual Careers Conference. This is the third year she has worked on this project. She had not fully recovered from her hernia surgery and couldn’t actually drive during her first week at work, so had to get lifts or taxis. The conference went well however and afterwards there were a lot of hints about a more permanent position at BBC. We will see what happens.

We had a great dinner at Three Girls Skipping in Graceville on 21 April to say goodbye to our friend Alf who was finally going back to work in Hong Kong after an extended period back in Australia. He had been recuperating after a knee operation following a skiing accident. Actually it was more of a walking accident as he had slipped in the snow at Whistler and tore all the muscles off his knee cap!

Matt and Jessie were both busy on Anzac Day as usual. Matthew had been asked back to play in the BBC band as they are a little short of French horns now he has left. He marched with them in the ceremony at Jindalee then marched in the main Brisbane parade in the city again with the Pipe Band. At the same time Jessica was at the Graceville memorial service representing her school.

Term two is the STAGE Dance competition season and the first Eisteddfod was at Ipswich on 28 April. Katie went on the bus with the girls and I left work slightly early and went to watch. They got a Highly Commended award for one of the dances which was pleasing.

At the weekend Jessie had a stall selling candles at a Twilight Market at Moggill State School. It was a nice market with lovely people running it but there were not very many people there to buy things so sales were a little disappointing. However, they have invited Jessie back to their next market in August and offered her a free stall, so that is some compensation. Jessie is still raising money for her Antipodeans trip and is only half way to her target, so she has to keep at it.

On 2 May we had a fabulous seafood lunch with our friends the Malins at their house on the river. There were six couples there, and they had set up gazebos right on the riverbank. We all chipped in for a huge seafood lunch with heaps of oysters, prawns, calamari, salmon etc. Lunch finished about 7:30pm when the kids all started ringing their parents asking what was for dinner. As we had been drinking wine since midday the answer was sadly (for the kids), not much!

The next weekend was Mother’s Day. Katie announced that she wanted to see the movie Eddie the Eagle in the afternoon and then have dinner out in Graceville. The movie was really great and very uplifting and featured Hugh Jackman (who Jessie has met and sang on stage with). We had a great dinner afterwards at the Italian restaurant just down the road.

For the following weekend we had been invited to a Day at the Doomben Races for Ian Busch’s 50^th birthday party. We caught the train to the city and then a taxi out to the racetrack. Ian had invited everyone to join him for the day in a fully catered trackside marquee and he picked up the bar tab. It was a really great day and a very nice idea for a party. We caught up with lots of Uni friends I hadn’t seen for a few years, had a lovely lunch, Katie had lots of champagne and we didn’t lose much money on the races. Actually I had made a $6 profit by the end of the afternoon. I was not betting big!

That Sunday Jessie and her friend Elise did another market together. This time it was the Milton Market and they shared a stall, with Elise selling cupcakes and Jessica candles. I went and set them up at 6am and picked them up again at midday. I think Jessie had more fun doing it with her friend than by herself, but sadly she didn’t sell too many candles this time either.

That afternoon two backpackers arrived from the UK to stay with us. It was Tori Rose (the daughter of our UK friends Sarah & Jonathan Rose) and her friend India. Katie and Matt took them up to Mt Coot-tha for views of the city and drinks before coming home for a home-cooked lasagne. After dinner we all ended up watching the Eurovision Song contest Finals (Matt is a Eurovision tragic)! The girls were on a three-month backpacking trip, working their way from New Zealand, up the west coast of Australia and then Indonesia, Bali, Singapore and Malaysia. We had thought up an itinerary for them for the five days they were with us, to show them the best sights of Brisbane and introduce them to our favourite haunts. The girls were very sweet and stuck to the itinerary religiously. They seemed to enjoy staying in our Studio and having some home comforts. It was so nice having them with us; it brought back a lot of Hale memories and we caught up on the latest news.

While the girls were staying Matthew had his driving test. Luckily he passed on his first attempt! We went out to Miku to celebrate with Tori and India. We met them at the Regatta Hotel for a drink and then drove back to Graceville. Afterwards Matt drove the girls home while Katie and I walked. We were a little concerned when we made it home before them. He had taken them for a little drive down to the river to look at the view. His first drive as a P-plater!

The next night was the UQ Law Society presentation where Matthew was being officially presented with his Merit Scholarship. There was a cocktail reception beforehand and canapes and drinks afterwards. The ceremony was only about an hour or so, a nice length. Afterwards I had a good chat with the Vice-Chancellor of the University about a project I had bid on a few weeks ago. It was good to get the low-down on when it would be proceeding. Meanwhile Katie took Tori & India to the Hundred Acre Bar for a few drinks to celebrate their last night with us.

Matt and a couple of friends entered the University of Queensland Mooting Competition and were pleased to make it through the preliminary rounds and into the semi-finals on 20 May! Mooting is like legal debating in a courtroom setting in teams of three. They have been competing for a number of weeks on weekends and evenings and spent lots of time researching legal issues on their nights off. The finals were going to be in the Brisbane Law Courts but sadly they did not get through. They were beaten by some of their friends so it wasn’t too bad. There are over 200 law students in Matt’s year so it was not bad getting into the final twelve.

We went to a party in Mortlake Road on 21 May for our friend Nat Dawes’s birthday. Her husband Tom used to work at AECOM with me but left late last year to work elsewhere. It was a nice party and it was good to catch up with them as we hadn’t seen them for six months or so. Always handy to go to a party in our street so it is only a short stagger home.

The next day Katie and I went to the Greek Paniyiri Festival in Musgrave Park. We had been talking about going for years but it had always clashed with something. Unfortunately the kids both decided they were far too busy studying to come so it was just the two of us. We had a nice time watching the Greek dancing and eating far too much Greek food.

The time had finally come to order a new car. The new car will be Katie’s and Matt will be driving her old one for a while, until it is time for Jessie to get her L-plates. Katie spent a lot of time looking at SUVs but eventually ordered a new Toyota RAV4 on 2 June. She really wanted a manual and we were astounded to learn that more than 90% of new cars in Australia are automatic. New manual cars are actually quite hard to find and usually only come in the most basic models here because everyone wants automatics. Apparently lots of new learners now only get an automatic license (Matt got a manual one), which we also found surprising, as so many cars in Europe and the UK are manuals.  Katie was in a real dilemma as she wanted a manual but not a basic model. Toyota was the only one that made manuals in more than the base model so it was a no-brainer. The car is on order and will arrive in the middle of July.

We went to a St Aidan’s Rowing Cocktail Party on Sat 4 June, which was being hosted at the house of our friends Kylie and Alf Graham. It was a fundraiser for St Aidan’s rowing support group. Unfortunately the weather prediction was dire all week before. They were predicting huge rains with 100mm of rain the day before the party. The party was intended to be under the stars but Kylie had to hire a marquee and it was lucky they did because the weather bureau got it exactly right. There was torrential rain all Friday and Saturday morning. The rain eased in the afternoon and evening but fortunately the marquee was amazingly waterproof and it was beautifully decorated with flower garlands and countless strings of fairy lights. The party raised nearly $30,000 towards a new boat for the rowing crews, both through the ticket price and an impressive live auction towards the end of the evening. Alf had perhaps had a little too much to drink by then and bought an oar. We had a really great night. I lost Katie at one point during the evening but I decided that she would most likely be chatting to the local celebrity and trying to get him to come to one of her events or donate something. Of course I was right! I found her introducing herself to celebrity chef (Ben O’Donoghue) and suggesting that he did a themed British food night at one of his restaurants! Wait to my next letter to see the outcome of that discussion.J

The next weekend was very busy for Jessica. She had a STAGE Dance Eisteddfod on the Friday night (one of their dances came third). I drove out after work and Katie took the car home and straight off to her friend Tee Tait’s 50^th birthday drinks. I stayed to the end of the competition and came home with Jessie with our friend Helen Brodie and a few other girls. The next morning I dropped Jessie at Australian Girls’ Choir at 7:45am for all day rehearsals and then two Winter Showcase concerts later that day. They had a matinee in the afternoon and an evening performance at 7pm which we went to.

On the Sunday morning Jessie headed off to a Travel Simulation Day for her Antipodeans Abroad trip. She was out all day with her group of girls racing around the city completing various challenges. Sadly her group only managed to properly finish one of the four tasks, which doesn’t bode well for their organisation during their trip to Vietnam in December! That evening we had Gary and Helen and another couple Gary and Shelly over for dinner with kids. Katie did a delicious pulled pork early doors dinner and a cheesecake, which all went down well.

Gary and Helen have a Chinese exchange student living with them and they are going to Europe for three weeks over the school holidays. Candice is staying with us for ten of those days. She is not allowed to stay longer than ten days as only Katie has a Blue card approving her to work with children. I do not have one, although I do have elevated Defence Security Clearance which includes far far more checks than the Blue card does! Term two was over on Friday 17 June and Candice came to stay. We had a nice weekend with a spot of shopping, out to dinner on Saturday night and went ice skating on Sunday. Matt couldn’t join us as he had Uni exams all week and was studying. We had another weekend of torrential rain. On Sunday afternoon our rain gauge said 115mm (just that day). I suspect we had more, as when it rains really hard the rain gauge can’t keep up. The pool overflowed again and the whole backyard was underwater as the drains kept clogging up with leaves. There was over a foot of water in the gully at the end of the road.

On 22^nd June Katie went for a job interview as Events Coordinator at Brisbane Boys’ College. Katie knew the two people who interviewed her very well as she has spent the last four years organising events at BBC either as a volunteer or as a contract staff member! Apparently they had over sixty applicants and they were planning a second round of interviews after which Katie would have to meet the Headmaster (who she already knows well)! The following week Katie was called back for second interview but was told that she was the preferred candidate and offered the job right away. She starts on 19 July.

That Saturday night my sister Lisa and her girls came for dinner for Andrew’s birthday. Andrew got caught up at work in Northern NSW and didn’t actually make it, but we had a nice dinner in his honour and gave Lisa his present to take home. The next day we went to Manly Markets to sell candles again. Jessie had a great day and made over $200 to add to her fundraising total.

During the school holidays we went for a long weekend in Byron Bay with a group of past BBC parents and kids. We had a great house with three separate self-contained apartments which slept 16 people. The kids had one apartment and the adults had two. We had a lovely attic bedroom on the second floor. We did lots of long walks along the beach. Jessica was a little confronted though when we walked through an unofficial nudist beach one day! Over the next two days we walked up to the lighthouse (the most easterly point of the Australian mainland), spent a morning at the Byron craft markets (a huge hippie enclave), hit the Byron Bay shops and had evening barbeques at the apartments and watched DVDs. On the last night we went for dinner in town – the kids went to one restaurant and the adults went to another. Matt and I even had a swim at Wategos beach. It was a little brisk but not too bad for the middle of winter! We drove back stopping for lunch at Cabarita Beach on the way.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.      

Outback Camping and Fishing

 Letter No. 234

Dear all,

The weekend after we got back from Straddie we went to our friends the Tods for drinks and dinner. They had been at Straddie with us but somehow missed out on hosting a Sundowners drinks party so they felt they needed to when we all got back! We also had the family over for an Easter lunch on 2^nd April, also to celebrate Mum and Dad’s birthdays. We had a fab family seafood lunch by the pool.

Jessica went off to Melbourne on 4^th April with the Australian Girls’ Choir. It was a week-long music camp with girls from around Australia. I dropped her off at the airport before work on the Monday and then picked her up again on the Friday evening. She had a great week but said it was fairly intense with exercises every morning at 6.30am followed by singing rehearsal sessions until the minute they went to bed!

Katie was still in a bit of pain after the emergency appendix removal and ended up going back to the doctor. She had another ultrasound, which revealed an Inguinal Hernia. It transpired that she had probably not actually needed her appendix out, but there was a bit of a grey area drawn over that issue (by the surgeon). Katie felt that if you have to have an organ removed by mistake, the appendix is probably the best one… and at least she will never have problems with her appendix now. J

So on Monday 11^th April, Katie went to the Wesley Hospital for a second round of surgery to repair the hernia with a tiny plastic implant. It was day surgery this time, so I dropped her at the hospital at 6am and was told to collect her at noon. However, this didn’t go according to plan as Katie had a bad reaction to the drugs they had given her this time round and couldn’t wake up. After six hours in the recovery room, the hospital decided they would have to admit her for the night. I arrived at 4pm just after she had been moved to a ward, but she was barely awake. Her respiration went down to four breaths per minute, which is very shallow. It was quite alarming actually, watching her very slow breathing and waiting for each breath, praying she would! The nurses kept trying to wake her up and were a bit alarmed so they called an EMT (emergency medical team) who fussed over her for about half an hour doing tests and hooked her up to various machines. Eventually they decided not to give her any more drugs as her blood oxygen levels were ok and anything they gave her would just counteract the pain medication.

After a couple of hours Katie sparked up a bit, so I went home and got her things for another stay in hospital. We expected that she would be released the next day but the next morning the anaesthetist gave her more pain medication and knocked her out for the whole day again, with the same respiratory problems. The nurses thought that it was the combined impact of having a second round of anaesthetic drugs only two weeks after the first one and she had to stay another night in hospital. She was finally discharged on Wednesday afternoon with a massive bag of drugs, which she mostly refused to take. 

It was all a bit of a worry as I was going on a week-long camping and fishing trip departing the next day. Katie insisted that I go anyway and assured me she would be OK even though she couldn’t drive or do much. She spent several days on the sofa and managed quite well with the help of all of our lovely friends. My sister Lisa was a fantastic help and brought a cooked dinner every night for a week, while Katie’s friends Helen, Carolyn, Wings, Kylie and Leona drove the kids around and called in with groceries.

Derek’s Outback Camping and Fishing Trip

Day 1 On Thursday 14 April I set off an Outback Camping and Fishing trip with my mate Tony Malins and two of his friends Pete and Steve. We met at Tony's house about 1pm and drove to Redcliffe where he keeps his light plane. I was a little surprised to find he has two planes - a four-seater Cessna and a two-seater ultralight. The ultralight looked very unsafe so I was glad we were not flying in that. A bit of stuffing around ensued because the mechanic who had serviced the plane at the weekend had left something switched on and the battery was dead. An hour and $1000 later and we had a new battery, filled up the tank with $466 worth of aviation fuel and were on our way just before 4pm. We were flying to Cracow that evening. It was 368km flying and took a little over an hour.

When we got to Cracow we had to ring the farmer whose landing strip we were using and he came out and chased his cows off the runway ten minutes before we landed, then set up an electric fence around the plane and gave us a lift into town. We were staying the night at the Cracow Hotel. It was a very interesting pub with all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff written on and hanging off every conceivable surface, including the ceilings. It was fascinating just wandering around looking at it all. The pub is owned by Fred Brophy who runs the last touring boxing troupe in Australia. They are banned from most states except Queensland and the Northern Territory. They basically tour around outback rodeos and beat up drunks who think they can fight and charge people to watch. There was lots of boxing memorabilia on the walls. We had a few beers and a steak dinner and watched the rugby. Pete had just flown in from Hong Kong and Steve from Honolulu so they were both jet-lagged. We had a reasonably early night and were in bed by 10pm.

Day 2 The next morning I went for a run at 5:30am. Cracow was a boom goldmining town in the 1910s. It used to be much larger but there were many vacant lots and most of the houses that remained had For Sale signs on them. It appeared that the For Sale signs stayed up until the house fell down and the house was demolished. The row of about six shops next to the pub were all abandoned and falling down. Cracow was the type of place where you would wonder why anyone would want to live there but it was quite sad that no one did! There is still a bit of mining there and exploration for gold, with a large mining camp just outside of town, but apparently the miners do not integrate with the locals at all. We had breakfast in the pub and I ate more bacon than I had ever eaten in my life. The plate of food was so big I initially thought it was for all four of us! By 8:30am we were in the plane again.

It was a 658km flight to Longreach and took less than three hours. We landed and bought another $379 aviation fuel, as we wouldn’t be able to get any for a few stops. There was a bit of concern for a while as Tony could not find the fuel card to pay for about ten minutes, but eventually we found it on the floor of the plane where it had fallen out of his pocket. We looked at the Qantas museum which was right next to the airport and gave an interesting history of the start of the airline and the early days of flying from the 1920s. We had a nice lunch before it was time to set off for our next destination – the annual Julia Creek Dirt ‘n’ Dust Festival.

It was 415km and we arrived at Julia Creek just after 4pm. It is an unmanned airport and there were a few other planes parked there but no sign of life. We grabbed our bag and tents and walked down the road hoping to hitch a lift into town. It was about 1km before we got down the driveway to the airport and we ended up walking another 2km to town, heading for the Festival site. Not one car passed us going in the right direction. The first building we came to was a motel with a vacancy sign. We couldn't believe our luck as we had previously heard that all accommodation was sold out and camping was the only option. Sadly it was just that the "NO" lights were broken; there were definitely NO vacancies. The owner took pity on us and said it was still a long walk but if we left our stuff with him, and went to the nearby pub for a few beers he would drive us over later. An offer that we couldn’t refuse.

Two beers later he picked us up and dropped us and all our gear at the Julia Creek campsite. There was plenty of Dirt and Dust and also flies which were driving us all mad in no time. We had my pop-up tents so we were set up and ready to go back to town in ten minutes. Luckily there was a shuttle bus every few minutes to the festival site. There was a good Country & Western singer on but not many people there so we went to the pub for dinner. I had a piece of barramundi which was clearly cut from the side of a whale. It defeated me! The service was very slow as the place was heaving and we got through two bottles of wine while we were waiting!

A short walk back to the festival for another singer - Western & Country this time – then we had a few Bundies, a little jig in the Dust in front of the stage and it was time for the headline event for the evening: "Australia's Best Butt Competition". Sadly you had to be wearing jeans to enter so I couldn't compete. I was really devastated. It was great fun actually. There were lots of girls there in denim shorts and cowboy boots who would have beaten all of the actual competitors, but they mustn't have got the memo about the jeans rule either. A heavy rock band came on after that which I quite liked but was not to the general crowd’s taste and it started to thin out, so we called it a night. While we were waiting for a bus, two girls wrestled on the bushes of the central median strip for about ten minutes. It was friendlyish and quite amusing. We all sang songs on the bus back to the campground which was fun.

Day 3 We didn't get much sleep as the campground was huge and there were lots of good ole boys and girls drinking and yahooing all night. It started to rain about 3am. It hasn't rained in Julia Creek since 2008, so it was a bit of a surprise to everyone. It was also surprising how many leaks our tent had - one right over my face wherever I put my head! I had intended to go for a run in the morning but the Dirt and Dust had turned into Mud and More Mud so I just went for a shower instead. Poor Tony had left his shoes outside overnight and they were soaked, along with most of our clothes from the drips inside the tent! The darn flies got up with the sun and were driving us mad again.

As we had no camping equipment apart from tents and sleeping stuff we walked into town to look for coffee. There were a group of ladies doing bacon and egg muffins in the Main Street on a BBQ. They promised us they would be better than McDonald’s and it was no contest. They were fantastic. We wandered up and down the six shops in the Main Street and I invested in an attractive fly net to go over your hat down to your neck to keep the flies off your face. We sat outside the coffee shop for about two hours wearing our fly nets. There was a brilliant singer entertaining the huge crowd of spectators for the Dirt and Dust triathlon that was taking place that morning. There must have been 50 people in the street watching. Shortly after we finished our first coffee, the first triathletes came past. Eventually we went into the public library and chatted to the librarians for a little relief from the flies and the heat.

About 11:30am when it was only the tail end of the "athletes" coming in we decided to go to the pub for lunch. We had meat pies and salad and a few beers before heading over to the Julia Creek horse races for the afternoon. We timed it perfectly, arriving just in time to grab another beer and settle down to watch the judging of the ladies Fashions on the Field. There were five races in all and I donated a little money to the bookies but not too much. Somehow we switched to red wine in the course of the afternoon and we were a little tired and emotional by the time the races finished, but had to push on as there was nothing to do back at the campsite in the hot tents. We forced ourselves back to the pub for a nicer bottle of red before walking back to the main festival arena. There were lots of very messy people in town by now, mainly young girls, which added to the entertainment!

In the arena we watched the PBR - Professional Bull Riding. It was great but they were on for a long time without a break. We had moved on to rum and coke by this time and also had dinner of steak sandwiches in the stands. There was a bog snorkelling competition at the interval of the bull riding which was quite funny. The competitors had to snorkel the muddy bog and then run down to the arena and roll in the sand all the way to the finish line. We watched the band for a short while before being one of the first to leave after our long hard day. We were in bed by midnight. About 2am all the yahoos came back but they must have been tired as well as the camp was totally quiet by 3am.

Days 4 & 5 We were up and packed pretty early and wondering how to manage the 3km back to the airport. Just as we walked out of the campground and started to hitchhike, the first car that drove past was a lovely girl who had been working at the event all weekend taking surveys from all the visitors to Julia Creek. We were one of the first groups to do the survey on Friday and our group had the first ever international visitor to Julia Creek for the festival (Tony's mate Pete from Hong Kong). We had bumped into her all weekend and said hi, so we knew each other well and she kindly drove us and all the gear to the airport. After thirty minutes of packing and checking the plane we were off again for the 453km to Sweers Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

We landed at Sweers Island about 11:30am and the owners came out to pick us up from the airstrip and took us to the resort. Tony and I shared a functional little cabin with air conditioning and close to the shower blocks. It felt very luxurious after our camping experience. The restaurant was nearby as well. We had morning tea in lieu of breakfast and our first coffee of the day which we badly needed. This rolled into lunch. The resort was fully catered and the cook Jane pulled together a fantastic lunch. We went for a quick refreshing swim as it was too early to fish. We were a little surprised when a dugong popped up less than 10m away after we had been in the water for a few minutes. It seemed interested in us and kept swimming closer and closer. There were also at least two huge turtles bobbing around. The owner said he had only seen one croc in 29 years, but it was a big one. He did joke that he had only seen it last week, which made us nervous for a while, but fortunately that turned out to have been five years ago. There were LOTS of big fish jumping out of the water so we didn't go in too deep.

At 3pm we got some bait, basic instructions on where to go and how to drive the boat and we were off. We had a brilliant afternoon. I caught a parrot fish about 55cm long (the biggest catch of the day) and a 40cm coral trout. Tony and Steve caught similar fish and Tony also caught a huge barracuda. He was a bit girly about getting the hook out of its mouth but it did have big teeth! We then got a lesson in how to fillet and skin the fish and pack them in the freezer with our names on. Just as we were about to leave I put the last fish in the freezer and caught my hand in the fan blade that was spinning inside the freezer compartment. I received quite a nasty gash so had to have it bandaged. The others put all the fish guts in the water and apparently four of five big sharks immediately came up to fight over the scraps.

After showers we had JFC (Jane's Fried Chicken) for dinner, a nice chat to the other two groups of guests and were in bed by 9:30pm. It was bliss to sleep in a bed with air conditioning.

The next morning we were up early for a hearty breakfast and on to the water to fish by 8am. We didn't have such good luck this time and I was the only one to come back with a fish. None of the other groups had better luck. However the main excitement of the day was that I caught a shark! It was a black tip reef shark about 1.5m long. It was thrashing around next to the boat and we were all panicking about what we were going to do with it. We decided to lift it out of the water for a photo opportunity but as I did the fishing line snapped and it was gone in a flash.

We went back in and had a nice morning tea, a few beers, delicious home cooked lunch and a swim later and we were ready to start fishing again. What a life!

In the afternoon Pete finally caught a fish. He had been out twice and caught nothing. He was getting a bit of a ribbing about it. He did the best of the afternoon but I caught another lovely big parrot fish and a coral trout. We gutted and scaled them, had showers, chucked our fish gutty clothes in the washer and it was time for dinner.

Days 6 & 7  We got up at 5:30am and packed up and went down to the freezer on the beach to get our fish. We packed it all up inside a cool bag with heaps of ice which will apparently keep the fish frozen for 48 hours. We had a quick breakfast and were airborne by 8:00am. It was 205km to Normanton where we stopped to pick up another $506 in fuel (aviation fuel is expensive!) and then we were quickly off again heading for Charters Towers. It was 607km and we arrived in time for lunch. We caught a taxi into town and went to the Enterprise Hotel for lunch. Surprisingly, it turned out that Peter had a friend who lived in Charters Towers and commuted to Hong Kong two weeks on and two weeks off. He was free and met us for lunch. The pub was frantically busy and it turned out they were having a wake, so it took ages. After lunch, Pete’s mate grabbed his car and took us on a quick driving tour. Charters Towers is a lovely old town with some nice historic buildings. We learned that the population is 10,000 and that 63% are on some sort of government benefits or the dole!

We then went back to the airport for a bit more fuel and a 268km trip to Airlie Beach. We caught a taxi to a hotel in the centre of town. We went for a stroll along the harbour front and a lash-up seafood dinner. It was the first time I had been to Airlie Beach. I had always imagined that it would be a hippy backpacker place like Byron Bay, but it was quite upmarket. We were all impressed. We perhaps stayed for one drink too many, so felt a little sluggish in the morning. We had a quick breakfast and were back at the airport for a 10:00am departure to Emu Park where we stopped for lunch in a pub overlooking the ocean. Our final leg was back to the plane and back to Brisbane and home by 6pm.

A fun week! Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

Cracow pub.

Ready for take off and passengers already asleep.

Walking to Julia Creek.

The crowds at the music festival.

The crowds at the Triathlon.

The crowds at the Julia Creek Races.

Fashions on the field.

Cracow main street shops.

Cracow pub.

Our ride to the airstrip.

The best butts!

The gulf.

The good life a Sweers Island.

Fuelling the plane.

One of my fish.