Canberra

From Newcastle, we travelled on to Canberra when I was starting to feel a bit better. By this point my cold was much better, but had progressed into that dry hacking cough that drives everyone around you into a murderous rage crazy!

While we were there, Canberra experienced it's coldest day in 43 years (or something like that) our friend who lived there told us.

We had a heated motel room & didn't really care. It was just COLD. The motel was OK, most importantly it was heated, but I was a bit dissapointed as we booked it on Wotif. Their Wotif details indicated that each room had a washer & dryer. We therefore took a few things we needed to wash so that we could do our laundry before returning to newcastle. When we rocked up, there was a laundry facility, but not a washer & dryer in each room. Not impressed. Usually I check the actual motel website before I make a booking on Wotif, but this time I must have overlooked that step. Never again. (Please note: Laundry facility was almost vitally important as being North Queenslanders, our supply of warm clothing was minimal to start with. When you are wearing more than one layer of warm clothing because the weather is so cold, that further depleted our stash to 3 days tops. We made do however & know better for next time)

On the first day which was bright & sunny & beautiful (but still cold), we visited Questacon (all indoors for those who don't know). The kids loved this. They had a room just for littlies that Little Bear thought was FANTASTIC. Cheetah enjoyed all the bigger kid exhibits, however 1 level was closed unfortunately so we missed out on that one.

One of the activities was to press a button & press it again after 15 seconds, trying to get it as close as possible to the 15 second mark (counting in your head). I was chuffed that I took one go & got it within 0.005 of a second (see photo below). This also meant I had the most accurate guess of the day, up until just after lunchtime when we left. Not sure if it was broken after that.

That night we went up the Black Mountain Tower (aka Telstra Tower, aka Telecom Tower). The first time we got up there, we got through the door & found that they only take cash, not credit card, for the admittance fee. We trundled off to grab some dinner & some money & then headed back about an hour later. This time we actually got through the entry gates.

Here is Little Bear with the boys on the viewing platform. As you can see it is cold & windy.


I still remember visiting this tower with my family when I was 3. I remeber seeing big machines through glass windows & having to use some stairs. This time, all you could really do was go to the revolving resteraunt (patrons only) or go to the kiosk & viewing platform (via a lift that didn't give floor's, but rather told you exactly how far above sea level you were as it lifted you up).

The view was OK, but probably would have been better at sunset (when we first attempted to get in) rather than at night, although the lights were pretty.

The next day it was cold & overcast (I think this was the coldest day). This was the day we had set aside to take some photo's in front of Parliament House, go to the National Zoo & Aquarium & also the Cockington Green Gardens & Walk in Aviary.

The first thing we did though, was go to the Royal Australian Mint. We got there, only to find the Mint was closed for renovation & only the souvenire shop in the entry way was open. The attendant cheerfully told us that we could watch the process on some screens set up in the entry foyer. This set up was a series of 7 photo's (not all of which worked), on a screen where you press a button to see the next photo. The photo's weren't that crash hot & as some where 'missing' (should we be concerned about other things going missing at the Mint?) it really left a lot to be desired.

We did get to stamp our own $1 coin to comemorate our visit. This cost us $3 for which we got $1 in return. Hmmm - now we know how the Mint makes their money! (Obviously that was a joke because our whole gripe is that we never actually got to see how the Mint makes the money at all).

After the Mint, we got to the Zoo but somehow completely missed the Aquarium section. We saw the White Lions. Little Bear loved seeing Giraffe's up close. Unfortunately, she was not happy to be photographed & every time we pointed the camera at her, she turned her head. Didn't get as many photo's as we wanted, but got a few that show how rugged up we were.

We went home (well, to a Motel room that was acting as "home" for 2 1/2 days) to have lunch & a sleep. Unfortunately, Little Bear slept for about 10 minutes in the car & as a result, did not sleep when we got back to the room. At about 4 ish, we decided to give up on Cockington Green & the Aviary & just bum around in the motel until dinner time.

For dinner that night, we met up with our friend & his gorgeous wife in Canberra at Zeffirelli's for pizza. I can't believe that Little Bear sat still enough for me to braid her hair (in 2 braids, not 1) to go out looking nice. I took a photo of it, because I doubt I will get another chance like that before she is 5. She is like the energiser bunny - just keeps going!

At dinner our friends wife - M - began asking Cheetah about school & he hit it off with her right away & talked her ear off all night. We then went back to their place, where Cheetah taught M to play "21" (that's Blackjack to all the gamblers out there). DH then had to teach M the correct way to play, as Cheetah had learned the game of his young cousins who had the rules a bit muddled (or had 'changed them' to suit themselves as Cousin C is known to do sometimes).

Little Bear was completely taken with their two puppies - 13 year old Nala (some little furry breed) and 2 year old Toby (a golden retreiver). Little Bear talked & sang to Toby, through a glass door, most of the night until it was time to go.

The next day we headed back to Newcastle for Little Bear's birthday. That will be my next post!

Nanny in Newcastle

For the travel update I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats for...

We left Brisbane on Friday morning, after missing out on seeing my friend who I was going to meet up with there.

I was absolutely devastated when she sent me a message saying she wouldn't be able to make it because something urgent had come up at the very last minute. I was also a little bit relieved, because by this point my stomach was causing me absolute agony (due to constant coughing, combined with no sleep for over 36 hours & sitting in an uncomfortable commodore passenger seat). Brisbane city is lots of hills & I wasn't looking forward to trying to juggle both kids, the pram & my stomach ache to make that visit (as I would be walking to meet her, not driving).

Anyway, this also meant we were able to leave a bit earlier that we had previously anticipated & took off at once for Newcastle via Port Macquarie.

The drive to Port Macquarie was a bit taxing, given that Little Bear was starting to despise the car seat (which had been laundered I might add). However we got there about 6pm (ish). After spending a lot of time coughing while glued to a not so comfortable car seat, my stomach was killing me (worse than it had been in Brisbane). The next morning I was starting to wonder whether it wouldn't be more prudent to book a second night in Port Macquarie to avoid driving that day, but after a couple of hours of being awake it settled a bit & I was able to travel (although it was anything but comfortable).

Our motel in PM was OK & was right on the beach - you could see Flynn's Beach (I think that's what it's called) from the motel & it was quite beautiful, but we only caught a glimpse of it as we left, because we arrived after dark & left first thing in the morning.

We got to Newcastle about 1pm the day we left PM. Nanna & Big Pop were excited to see the grandkids & for the next few days I didn't do much other than laundry & try to relax as much as possible as I was really crook by this point.

This means that so far we have very little photo's of our journey as it was just too much for me. We also had to cancel our Albury leg of our journey to visit DH's brother because I was still too sick to travel when we were meant to be leaving, but we did get to add another day onto our Canberral leg which worked out well as we had crammed a fair bit into that & it allowed us to have a bit of breathing time while we were there.

We took plenty of photo's in Canberra, but Little Bear has been a bit camera shy. I will post these when I get home. We took a few more when we returned from Canberra to Newcastle & now that we are at Surfer's Paradise, I expect that we will take a lot of photo's when we visit Seaworld tomorrow.

The Travelling Bug

I think the travelling bug means that you can't stay still, you have to keep travelling. My family seems to take it literally though. Every time we travel, we get sick.

I was meant to work Monday, Tuesday last week & then we would leave. I ended up sick & at the doctors with a really bad head cold & no voice. Little Bear was just starting to catch it when we left.

On Wednesday afternoon we left. We had dinner in Ayr at about 6:30pm & just about had to force feed Little Bear as she wanted to play on the slides (can you guess where we had dinner?)

At about 10:00pm, with the car an absolute mess from trying to keep children entertained, we began to regret our insistance that Little Bear eat more for dinner.

She threw up. Not a little, but all over herself & her car seat. Very wet, sticky & smelly.

The only place to pull over was on the side of the road where there was a steep bank. Of course DH pulled over & gravity took over making a bigger mess of what had previously been fairly well contained in Little Bear's lap.

I cleaned up as best I could, dressing Little Bear in the spare clothes I had packed within easy reach. & using up an entire packet of baby wipes. This was somewhere just north of Rockhampton I think. Someone pulled over, thinking we had had an accident (becuase of the angle of the car on the side of the road), but they couldn't help, so we thanked them & on they went.

After cleaning Little Bear & the car up as best I could, I put a towel in her car seat, sat her back in & put a sheet over her to keep her warm as it was starting to get very cold.

We travelled on, reasonably uneventfully until about Gin Gin, where Little Bear woke up & promptly threw up. I think this was about 4am. Same story as above, but this time I didn't have spare clothes for her, so I dressed her in a long sleeved shirt of Cheetah's. The kids then watched the Bee Movie at 4am & dozed again after that finished.

We made it into Brisbane at about 10:00am & after trying to find a Loo Stop near the freeway on the northside of Brisbane, we wasted about 1/2 hour, and then took another 1/2 hour to make it to our motel.

Thankfully our Motel let us check in early & they had a washing maching & dryer so I spent the better half of the day doing laundry. Because the kids were wide awake & didn't have much of a midday sleep (because they had been sleeping in the car), I went from 7:00am Wednesday to about 9:00pm Thursday without sleep.

I finally got to crash that night & crash I did. (However, tired as I was, I did manage to check & see that Qld won the first state of origin match, but now they are all catching the swine flu because some bright spark thought Melbourne (swine flu capital of Australia) would be a good venue for a match between Qld & NSW. Not looking so hot for the next match, but best out of three boys, that's all you need !!!

Au Revoir

This afternoon we leave on a 2 1/2 week holiday.

I apologise for my lack of blogging lately. I have been busy working, while trying to get ready for our holiday & on the weekend I caught a nasty cold that meant all I wanted to do was stay in bed. Unfortunately I couldn't do that all the time, but I could choose bed over blogging which is what I did.

Tonight we will be driving to Brisbane where we will spend 1 night. We will then spend a night in Port Macquarie, 3 nights in Newcastle, 2 nights in Albury, 2 nights in Canberra, 3 more nights in Newcastle, 3 nights on the Gold Coast & then we drive home.

Holiday, who am I kidding !!! I am going to need a second holiday to recover from this one!

I may or may not get the chance to blog while we are away, but I am sure I will have plenty to share when I get back.

In the meantime, I leave you with these words of wisdom ....



GO THE MIGHTY MAROONS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!