Our 19th Anniversary and a Driving Lesson at the Gold Coast.

Yes it was our 19th anniversary 17th July.  Where does the time go to?  Seems to have flown by.  We had an extremely enjoyable day which started out with hiring a car for the day and so off we went back down the coast.  This time for Al to have a driving lesson with a big semi and trailer.  Its very difficult to get in as these lessons are booked weeks in advance.  We were lucky to get a cancellation.  It was a bit of waste of time as the day before a driver smashed the gear box of the truck Al was going to drive so he was put in another truck which also had a few problems.  Anyway at least he had some practice with backing the truck around corners and we did get a 50% rebate on the lesson to use next time.

We then drove to Main beach at Surfers and Al went in for a swim.  The water was stunning, with a bit of a wave, very warm and easy to get into. I didn’t as we were going out for lunch and did not want to mess my hair 🙂 ha ha.  Al really enjoyed his swim and then off we went to lunch.  We had seen a lovely restaurant on our way in and we were very keen to go there but somehow we missed it on our way back and ended up at Harbourtown so had lunch there overlooking the water.  All very pleasant.  The winters really are lovely but we do know the summers are hot so are bracing ourselves for this.  The skies are an amazing blue and as you can see we are not wearing jumpers in July.  Very nice.  After lunch we met a real estate agent who took us to look at 6 houses all in Regatta Waters.  The properties were huge and all very reasonably priced compared to what we have in Auckland. Our feeling though was that whilst the homes were lovely we did not particularly like this suburb. It felt quite burby, close to the freeway  so quite a bit of road noise and no trees around.  One of our criteria is to have some bush or native trees around us as thats part of why we love Australia so we are going to stick with that as a priority.

Al thinking before he goes for a swim

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Its been a while!!

Sorry everyone, I know its been a while but my excuse is I used up all the broadband allowance and we went  down to dial up speeds.  It was extremely painful and very very slow so I gave up using the internet for most of last week.  I do have lots to update you all with.  Everyday life is continuing for us.  If this happens again I will pay  the extra to have broadband for the full month. I do use it a lot for my websites and training videos.

Al’s work is progressing on well, this week will be his first full week and we are both grateful for this. I start temp work tomorrow in a call centre for the Australian Government. Its only till 6th August but we don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and it will help with my trip back to NZ in mid August to visit my Mum and Dad.  I can’t wait to see them both again.

Yes Al is swimming in mid winter again.

The Boathouse

On Saturday I was taken out for a wonderful lunch at The Boathouse, one of Sydney’s best seafood restaurants by Lisa & Dave.  It was scrummy and I will definitely be back, this time to take Al.  The food was superb and the view stunning.  The restaurant is located right on the waterfront in Black Wattle Bay, Glebe literally above a Boathouse!!

Lisa & I both had the famous snapper pie which was delicious and Dave had the Waygu of the Sea, sorry can’t remember the name of it!! However he said it was delicious.  We started with  Potato blini (sort of like a little pikelet) comes with crème fraiche, wasabi and a glass pot of ocean trout roe on ice with a pearl spoon, beautifully presented and of course a glass of chardonnay to complement it.  Complimentary bread was also supplied.  We then moved onto our main courses and included a couple of side dishes which of course was too much.  Maybe we had eyes bigger than our stomachs anyhow the meal was simply delicious and I was very spoilt.

The Boathouse has lovely views of Sydney Harbour and looks across from Blackwattle Bay to the Sydney Fish Market and the Anzac Bridge.  Well worth a visit if you go to Sydney.

My Dad

Some of you may not know that my gorgeous Dad has not been well.  He had a heart attack whilst travelling through Scotland and is in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Hospital.  He is okay now with minimal cardiac damage, luckily, and we hope to have him back home in NZ by the end of the month.  Mum has been amazing and so has my sister Sheeneagh who flew out to Scotland to stay with them and be with them both.  Dad you gave us a huge scare and I can’t wait to see you again back home.  Love you and mum so much.  xxxx

My mum & dad

Easy Passionfruit Cake

We have an abundance of passionfruit and I have been looking at ways to use them up apart from eating fresh.  We have really enjoyed eating them on top of icecream, in fruit salads, and I have frozen the pulp.  I have become quite adept at making a fabulously easy passionfruit cake.

Easy Passionfruit Cake

Here is the recipe – Heat oven to 175C

100gms butter
75gms sugar
2 eggs
100gms flour
2 passionfruit pulp

Melt the butter in a pan, cool then add the sugar and eggs.
Mix well together
Add the flour mix well
Add passionfruit pulp

Pour into a 20 x 20 cm round cake tin and bake at 175c for 25mins.  Sometimes the cake does need an extra 5 mins or so.  This cake is a never fail cake for me. I make about twice a week and it goes very quickly.  Great eaten with icecream or cream for dessert.  I don’t always ice the cake mostly preferring to dust with icing sugar.  I use a coffee mug for my measurements rather than exact, mainly because I dont have a set of scales here.

Lewis mixing the cake

Ready to go in the oven

Lewis scooping out the fresh passionfruit pulp

Fabulous Sydney

60's Chick

I went to Sydney for the weekend to visit my daughter and to go to a friends 50th birthday party.  Gosh it seems so amazing that the parties are now for 50’s and I suppose it won’t be long before we are going to 60’s parties.  The theme for the party was a 1960’s theme so I went to the costume place and got a long hippy wig, peace pendant and a head band.  Wearing the wig reminded me of how my hair was as a young girl and whilst it was quite nice I am glad my hair is not this long again.

I flew in on Saturday morning, leaving Al behind in sunny Brisbane.  The 1.5 hr flight went by very fast and before I knew it we were in Sydney.  I caught the shuttle bus to Lisa’s, had a cup of tea and then they surprised me and took me out to lunch.  More of this in the next post.  After lunch I walked up to David Jones & Myer, had a bit of a look around and then went back to Lisa’s to get ready for the party.

What a party, it was fantastic, we arrived a little early so I helped to blow up the helium balloons and to put the drinks into the ice bucket.  Our host had been very busy cooking and baking all day.  I was impressed.  Out came prawns with orange and coriander, bite sized rolls with either beef or salmon, egg roll ups, sandwiches, mini beef or vege pies, platters galore of cheeses, prosciutto, antipasto, nuts, dips, chicken kebabs, beef kebabs and the list went on.  Dessert was two pavlova’s, raspberry almond tarts, blueberry almond tarts, the most divine chocolate mousse and to top it all off a fabulous 50 chocolate birthday cake.  The music was great and I danced my feet off.  I got back to Lisa & Dave’s at about 2.30, aching feet keeping me awake for a while and did not get up again till 11am the next morning.  Bliss let me tell you.

Sunday was pretty much spent mooching around though Lisa I did go back up to the shops and we bought the ingredients to make the Masterchef Beef Stroganoff recipe.  Very nice, however the general concensus was that it was very rich.  Monday I spent the day with my friend Fiona, she showed me where she lives and the room she works from so that when we chat on skype I can picture her.  We had a lovely day together, went out to lunch at the local garden centre and then she dropped me  back off in town.  Al had put in a request for a couple of loaves of bread from Bourke St bakery so I managed to buy a sour dough rye and a white sour dough.  Both were lovely and have almost been eaten in full.  It was nice to come back home again on Monday evening, Al waiting for me even though it was late.  All in all a great weekend.  Thanks to Lisa & Dave & Fiona

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Views

Rushed trip to the Gold Coast

On Monday Al received a call from a job he applied for some weeks back.  Its with a very reputable company with branches throughout Australia and they wanted to meet him on Tuesday down at Burleigh Heads.  So on Tuesday after Al finished work we drove down to the Gold Coast for his 5.30pm appointment.  Now normally this would not be a problem to get there on time as Al usually finishes work around 3.30 however on this day he did not finish till 4.15 which made the 1.5hr trip down quite tight especially during peak hour traffic.  Of course the interviewer rang us to ask if we could come down early which was impossible.  We ended up arriving 15 minutes late which thankfully he was not too worried about.  So for a half an hour interview it took us almost 4 hrs there and back.  Still if he gets the job it will be all worth it and means we can move down to the coast to live rather than Brisbane.

Sea World Cont…..

There is so much to say about Seaworld, while it was a great day there were a few let downs however it was worthwhile going to and a great day all in all.  The rest of our day was spent visiting the shows.  Most of the shows are geared towards the kids nevertheless we still enjoyed them and laughed along with everyone else.   The Sea Lions were great as were the dolphins.  The shows all have a theme about the environment and how precious it is, protecting our wildlife etc.  There are lots of opportunities to get up close to the animals and experience life in their environment.   We managed to fill in the whole day till the park closed and left at 5pm feeling like we really had had a great day.  

Al & I at the touch pools

Sea Lion performing

Dolphins

Sea World!!

Al & Kirsten deciding what shows to see for the day

Pink Flamingo

Kirsten wanted to treat Lewis for the holidays so we all went to Sea World for the day.  Al & I had never been before thinking that it was not for us. How wrong we were.  We had a great day despite quite a bit of maintenance happening which meant a number of rides and viewings were not available. Never mind we still managed to fill up the whole  day.  We left Brisbane early as its a 1.5hr drive south from where we are living hoping to be there when the doors opened at 10am.  We did not take into account the Gold Coast Marathon which was running that morning and of course traffic was chaos.  Roads closed, runners everywhere and detours which took us quite a way in the wrong direction of Seaworld.  A trip which should have taken 1.5hrs took almost 2.5hrs with an hour fluffing around the Coast.  Never mind Al and I took in the scenery and enjoyed it. Once we arrived we parked the car and went in,  as you can see Al and Kirsten are looking at the map and making decisions as to which shows we will see and what rides we are going to go on.    Let me tell you the Jet Rescue was amazing. Initially I was quite unsure thinking oh gosh I cant do this but I did and I was so glad. Not because I enjoyed it ….. oh no it was awful but because I did it.    Unfortunately there are no photos of us on this but it was a 50 sec action packed adrenalin speed trip.  I was sure I was going to fall out and I held on for dear life.  Oh lordy what a trip.  At the end we both felt like we had left our stomachs behind and it was quite a feeling.  Took me about 20mins to come right again.  I decided that there was NO WAY I would go on the roller coaster and Al agreed.  Though within about 2 hrs he wanted to go on it. Kirsten gallantly said she would go with him but both were secretly hoping that the ride would not eventuate.  Which is what happened. I don’t know about all my readers but you all may enjoy the roller coaster, its quite something and much bigger than Rainbows End – which by the way I have been on and enjoyed but that was many moons ago!!  The Roller Coaster is now called “The SeaViper” and has a thrill factor of Extreme – looked it as well :-). After this ride we then went on the Vikings Revenge Log flume ride which was great.  Much more sedate and a lot of fun.    This ride has a chilled out factor so is suitable for most people.  Al and I were soaked in the plummet to the bottom but thats what the  day is all about. We would have done this ride again if we had time.  Then we went on the Bermuda Triangle.  This ride started out well, there is a lot of memorabilia relating to the disappearances in the triangle which was interesting.  We then were taken into the volcano which was quite eery and we promptly stopped at the crashed airplane site.  Thinking this was a part of the ride we then waited and waited and waited.  It became obvious that there was a problem and an

Waiting in the crashed plane site

announcer came on to ask us to remain in our seats.  It took about 20 minutes before someone came to let us out, there were two boats stuck in the volcano and while we were okay a little girl behind us became quite distressed. We enjoyed watching the Pink Flamingo’s being fed, lovely big birds who are so used to people and so quite friendly.  e then went and looked at the underwater viewing platform which was fantastic.  The variety of fish in there was amazing, some quite huge….to be expected as they do not need to worry about being caught by fishermen.  There are touching pools which are great for kids and great shows on rescuing SeaLife. I was quite happy to pay our entrance fee knowing that a portion goes towards this worthy cause.  I have come to the conclusion that my passion in life is animals.  Watch this space on that.  

More Pink Flamingo’s

Dilemma!! Where to Live?

Well we have a dilemma.  Where do we live?  We had so wanted to move to the Gold Coast and now with Al’s job based in North Brisbane we are unsure what to do.  Al is quite keen on Sandgate or Scarborough which are lovely area’s but I’m not so sure I want to live in the burbs up here.  Rents are much cheaper down at the coast and we can rent a lovely 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with pool for a lot less than you can up here in  Brisbane and we may find we are stuck with a average type house.  Can I do this mmmm ….. we will see.  I suppose once I get a job that will determine where we go at least for the first 12 months.  It is our intention to move to the coast as soon as we can and that is where we will be either purchasing or building.