Our first stop in Queensland was Brisbane where we stayed with my awesome cousin Tim, his wife Bec and their super children Bel, Jack, Rosie and Lucy.  The last time Steve and I stayed there we had one child between us all, and now our joint brood is 7 children – time flies!  We were lucky to catch them on Easter, a big holiday in Australia and had a lovely time hanging out with the family.  Tim & Bec, thank you for having us and hosting the big dual family sleep over 🙂

A sub-group of us (plus my cousin Chris and his daughter Emily) went to an Australian Rules Football (AFL) game that night, as I was quite keen to show the kids this crazy Australian sport.  For Calvin & Hobbes fans, the sport reminds me of “Calvinball”, with a set of incredibly complicated rules and lots of running, throwing, bouncing, kicking and tackling.  It’s played on a round field with 18 players on each team, an erratically bouncing rugby-like ball and non-stop action.  Definitely fun, and we became fast fans of the home team, the Brisbane Lions. We’ll be following them on Youtube for sure.  It’s worth checking out, along with the new women’s league (AFLW) where we’ll be cheering for the Sydney Swans because we got to know the parents of a player from that women’s team, on the beach the following week (Hi Hurley’s!). 

For our last week in Australia we stayed on the Gold Coast in the town of Tugan, a beautiful stretch of beach about 30 km long just south of Brisbane. I’d spent a few weeks there with my aunt, uncle and cousins back in my late teens, so it was super to be back again with one of the same cousins (Adam, his wife Catrina, and their super cool kids Soph, Jack and Millie off for their school holiday) and the same aunt and uncle, Wendy and Murray. We stayed at the Pelican Sands with an ocean facing apartment – highly recommend!  

We called this week our “vacation within a vacation” because we put touristing on hold, and spent our days mostly at the beach playing in the surf, going for runs, scootering/biking along the oceanside path and catching up on sleep.  Evenings were spent having long leisurely ocean-side dinners with the extended family.  Easter Sunday we did an egg hunt and it turns out there is an Easter Bunny in Australia although they are apparently inexperienced and left many chocolate eggs directly in the sun, whoops! Thank you Wendy, Murray, Adam and Catrina for being such great hosts!

Playing in the surf was definitely a highlight.  The water was warm enough to stay in for hours and the waves were gentle enough for beginner surfers. Cousin Adam had what seemed like a million boogie-boards and surf-boards and lots of patience to coach us (thanks Adam!).  We got pretty comfortable boogie-boarding, and all of the boys including Steve tried out surfing with some amount of success. I had tried surfing when I was 18 and wasn’t very good then, so figured I’d only do worse now, and this is a vacation after all 🙂

The one touristy-thing we did do in the area was to visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s amazingly set up to see native animals up close, but is very careful with their treatment. It’s a non-profit org that funnels all funds into its wildlife hospital, the largest in the world.  Lucas and I did the “Koala Experience” where we got to go right into the koala pens with one of the koala experts and were so enamored by the fuzzy bears that we thought about stealing one to take home. The big kids and Steve skipped the animals and spent their time there on a challenging tree-top ropes course that takes you overhead of the animal viewing areas, and they enjoyed that view of the sanctuary despite sore arms the next day.

We are a little sad to now be leaving Australia.  The kids very much enjoyed being spoiled by relatives and Steve & I loved reconnecting with everyone like no time had passed.  It was also very relaxed traveling compared to what is coming up next – seven weeks in South East Asia.  We are on a flight now to our first stop, Indonesia, but despite missing Australia already we are excited for the next leg of our adventure.

Addendum: Australia’s scary animal encounters (for my New Zealand friend)

I neglected to point out the few minor negative points about Australia, namely the multiple animals that can kill you, as pointed out to me by my old friend Dave. So, in the spirit of sharing the good and the bad, here are a few of our shocking animal encounters in Australia:

• Ants: Lucas suffered painful ant stings in the Canberra area, and while we don’t know what type of ants they were, they hurt him like crazy as the ant was stuck in his sandal and stung him twice. Lucas refused to wear anything but socks and running shoes for at least a week afterwards. Apparently some of the ants around can be lethal.
• Snake encounter #1: The kids saw a 2 meter long python one evening right beside the walking path at Tugan. It didn’t seem to be scared of people and hung around long enough for Zachary to take a photo. I however, having a fear of snakes, never looked at the photo, and Zachary was kind enough to use “stories” to post it on Instagram so the photo disappeared after 24 hours. Some of you may have seen it, if so, I don’t want to hear about it.
• Snake encounter #2: Walking to the beach at Tugan a small brown snake crossed my path and I jumped out of my skin and screamed, but then laughed at being scared of a small snake. I learned after however from my cousin with me, that the snake I saw was THE eastern brown snake which is extremely venomous. Eek. My walks to the beach were never the same
• Spiders: We are definitely not experts on spiders, but there are some nasty ones in Australia. There was one near our apartment in Tugan that we passed everyday in its web. It was giant and scary. Enough said.