Gold Coast Christmas - II

After a quiet Boxing Day, on the 27th we headed to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Located near the banks of the Brisbane River, Lone Pine is home to a wide variety of Australian animals - kangaroos, wallabies, tasmanian devil, echidnas, dingos, wombats, snakes, lizards, emus and other birds, and of course koalas!











We had another quiet day on the 28th. On the 29th we headed to the town of Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast, one hour north of Brisbane. The water was even better than the Gold Coast and the surf was awesome - no rip tide, just great wave after wave! We played in the water for four hours! Unfortunately the only digital photo we took at the beach (we were too busy boogie boarding and wave riding/jumping) was this one of me. If I was bigger in one particular area, smaller in others, more toned all over, well-tanned, and blonde with braids I might just pass for Bo Derek!


On December 30th, we went to the Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich (Queensland) to see the Thomas the Tank Engine exhibit. Here are pictures of William with Thomas and Sir Topham Hat!

Gold Coast Christmas - I

We arrived in Canberra (aka. the Australian Capital Territory, or ACT) on December 19, 2006, but unfortunately our air shipment did not. With only our luggage and some dishes/kitchen items borrowed from the Canadian High Commission, it didn't take much to convince us that Christmas would be better spent in the company of friends than an empty house. So on December 22nd we hit the road. Our destination was Brisbane, home of our dear friends the Barker family - Tim, Tracey, Joseph, Daniel and Dominic. We made a point of driving inland for the two day trek. It was amazing (and somewhat shocking) to watch the scenery slowly transition from completely dry and brown in the drought-stricken ACT and New South Wales areas, to green, even greener, then almost lush rain forest as we made our way to the coast and Brisbane.

Christmas day was an "out of body" experience. We had a beautiful breakfast then Santa visited and passed out all the gifts. William got a scooter! Tracey's boys got a "Sing Star" game for their nintendo and we were very entertained over the next week listening to the kids take turns singing well known pop and rock songs. (Entertaining is an understatement....!) This was also the time that William was introduced (and became addicted) to the game of cricket thanks to the Barker boys and the five day "Ashes" tournament that began on Boxing Day.

A little later we left for the Gold Coast - one hour south of Brisbane - where Tracey's brother Peter had rented an apartment for the holidays. We met the rest of Tracey's family - her brothers, their spouses, and lots of kids. Christmas dinner was an amazing spread of sea food (Morton Bay "bugs", giant prawns, crab, oysters, etc), salads and pavlova for dessert.

Then we hit the beach! To be in Australia with the Barkers and their extended family was overwhelming, but actually being on the beach in Australia on Christmas day was surreal! The Surf Life Savers thought we were crazy asking to have our pictures taken with them.....maybe it was the hats! The water was warm but there were rip tides so we spent most of our time hanging on to William. William and Ian gave boogey boarding a first try - they had a blast!

More pictures of our Australian Christmas....

William and Dominic on Christmas morning.....

Ian with Tim's mother, Bretha Barker ......

William riding the waves.....

Tracey and I.....

The view from Peter's holiday apartment. The cluster of high-rises is "Surfer's Paradise".

Welcome to our Blog!

G'day mates!

Welcome to "The Andersons in Oz" family blog! Blogging is new to us so please bear with us as we learn to make the best use of this wonderful tool! Our hope is to use this site as a way to keep our friends and family up to date on our year in Australia. (Ok, no jokes about the fact that it took me 5 months into the year to get this site started!) Just to prove that we really are in Oz, here is a picture of William and I with the Opera House in the background, on Easter weekend. Don't worry, Ian is here with us. He's taking the picture! Please stay tuned to see what we have been up to since we arrived in December '06. Cheers, The Andersons.