Trip to Sydney

We had a great 1st day in Sydney. We started our day by going down to some Aussie morning news show. We met the news people and we listened to a popular Aussie band the Road Traders. We then walked down to the Botanical Gardens . We did a tour of the Government house and the Opera House. The kids had fun playing in the open spaces of the gardens. We saw a street performer and took a ferry back to Darling Harbour where our hotel is.There is a festival there(Darling Harbour). We capped off our night by watching fireworks. All in all it was a pretty full day. We are now getting geared up to go to the Taronga Zoo.

The Mono Rail.
The Brown Family. These are some friends of ours. I work with Anthony at EWS. He is one of the mechanics. We went on this adventure with them.

Us relaxing under a tree at Government House One of the huge trees on the grounds.
This tree was pretty cool. It was at the Botanical Gardens. I bet it was at least 50' across the bottem.
In side the concert hall in the Opera House. The main hall was closed because a group was rehearsing. The pipe organ at the top of the photo has 10,000 pipes.
This nut was doing his street performance outside the ferrys. He picked Ryan as a volenteer.

More Sydney Photos

Carol & I on the steps of the Opera House Ryan & I showing our colors.....LET'S GO OILERS LET'S GO
The Sydney Harbour Bridge. They seem to make a big deal over this bridge but I don't know what all the fuss is about.
The family at Goverment House in New South Wales
Mark checking out the sites

Some more kites

These pics are from the second day and we remembered to take our kite from last year. It was really a great day for flying a kite until the sky opened up again. I think they're going to have to rename the "Sunshine Coast" something else. We've had enough rain to have the level 2 water restrictions lifted. I guess that's a good thing. Sigh. This is Mark flying his kite.
This one was Mark's favorite.
This was another huge kite.

They didn't have the parachute jumpers Saturday night because of the rain so they had them Sunday afternoon.

Lizards

I quite often have to go for long drives for work. As you can imagine nothing is really close. I always try to remember my camera as you will never know what you'll run into. I saw this little guy below on the side of the road. I had to stop and make him/her famous.
He decided to lay low and hide from me under this bush. He is a lot easier to see in the photo then he was in real life.

I almost run this little guy over. Just out of the photo is my tire track. This little fellow was quick. When I put the camera down he was gone. I was going to go look for him but the Aussies told me there is a certain kind of lizard that when scared it will climb the tallest thing to hide. If you are the tallest thing it will climb up you. I don't know if it is true but I wasn't taking that chance.

Air Show

Apparently, there is a short airshow at the Kite Festival too. These are from our apartment. This was just after is started to rain. It was much better than these pics show. You might have to enlarge the pics to actually see the planes, lol.

Coolum Kite Festival

It is estimated that the Coolum Kite Festival will have 50,000 visitors over the two day event. The kite surfing was postponed due to high winds. There are bands playing, food vendors and kite making lessons held. Hopefully, the weather holds out. I hear thunder as I am posting this. There is suppose to be fireworks and a night parachute jump. This is some of the 50,000 visitors. The beach is not usually this busy!

This kite was one of the largest there.

I don't know how they don't all get tangled. I guess that's why they're "professional kite flyers"

These were cute but hard to get a picture with them both facing the same way. Roy is the photographer; he probably would have been more patient.

Hawks in the Desert

There were about 100 of these hawks hanging around down the road. I am not sure what was around to keep them there. I got a few good photos. For the most part they didn't let me get too close. I saw about 10 Emu's the other day and I had left my camera at the rig. I wasn't impressed. I still haven't got a photo of a wild snake. I have only seen 2 live ones and 2 dead ones since I have been here.


See me hard at work.

Happy 12th Anniversary

Today is Carol and mine 12th wedding anniversary. To celebrate we got up at 530 AM and walked down to the beach to watch the sunrise.

This is one of the fences on the way home from the beach.

Marks 9th Birhday Party

We rented the pool for Marks birthday party. We had it a little early so I could go. Carol was getting worried about the weather. It rained here for the last 4 days but Saturday was really nice. 7 kids showed up and we had cupcakes and cookies. We also got a few pizzas. Mark jumping off the inflatable.
Mark and his mates waiting to get on.
Just a couple of cute photos of Mark.

HAPPY 15TH BIRTHDAY RYAN

Ryan had cherry cheese cake for his birthday.

Paint Balling

Ryan wanted to go paintballing for his birthday. I got the pleasure to take him. He took 2 of his friends and good times was had by all. I didn't get any action shots. I was too busy avoiding paint. We went through just under 2000 balls in 2.5 hours.
Above is Ryan and 1 of his friends. Below is me coming in at the end of the games. I have at least 10 good welts on me. Some given to me from my loving son. It is also fathers day here today. It will be one to remember. Ryan made me breakfast and shot me a few times with paint. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tired.

Whale Watching

We went whale watching yesterday. It was a lot of fun except for all the sick people. There was at least 1/3rd of the boat sick. The inside bits of the boat were like a hospital ward. People laying around on the couches. It was kind of funny until I fell the ill myself. The kids and Carol were making fun of me. The beer we had at 10 AM didn't seem like such a good idea after all. I did manage to have a good time and got a few good photos. There were lots of Hump Back whales to see. There were even a couple of dolphins playing around.

This is Mooloolaba on the way back.