beach trip!

its the best time of year for a beach trip with wombat (only cuz she's anti-social with other dogs and this way we can let her run muzzle free). we had to go down to barwon heads to check out a couple venues for our wedding reception. the one that would be perfect has a market going on in it until 1pm the day of our wedding (if only feb had 1 more day in it-- 30days cuz its a leap year anyway), then our wedding wouldn't be the last sat of the month and there wouldn't be a market). we found another really cool option though which might be the easiest way (especially considering we haven't heard anything back from the caterers we want as to whether they will cater in barwon heads). anyway, after all the venue checking out we took wombat (who was very patient waiting in the car) to a beach. we know of 2 beaches near barwon heads/torquay that are good for her. we went to the first one but before we even parked the car we saw dogs everywhere (there's houses all over the place so everyone was taking their dog down to the beach or just letting them roam free in their unfenced yards) so we went for the nude beach near torquay (its in the middle of nowhere and i don't think many people would trek up there when there's so many beaches that aren't so hard to get to)

here's the rain in the distance when we started looking for a good beach for wombat:

rainbow on the beach:

wombat is NOT impressed with the sandy face she got fetching the ball (but she still did it repeatedly)

me and wombi checking out the rainbow:

beautiful girl:

fetching a ball (she even went in the water to get it a few times!!):

exploring the beach (she just kinda trotted off ahead of us, ignored us calling her then just went straight into the water up to her belly!! we were a little worried she was just gonna walk out to sea and we'd never see her again):

after that photo was taken she turned around, pooped in the ocean and then trotted back to us!! i can't believe she did that!!!! if she'd gone on the beach we had bags to pick it up but she went in the ocean and it washed away before we got anywhere near it!

the 3 of us on the beach:

lobster

this was fred. he was a vegan lobster zac picked up from vincent vegetarian food in footscray. i only had real lobster once or twice in my life so i don't remember what its supposed to taste like but this was pretty good (plus you don't have to try to separate the meat from a shell-- you can eat the whole thing). i ended up steaming it and then covering it in a sauce made from nuttelex, lemon juice, soy sauce, garlic and some spices and then grilling it for a few min to let the sauce soak in. we poured the extra sauce on while we ate it. i don't have any pictures of it cooked (it pretty much looked the same, just no ice bits on it and it was on some rice next to some stir fried vegies). it was really good though.

sleeping thru the nite

guess who slept thru the nite on their own bed for the first time in months?


wombat!!!!
when i got out of the shower last nite as soon as i started to walk through the lounge room wombat got up and went into the bedroom hopped onto her bed, pushed the crumpled up blanket off with her paws, curled up and layed down (i didn't even mention the word "bedtime" to her and she hadn't been out for her last pee of the nite either but i figured since she was being so smart i would just leave her and tell zac to take her out when he got home from the gig he was at). i tucked her in and then went to bed (i even tried to coax her up onto the bed with me but she refused). zac came home probably an hour or so later but i don't think she got up to go out when he asked her if she needed to go "outside" (she knows that means backyard and gets up and runs to the backdoor if she wants out). i woke up this morning around 8:30 and felt around under the covers but no dog. i sat up and saw her curled up ontop of her blanket on her bed. i told zac and he said that's where she was when he went to bed (odd he didn't try to get the blanket out from under her and tuck her in cuz he's more worried about her being cold at nite than i am). so she slept through the nite there and even though she kinda woke up to us wispering about her she didn't come up on the bed. i must have fallen back asleep laying there cuz i woke up and it was 2 hours later and wombat was STILL on her bed (yea wombi!). i went over to her to tell her what a good dog she was and give her cuddles. then she jumped up on the bed to say good morning to zac and attack him with kisses. i lifted the blanket, she went under and straight back to sleep (zac calls her a canary dog cuz she can be super hyper but you put the blanket over and she goes straight back to sleep kinda like a bird in a cage when you put a blanket over so it thinks its night time).

keepin warm

the best way to spend a cold winter sunday afternoon:

laying infront of the heater with my baby girl watching the footy (and the best part is the demons won!)

queensland part 4: great keppel island

after the wedding a few of us headed over to great keppel island for a few days. zac, brent and i stayed at the holiday village (a backpackers) while steve and kara stayed at the resort a few minutes walk away. the backpackers was great. we were supposed to be in a 4 person dorm with just the 3 of us but there was already someone on the 4th bed so they gave us 2 twin rooms. they cooked up a big pot of rice every nite (except one nite where they made a really good veggie soup) and it was just really friendly and relaxed. steve, kara and brent were all leaving the island tuesday afternoon to fly back to melbourne wednesday morning and me and zac weren't sure what to do for the rest of our holiday but not long after arriving on the island we decided to stay there until friday (i think we all fell in love with the island pretty much as soon as the boat "docked" on the white sandy beach)

sunset our first nite on great keppel

our favourite beach for snorkeling (monkey beach)

the beach was pretty deserted (we only saw a few people the whole day). over the 3 days we snorkeled there we saw turtles, small sharks, jelly fish, LOTS of colourful tropical fish, some kind of ray (i think whip rays-- brent saw a sting ray), gigantic clams, lots of coral........it was amazing. the water was a bit cold for me (someone told us it was 18C but it had been 26C up until they had the cold weather/rain for 2 weeks) so i hired a wet suit for 1 day so i could stay out a bit longer.

vicious lorikeet (i think this was bill or ted):

a lot of the birds on the island were quite aggressive because of people feeding them (despite signs EVERYWHERE telling you not to). the lorikeets are addicted to sugar and knew the little yellow packets. i played tug-o-war one morning with a lorikeet as he tried to take a sip of my coffee thru the travel lid and as i took that from him he tried to grab my sugar packets from me. he nipped me a few times and then got hold of one packet. i wasn't gonna let him have it so i grabbed the other end and pulled a few times until he finally let go.

kookaburra eating a snail or something (he kept smashing it against the log then put it down the hatch):

the kookaburras were quite aggressive too. we saw an unsuspecting guy have a doughnut (and almost his thumb too!!) grabbed right from his hand. he just picked up his small daughter and ran after that. we saw woman have a chip stolen from her half way to her mouth (she was busy watching the lorikeets on the other side of her).

possum at the hostel picking at the insides of a dried up coconut:

these little guys were also quite aggressive (according to steve). he was eating pizza on the balcony of their hillside villa at the resort. he went inside to grab a drink and the possum was eating his pizza when he came back. he shooed it away and grabbed his pizza and was a bit scared of the possum. his wife made a comment that the possum wouldn't hurt him and right at that second it went for his leg and tried to bite it!!

another sunset shot (i have dozens):

bat (they were pretty cool and not vicious as far as i know):

sailing: we decided to do a sailing trip offered thru the resort "sailing with grace". it was a day sailing trip on a 40 foot yacht.

the wind was kinda gusty and not constant so we did pretty much everything but sail (the water was like glass for 1/2 the trip back). we got to snorkel in an area that had much more colourful coral than monkey beach. zac went down into the cabin area and got a bit seasick so the crew took us over to a secluded beach in the dingy for zac to recover while lunch was being prepared.

it was an amazing private little beach around the side of a cliff from where the boat was anchored. the entire shore was pretty much just bits of coral and shells. zac found a big piece of coral:

lunch was pretty amazing too. we let them know beforehand that zac was vegan so they catered well for that (and they had lots of vegetarian options). we had wraps, quiche, cocktail samosas and spring rolls, as well as chicken and a HUGE bowl of fresh prawns for the non veggie people. on the way back we spotted a few dolphins jumping out of the water (didn't really get any good shots-- just a couple grey bits on a blue background). a couple even came quite close to the boat.

our last nite on the island we decided to stay at the resort because i just really wanted a fresh shower (the hostel uses bore water for the showers so they were kinda salty) and it would be nice to be close to the spa (every other afternoon we'd had a spa at the resort after snorkeling then had to walk back 5 min to the hostel getting cold).

here was the view from our deck area of our room:

i wouldn't really recommend the resort there unless you were going for the activities they offered (like as a family with children under 12). the staff were quite young and unprofessional and the rooms weren't all that nice (other than the view)

another bit of wildlife: a bush thick knee curlew. they're really cool nocturnal birds that wander around the island.

they had a little paragraph about them in the info news at the resort and it said something to the effect of if you hear what sounds like a baby keeping its parents up, its probably just one of these birds. i thought it was a bit odd that in the last 4 nites i hadn't heard that at all. that evening we were getting ready for an after dinner spa and we heard this screaming noise like a crying baby. zac's response was "that baby is annoying" (he didn't read the info on the birds). it was one of the birds!!

our last day on the island

is it wrong that i was watching the pool bar very closely for them to open and was up there ordering a pina colada within 30 seconds of them pulling up the gate at noon (there was another woman ahead of me though)?

the view down fisherman's beach (the main beach of the island)

teasing the lorikeets with my cocktail (i think they could smell the sugar in my "adult slurpee" and gathered around hoping for a sip-- zac let one have a few licks of his after he finished but i thought that was probably a really bad idea to get the lorikeets drunk)

we spent our last nite at the yha in rocky (after waiting an hour for a bus that then took us 15 min past the yha-- i don't think he heard zac ask him to let us know where our stop is). after hiking back up over the bridge with our packs on we found the hostel then walked another couple kms back to the mall to find some food for dinner. the next morning we left sunny queensland to arrive back home to melbourne at 7C (this seems to be the temp any time we arrive back in melbourne from anywhere in july) and it was VERY grey and rainy all day (at least it hadn't snowed that morning in melbourne-- that happened once on a day we returned).

we'll definately be going back to great keppel again though (we'd have the wedding there if it wasn't so expensive for everyone to get there)

queensland part 3: the wedding (nothing like american pie 3: the wedding)

saturday afternoon was our reason/excuse for flying up to rocky: adam and claire's wedding. it was a short, to the point ceremony in the little chapel at the resort with amazing views over the ocean (unfortunately i only brought the new camera with me and i couldn't remember how to change the metering mode so that they wouldn't be silhouettes against the blue sky/ocean behind them so i'm depending on brent for some good photos from during the vows).

here's the wedding party signing the registry:

down at the beach for some photos:

the girls and adam:

the guys and claire:

the best man and the groom with a snake (it was sort of a random thing-- after the ceremony and photos there was snacks down by the pool bar. a guy from some sanctuary was wondering around with the snake to promote the sanctuary):

the cake (made by the maid of honour-- we've got her card and she said she could try to play around and see what she could do for a vegan cake for us)

kara and steve

the first dance:

brent and zac comparing red faces-- zac was a bit sunburned and brent had an allergic reaction to the dessert. in the 10 min after this photo was taken he turned cherry red, went back to his room, took a cold shower and some anti-histamines and was fine an hour later

other than brent's reaction the food was REALLY good (especially for our table). everything was on sharing platters for the table. with me being vegetarian and zac being vegan, they brought out a separate platter with extras for us. the entree (appetizer in north america) was a HUGE plate of seafood. we only had 5 people at our table (some tables had 8 or 10) plus zac and i weren't touching the seafood (we had some bread and dips) so the 3 others had a seafood feast for an entree. i can't remember what the main was for everyone else but we had some amazing stir fried vegies and rice. dessert was a platter of gigantic pieces of assorted cakes and a huge platter of fruit for me and zac (i could have eaten the cakes but the fruit looked much more appealing at that point).

the reception was followed by karaoke which was being held in the bar/restaurant in our building (we saw the ad on the resort tv station and zac had be pushing all afternoon for people to come to karaoke after the reception with him cuz he loves to sing "love shack")

queensland part 2: rydges resort

after "roughing it" at the caravan park (it was actually a really nice caravan park with the best bathrooms/showers i've seen in a campground) we went to rydges resort in yepoon where adam and claire's wedding would be held. i don't know if it was just cuz it was queenland and people move slower there or something but the service at the resort wasn't great. it would take them forever to do anything. the resort was nice though. the pools were FREEZING from the cold snap/rain they'd had (they don't heat pools in queensland):

zac got in for about 35 seconds, a couple others got in for a minute or so. nobody stayed in long. we walked down to the ocean for a swim and just sat in the spa and sauna next to the pools

couldn't pass up having a couple overpriced cocktails by the pool either:


the view from our room (it looked out the the chapel where the wedding was held):


the pool (apparently under the waterfall is a bit warmer-- i think anyone that managed to swim out that far was probably numb and not feeling it by that point):

queenland part 1: rockhampton/yeppoon

when we arrived on wed nite it had been the first sunny day in rocky after 2 weeks of cold and rain. we spent the first 2 nites camping at the caravan park in rocky with our friend brent. it was SOOOOO cold. i think it got down to 7 the first nite and i brought my summer sleeping bag (cuz it was easier to pack). i had thermals, pjs, beanie, gloves and winter hiking socks (as well as a flannel liner in the sleeping bag) and i froze. the next nite was supposed to get down to 4C so i traded my therma-rest for zac's -20C sleeping bag and i was sooo toasty all nite (zac was freezing though).
brent had a lot of issues with his twin bed inflatable mattress (which he brought up from melbourne with him). first he forgot the plug bit at home so he tried to make one out of foil and a plastic bag the first nite (he also left the pump back at adams house so he blew it up by mouth at 1am when we got back to the caravan park after hanging out with adam and claire). that didn't work so well. we went to the camping store the next morning and he managed to find a plug. then he discovered several large holes (fortunately the plug came in a kit with patches in it). here he is relaxing on the grass blowing the mattress up for the 3rd time by mouth-- it stayed up and he slept well that nite)



sun, sand, beach and beer- what more could you want?

hanging out at a beach outside yeppoon

the guys chatting in the water before a swim:

adam and claire's 11 week old puppy gremlin (how cute is he?)