Panning The Gold Coast

Last weekend we took the girls to the Sunshine Coast, a favourite with Marce and I due to its laid back, relaxed environment. Now that the McKenzie girls were feeling better (see "On The Mend" below), we decided to test their strength by taking all the girls except Marina to the adrenaline-flowing Dreamworld located at the north end of the world famous Gold Coast. (A map of Dreamworld can be seen at









http://www.dreamworld.com.au/files/pdf/map.pdf)


The amusement park has a waterpark, Imax theatre, Tiger Island (with two recently born Sumatra pups), and Wiggleworld for little ones. Madeline met the 120 cm height requirement for the rides, and even had the nerve to ride all of the "extreme" rides. The first of these is called The Claw, which is a giant pendulum which swings to a near-vertical orientation while approximately 32 fearless riders sit on the base with their feet hanging out. To the left you can see the girls getting ready for their swinging Claw ride. We arrived early so there were no lines for nearly an hour as the crowds started coming in on what was a Good Friday national holiday in Australia. After this we went on the Cyclone roller coaster, which is a medium sized metal roller coaster which has two 360 degree loops. Next on our list was the Tower of Terror, which is a rollercoaster-like car accelerates out of a tunnel at a rate that make your head spin. Once emerging from the tunnel, it pulls up vertically onto the same tower that holds the world's tallest Giant Drop ride. The car gets about 2/3 up the tower, then free-falls backwards along the rails, through the tunnel and comes to a stop. Total ride time = 15 seconds. But it is indeed a terrifying 15 seconds. If that weren't enough, all girls were all ready for the biggest ride - the Giant Drop (shown below).

This is similar to those rides you see in carnivals where people drop 100 feet or so. The big difference is that this drop is indeed huge with a drop nearly 2/3 the height of the Space Needle. Total drop time = 5 seconds before the brakes come on. This ride was even more terrifying to poor Dad than the Tower of Terror. By this time Dad had enough of the Big Five rides, but the girls (including Madeline) all decided they wanted to do the last big ride, which is called Wipeout. On this ride they sit in surfboard shape structure and twirl around including several upside down maneuvers which has them all hanging in their harness. I passed on this ride, but did a few more on the Tower of Terror, Giant Drop, and The Claw. To the right you can see the girls upside down on Wipeout. By 2 PM I had enough fun and just watched the girls go on ride after ride. Eventually even Callie tired of the adrenaline, and from 3PM on tended to sit out with me on some of the more extreme rides. Below is the Dreamworld link to the extreme 5 so you see yourself what they are all about.

http://www.dreamworld.com.au/content/bigfivethrillrides_2Col.asp?name=BigFiveThrillRides

We finished our time at the Dreamworld Ice Cream Parlor, with the girls having a combination of double-scoop ice cream cones or Coke "spiders". A spider is the Aussie equivalent of a float in the States, and since root beer is not popular here, they tend to make their spiders with Coca Cola and vanilla ice cream. A tempting treat, even though most Australians would say a root beer "spider" would be a strange combination of flavours. I guess it just depends on what one grows up with.

If you want to see some videos of some of these rides I have found them on YouTube as posted by other people who know how to post videos. They are fun to watch and give a good idea of what the rides are like

The Claw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2t4fBIceRU

Giant Drop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ57HEmh4mI

Tower of Terror http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gze2Xu5kTd0

Wipeout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvJ7uMBitdw

Cyclone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBYv590rLmQ

As we drove north back to Brisbane along the 4 lane M1 motorway, I realised that the sun was about to set. And so just prior to crossing the Brisbane river into our neighborhood I pulled over into a commercial section near the Brisbane port which has a large colony of Flying Foxes, or fruit bats. Dusk is when these creatures wake up from hanging in their tree colonies, making interesting chirping noises and flying close over our heads. With a 1 metre wingspan, they truly are impressive-looking bats. We didn't feel in danger at all knowing these bats only eat fruit. We piled back into our minivan, crossed the river to join Marce and Marina who were at home starting to organise for our upcoming move. Marina is feeling much better with her chicken pox. Her first big outing is planned on Monday, when we will all drive up into the Lamington National Forest to visit O'Reillys Guesthouse.

Marc

Girls entering the Tower of Terror ride

Watching Flying Fox bats wake up

Flying Fox near miss with 1 metre wing span!

On the Mend

Our time with Callie and Margaret has been wonderful, although we've had a few glitches along the way. Unfortunately, we've had our fair share of doctor visits--four in the last week! First, Callie got a blister last Monday from playing tennis and it developed into a pretty bad infection. Her foot was extremely swollen and she could barely walk on it. She spent several days with her foot elevated, much to her chagrin. She had so many things she wanted to see and do, but I had to insist that she follow doctor's orders. After two rounds of antibiotics, her foot is almost back to normal.

Callie following doctor's orders...her American History textbook must be a real page-turner! :-)

Then, over the weekend up at the Sunshine Coast, Margaret developed a strep infection. She took part in as many activities as she could manage, but was not able to enjoy them to the fullest. Thankfully, she's on the mend now. To top things off, Marina had some suspicious-looking spots on her--at first I thought they were mosquito bites from our weekend at the beach. But you can probably guess what she has--yep...chicken pox! So Marina and I are laying low, and I've been sending the older girls off on different excursions. They hit Queen Street Mall yesterday, and will take a city cat over to Bulimba, a quaint suburb lined with cute shops, for another day of shopping. Fortunately, Marc has a four day weekend coming up; Good Friday is a holiday, as well as the day after Easter. He'll take the girls to Dreamworld on Friday, about an hour's drive south on the Gold Coast. They're all looking forward to that outing! Since we're in quarantine, we had to cancel plans with the Adams and Grzesiaks for Easter dinner, which we were hosting. Instead, we'll just enjoy an intimate Easter celebration.

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour!

Marce

Surfin the Sunshine Coast

This weekend we took Callie and Margaret up to one of our favorite spots - Twin Waters Resort on the Sunshine Coast. Brisbane is flanked by two wonderful coasts- the high-rise Gold Coast to the south and the more informal, low-key Sunshine Coast to the north. Twin Waters Resort is located between the open surf beach and Maroochy River, approximately ninety minutes north of Brisbane. Seeing that we have recently grown by two people, we rented a four bedroom apartment which had great views of the Twin Waters lagoon. This lagoon is home to windsurfers, kayakers, catamaran sailors, and swimmers who decide to traverse the 300 metre distance. Because it is an artificial lagoon, there are no worries about sharks or stingers. The most hazardous thing on the lagoon is Bruce, the pelican who has figured out that he will get fed if he returns everyday at 3:30 PM. The girls had a great time kayaking, trying their hands at archery, sailing, swimming and just walking around the beautiful resort lit with Tiki torches.

As we were packing and getting ready to leave, we learned about the large earthquake in the Solomon Islands earlier in the morning. A tsunami warning had been issued for Australia, so we were keeping an eye on the news to see if it hit the north coast of Queensland first. The news was focusing on Cairns, which would have been hit first. We would have had about 60 minutes to evacuate our apartment, which was only about 5 metres above sea level. Fortunately nothing happened, and we made our way safely back to Brisbane. Scroll down below to see our weekend pics.

Marc

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Today we were up bright and early ready to head out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, located approximately 20 minutes southwest of us. We met up with the three older Grzesiak children (Ryan, Connor, and Sarah) and started out the day feeding the wild lorikeets. What a hoot!! The kids had a great time, even though they were a little intimidated by the numbers of loud, rather obnoxious birds diving down to gobble up the food. Unfortunately, a couple of the kids were 'christened' by the birds, but it was an easy clean-up with the baby wipes I had on hand.

Uh, oh! Looks like Meagan was nailed!

Ryan, Meagan, Margaret and Callie

Next we visited the kangaroos and wallabies and, much to our delight, found them to be more frisky and active than normal. They eagerly scarfed down all the "roo food" we gave them and hopped and bounded around energetically. Usually, they lay around lethargically with piles of food in front of them, and turn up their noses at the sight of more food.

Afterwards, we quickly made our way to the Australian Sheep Dog show, which is always a favorite of ours. The dogs are so friendly and well trained--watching them round up the sheep is pretty amazing! Madeline and Marina especially enjoyed the end of the show. After the sheep are in the pen, a couple of Australian Kelpie dogs take over. They are so comical to watch as they 'nudge' the sheep, or I should say scare them, further along into the pen by means of jumping all over their backs and barking frantically. Its quite a sight!

Madeline, Marina and Sarah

Next up was the Bird of Prey show where Margaret was one of 2 people picked to participate. A barn owl swooped down over the field, landed on her arm, and patiently sat there while the bird expert talked about its characteristics and physical features.

Then we were off to take pictures with a cute, cuddly koala--not 'koala bear' like so many Americans mistakenly call it. As you can see, the girls all look adorable holding him.

We spent the rest of our time strolling around looking at all the interesting snakes, birds, dingos, reptiles, and exhibit after exhibit of koalas--Bachelor koalas, Mums and babies koalas, Kindergarten koalas, Senior koalas--you get the picture! We came home exhausted but happy from our special day out.

Marce

Cruising Brissie on the "Kitty Cat"

After a nice Sunday morning brekky out on our veranda, we decided to take the City Cat up the river to hit the city sights. Marina affectionately calls it the "Kitty Cat". To the left is a picture of the girls just after we boarded this fun method of public transport. Part of the strategy was to keep Callie and Margaret up and awake so they could adjust their body clocks to Australian time. First stop on the way was the weekly Sunday Market along Eagle Street Pier. This market appears every Sunday morning in the heart of Brisbane along the river and has a wide variety of arts and crafts. By the time we had arrived it was about 85 degrees, so our first stop was a round of fresh-squeezed lemonades for everyone. In the end the damage wasn't too bad- Margaret purchased a new purse, and Meagan new sun glasses and earrings. From there we made our way to the outdoor Queen Street Mall, which is an open air mall with a cobblestone walkway. Along the way we stopped by the historic St. Stephen Catholic Cathedral, which happened to be conducting late morning Mass. The back doors were open so we popped in for five minutes to see the beautiful architecture and hear the celebrant reading from the Gospel of John. Callie and Margaret thought it sounded very dignified with the Australian accents. You can check out the cathedral architecture at http://www.cathedralofststephen.org.au/art.htm

We didn't spend much time at Queen Street Mall but quickly grabbed some lunch fixings at Coles for our church picnic near the University of Queensland campus, similar in size and feel to the University of Washington.

http://www.translink.com.au/qt/translin.nsf/ReferenceLookup/070115_NetworkMap_Ferry.pdf/$file/070115_NetworkMap_Ferry.pdf

We started at Bretts Wharf at the upper right and made it to Guyatt Park on the lower left. You can see how the winding river really gives a nice city perspective. For dinner we ate out under our covered veranda and treated Callie and Margaret to Australian Barramundi, a delicious white fish we all enjoy.

After dinner when it turned dark the girls set out with flashlights in hand to look at giant spider webs and white-tailed opposums. They actually found both, with a white-tailed opossum scurrying along a telephone wire. Here's a picture where they found an opposum. Poor thing ... it was probably really scared with all these girls screaming and pointing lights at it!


To cap it all off, after Madeline and Marina went to bed, the four older girls went out to the hot tub with candles, music and CHOCOLATE! It will be tough to beat this day.

Tomorrow the girls get to participate in Michelle and Meagan's speech class at the Gryzesiak's home and then play a few tennis matches, followed by a cool-down in the pool. Already this trip is off to a great start!

Marc

Arrival of Good Friends!

It's Sunday morning 7AM and we have just picked up Michelle and Meagan's close friends Callie and Margaret McKenzie. They arrived after a long day or traveling starting Friday afternoon at 4PM and ending Sunday morning. Here's a picture of them just after coming out through customs. Other than Canada with their parents, this is the first time they have really been outside of the States and certainly the most time by themselves. Their parents had arranged for an escort in LAX to get them from the Alaska Airlines terminal through the myriad of international flights at the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Unfortunately that person never showed up, so they found their own way with some instructions we had sent them in advance just in case they got missed by Alaska. Fortunately they ended up figuring it out and managed to find their way through LAX to the Qantas flight. Once back through security we called them on a cell phone they had to find out they were at the gate, ready to board. To the left is a picture on our deck after they arrived at our home and were talking to their parents. The weather today is set to be 85 degrees, and the plan is to take them to the Riverside Sunday market, then come back for swimming in the afternoon. We want to keep them awake as long as we can so their body clocks adjust. Make sure to check out Michelle's blog for other posts.

Marc

Michelle's Blog

I have just started my own personal blog (michellesadventuresinlife.blogspot.com), so I thought I should let the readers of this blog know! It won't be as formal as this one, but I'll try to have plenty of pictures and update more frequently. Please look at it and tell me what you think!

~Michelle