On Top of the World

Yesterday we all piled into the van and headed southwest to Lamington National Park, a beautiful rainforest located on top of Green Mountain. Halfway into our 2-1/2 hour roadtrip we made a quick stop at Canungra to stretch our legs and check out the alpaca farm; then it was back into the van to negotiate the narrow, twisting road which climbed up the mountain. On the way up, the surrounding vegetation changed abruptly from hilly, grassy farmland to dense, shadowy rainforest. Listed as a World Heritage Area, the Gold Coast Hinterland encompasses Lamington National Park, Tamborine Mountain and Springbrook National Park, and includes the largest subtropical rainforest remnant in the world, as well as the largest section of ancient Antarctic beech trees. The higher we climbed, the more we knew what a special treat we were in for!

Once there, the temperature had dropped to a chilly 17 deg Celsius (62 deg Fahrenheit) and it was drizzling slightly--big surprise in a rainforest, right?! We set out on the Tree Top Walk at O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse, a 180-meter walk made up of nine suspension bridges, which hang 16-meters above the forest floor. We found ourselves surrounded by thick ropes of vines spiraling round themselves and stretching from branch to branch. Mammoth, leafy ferns in abundance grew almost as tall as some trees.

At one point, we came to a massive strangler fig where 2 towering observation decks were built around it. To reach the first deck, we climbed straight up one ladder, where we enjoyed a panoramic view of the forest below, then we had to pluck up our courage to climb another vertical ladder to the second observation deck, 30-meters above ground (yikes!), which provided even more breathtaking views. We took turns watching Madeline and Marina (who we wouldn't dream of allowing up there!) since only three people could be on each observation deck at one time. On our bushwalk we learned that Lamington National Park is home to more than 900 species of plants and more than 200 bird species. Not surprisingly, O'Reilly's Guesthouse attracts bird observers from all over the world.

The girls cautiously ascending the ladder to the platform

View from the sky-high observation deck

We left the park on the twisty-turny road and decided to travel down a different side of the mountain, where we found ourselves within close driving range of Surfer's Paradise. As sunset neared, we thought it would be a perfect time to check out the amazing views from atop the world's tallest residential building, the Q1 Tower. Check it out here at http://www.q1.com.au/home.html We learned that its architecture was inspired by the Sydney 2000 Olympic torch and the Sydney Opera House. The lift took us up to the observation deck on the 77th floor in less than 43 seconds--we could all feel our ears popping on the lightning-speed ride up! Supposedly it is one of the world's fastest elevators. The views were truly spectacular, from the surf to the hinterland and beyond.

An interesting bit of trivia; just last week, two men were charged by the Queensland police for "BASE jumping", where they used parachutes to jump from the Q1 tower. BASE is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump:

1. Building



2. Antenna



3. Span (bridge or arch)



4. Earth (cliff or other natural formation)
   
   

It's much more dangerous than skydiving, and is currently regarded as a fringe extreme sport--I'm sure it's right up there with Bungee jumping. Only in Australia and NZ would you see this kind of thing!

From the top of Green Mountain to the top of the Q1 Tower on the Gold Coast, we experienced another fabulous, memorable day!

Marce

Easter In Brissie

The day before Easter we took a break after the exhilarating Gold Coast adventure. The girls stayed home and decorated Easter cookies out on our veranda with a pleasant 80 degree day. To the left is a picture of the girls working hard to make the cookie dough.





It's a low-key Easter morning for Marina and I as we sit and watch Winnie the Pooh, a big favorite of hers. I think we're at the tail-end of her chicken pox and hopefully will be able to accompany the rest of the gang tomorrow up to O'Reilly's Rainforest, about an hour's drive away. I'm sure it will be one of the big highlights for the girls since O'Reilly's has a great treetop walk and breathtaking mountain views. Marc and the girls are at church and will be home shortly. Marina is getting antsy and asks every five minutes when they'll be home. She even went outside to wait for them and discovered a special treat for us. On our door knob hung a bag filled to the brim with all sorts of Easter goodies that you can't find here--Marshmallow Peeps of every color, Reese's peanut butter cups, York peppermint patties, and pastel-colored candy corn. Even though there was no note inside the bag, I knew immediately that our lovely neighbor, Leigh, had dropped it off for us. She is a Qantas flight attendant who often works the Brisbane to LA flight. She has kindly left us other holiday bags at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day, always filled with candy and other fun things from America. Her husband, Steve, works for Marc and was instrumental in Marc accepting the job in Australia due to his positive attitude and fun-loving spirit. They are such a great couple who we have come to dearly love.

This evening we enjoyed a spontaneous Easter dinner with Michael and Angela Brannan, along with 3 of their 7 children. Michael is over from the US to work in Marc's group on an Unmanned Air Vehicle surveillance program. They're Americans but had worked in Australia for 8 years up until 2 years ago when they returned to Colorado Springs. Missing Australia, they jumped at the chance to return and arrived in Brisbane only 3 days ago. We had a pleasurable dinner on our veranda along with their 11 year old triplets, Adelaide (named after Adelaide, South Australia, where they were born), Caleb and Zach. The boys succumbed to jet-lag around 8PM and were fast asleep, but the rest of us enjoyed talking about their previous experiences living in Australia. Because they have all had chicken pox, they felt safe coming over even though Marina might still be contagious.

Well, I didn't get this posted until 10:30PM. What I thought would be a quiet Easter due to Marina ended up being a delightful evening with new friends. We hope that you all have a Happy Easter in the States!

Love,

Marce

The girls on Mt. Cootha overlooking Brisbane after church with Marc.

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