Sunday, 4 March, 2018

It's been a busy week for both of us topped off with a nice relaxing weekend.

Dad started his course - Airbus 320 - on Monday - with 8 guys - all of them are quite experienced which is nice for Dad.  Everyone seems to be picking up the information well  - the first exam is on Monday, so that will be a good indicator if things are going as well as they appear to be to Dad.  The guys ask lots of questions which often means that they are keen to learn more about the airplane and also seem to be looking deeper than the information being taught which Dad also likes.

I spent my mornings this week at the Leisure Centre for Body Balance, Aquafit and Senior Circuit classes.  Senior Circuit takes place in the gym - the fitness instructor places various equipment in a circle and we use each piece of equipment for one minute and then rotate on to the next piece of equipment.  I also went to the Seniors' Centre for a Tai Chi class and a get together called 'Busy Fingers' - it's a group of women who get together to do different crafts (knitting and crocheting) and also a bus brings a group of women who are shut-ins to the Centre at the same time - most of them come for the social aspect - they are even provided a lunch on that day.  I walk to and from the classes and so that gives me an hour of walking every day, too.

On Thursday, I met up with my friend, Thea (she and her family used to live in HB, but returned to Perth a couple of years ago).  We picked up Mexican for lunch and then just spent the afternoon chatting at her house - it's always nice to get together with friends.

On Friday, I decided to treat myself and so I got a pedicure - I just love having my feet pampered! 😃  I chose a bright orange for the nail polish - I always choose bright colours - it's my wow factor! 😃

See my pretty toes 😃

Yesterday, Dad and I went geocaching for the day.  We packed a picnic lunch and headed off to King's Park which is a huge park here in Perth - it's right on the water and is a really beautiful place to be.  We searched for 8 geocaches and were successful in finding 7 of them - the one we couldn't find, we are going to return to at a later date as there were too many people around to give it a good search.  When you are searching for a geocache, the idea is to not allow people see what you are doing as they might get curious and go and look at it and take it or move it or whatever.  We had a fabulous day out - the sky was blue and the sun was warm and there was a slight breeze - there is no way we could have asked for a better day off.  😃

 King's Park is so busy on the weekends

 Dad and his iced chocolate for 'morning tea'

 If Dad gets one, I get one 😃

This tree was planted in memoriam of a soldier who died serving his country - Private Harry C. Rojo II Batallion - Pozieres - 25 July, 1916 - aged 20 - planted by his father - Pozieres is in France - the Battle of Pozieres (23 July, 1916 - 3 September, 1916) took place northeast of the village of Pozieres, during the Battle of the Somme.  It was written that Pozieres ridge "is more densely sown with Australian sacrifice than any other place on earth" - there were many trees planted for other servicemen who had died during a war in which Australia fought in

 Stand-up paddleboarders on the river

 A hen's party set up in the park (like a bachelorette party) - there were cushions around a large table for the guests to sit on

 Set-up for a wedding in the park by the river (there were a few weddings in the park yesterday)

 Black Swans by the river (the river is called the Swan River)

 Boats at the marina

 Children kayaking in small kayaks just their size

 A pelican on the river

One of our geocache finds

 Our picnic lunch - sandwiches, pickles, veggies and strawberries - so yummy!

 A lunch guest 😃

 Where we found another geocache - this one was very well camouflaged

 This geocache was really hard to find - we had to climb this small hill which was covered in leaves - it was quite slippery and so was a bit of an adventure - but we conquered it 😃 and we even found two travel bugs to take to other geocaches in the future

 Speedboats on the river

 A really interesting looking tree

Old church (part of which has been demolished) in a place called 'Sunset Hospital' - Sunset is a former hospital and aged care facility - it was set up in 1906 under the name 'Claremont Old Men's Home' and housed up to 750 men - it's made from large stone blocks quarried from local limestone and I love the architecture - we met a couple there who explained the history of the hospital to us - it is a very interesting story - it is now a heritage listed site - the previous government planned to renovate the site - that government lost the last election and the current government has not done anything to the site - it looks quite dilapidated right now, but hopefully, in the not too distant future, it will be returned to its previous glory

The area in which we did the geocaching is a really posh area - there were many huge houses, but this one caught my eye - the circular part of the left side of the house is all made of glass

Sunday, 25 February, 2018

We were busy the first part of this week (no exercise classes for me :-( - between haircuts, lunch out with the girls, a facial, chiropractor visit and a trip to Bundaberg, we filled up the first three days of the week really well.

Last Saturday, I took Robyn out for a birthday lunch and it was a bit of a bust, so Monday was our 'Take Two' lunch.  Robyn suggested we try the 'Sticky Fig' when I told her that I had been there for morning tea and it was really nice.  She and I met our friend, Jan, there and we had a really lovely time chatting together and a really delicious meal there, as well - they also made a yummy iced chocolate.

Me and my iced chocolate

Robyn, me and Jan

On Tuesday, we went to Bundy (a 90 minute drive from HB) because our camping trailer needed its one year maintenance service. Dad had a number of items for them to check out as well as the basic service, so it took all day.  While we were waiting for the service to be completed, we spent the morning shopping at various places and then met up with my uncle Ray (Poppy's youngest brother) and his wife, Julie, at a local club.  We had a lovely two hour lunch catching up with each other - we haven't seen them in a number of years.

Ray, Dad, Julie and me

On Thursday, we flew to Perth - we will be here for eight weeks, seven of which Dad will be teaching  for - one of the weeks, we will be going on holidays as that is when Dad's friend, Garth, will be instructing the class in the avionics, navigation and communication portion of the course.  We are thinking of driving south to an area called Margaret River as we have been told that it's a really beautiful place to visit.

Friday, we went to our friends' place for dinner - Thea and Martin lived in HB for three years before returning to Perth - it was so nice to get together with them.  After a delicious dinner and conversation, we played a number of games of cards which was fun.

Martin, Dad, Thea, and me

Yesterday, Dad and I spent a couple of hours geocaching - I wasn't thrilled with our 'find' percentage - we were only able to find two out of four caches.  However, even though we were not very successful, the day was  warm, the sky was blue and it was fabulous to be outside.

 Our first 'did not find' geocache area

 Where we found our first geocache

 Tomato Lake where we looked for our two geocaches

 Me looking out at Tomato Lake - so many different kinds of birds there

Where we found our second geocache

Sunday, 18 February, 2018

It's been a good week!  Dad and I are both back to full health!

I got back into my exercise routine this week - it was nice to get back into yoga, aquafit and tai chi. I also had another facial with the lovely Helen.  I also got together with friends this week for..........you guessed it................another iced chocolate or two 😂  The first get together was with teacher friends and then, yesterday, I got together with Robyn to celebrate her birthday.  First, we went for a swim at the beach and then to a cafe we have been to a ton of times as they have a fabulous quiche.  When we got there, it turned out that they had no quiche and were only cooking hamburgers as the main cook had left already.  We were disappointed in the meal - the hamburger was not cooked properly and also was not very flavourful.  The fries were very tasty as was the iced chocolate, although it wasn't very cold.  We decided that we would give this cafe a miss from now on.  We are going out again tomorrow for lunch -a 'take two'.

 Robyn and her iced chocolate on her birthday

 Me and my iced chocolate at Robyn's birthday lunch

The view from the cafe where we had Robyn's birthday lunch

Tuesday we had a call from the missionaries to say that their dinner appointment had fallen through and could they come over to our place for dinner (we had suggested that this past Sunday).  We gladly said 'yes' and ran out to get a roast chicken and salads.  We love having the missionaries in our home - we had a new one (Elder Puckey) come to Hervey Bay while we were on our cruise - he is from New Zealand  and it was nice to get to know him and to see Elder Prows again.  They shared with us a nice spiritual message about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon each day. 

On Wednesday night, Dad and I picked up the Louws girls (Scarlett and Indiana) and took them to Hungry Jack's (Burger King) for dinner.  Their parents, Ben and Lisa, wanted to go out to celebrate Valentine's Day (they took the 4 month old twins with them) and so had asked me if I would babysit.  I really like looking after these two - they are so cute - and such good listeners.  They have a play area at Hungry Jack's and there were a number of kids there, so the girls had a fun time playing there.  After we finished there, I drove Dad home and then drove to the girls' home.  I had picked up some library books and so I asked the girls to decide which ones they wanted me to read to them before it was bedtime.  Of course, they wanted me to read all 10 of them - so, I did. 😃 

Indiana (Indi) and Scarlett

We bought a new lawnmower not long ago and on Thursday and Friday, I got to use it - I love it - it's so much better than the first one we bought.  I always like mowing the lawn and it's such good exercise.

Me mowing the lawn with our new lawnmower

Dad's week was less exciting than mine - he spent his week fixing stuff: trailer stuff, house stuff, scooter stuff, fence stuff.  I prefer my week to his. 😄

I have decided that writing down what we want to complete in a week is important for me - otherwise, it is so easy to just diddle the time away and nothing gets done.  I made up this chart last year and found it again when I was cleaning up.  I used it this week and, although we didn't achieve every goal we had set out to do this week, we did a much better job of it had we not used it.

The chart showing the goals we wanted to achieve each day this week (eg: scripture reading, exercise, chores, reading, piano, knitting....we started doing this one on Wednesday and I highlighted the ones we achieved (oops, forgot to highlight what we completed on Saturday and Sunday on this chart) - but we did pretty good overall

Sunday, 11 February, 2018

Well, this blog entry will be short - there wasn't much going on this week as Dad tried to get his health back to normal.  I went out with my teacher friends for another iced chocolate (great catching up with friends and having a delicious iced chocolate), had a facial and a massage (always so relaxing) and I went over to Robyn's place for a sit (and a yak) in her hot tub (which wasn't so hot - it's called a spa here as sometimes it's hot water [if the weather is cold] or cool water [if the weather is hot] - it was great to catch up with Robyn after our cruise.  Dad and I both had a chiropractic visit as our backs were quite out after the cruise and we had a guy come over to give us a quote about putting in some concrete pads.  We had Robyn over for dinner tonight as she needed some help from Dad in learning how to download podcasts to her phone.  See, told you, not much exciting this week happened at all. 

Sunday, 4 February, 2018

DAY 13 OF THE CRUISE - Monday, 29 January, 2018

Today we landed in Wollongong which is just south of Sydney.  We took a shuttle bus into town and then hopped on the free bus which went around the city of Wollongong.  There wasn't really that much of interest to see.  They passed by the university, a botanic garden and drove around the streets of what is pretty much a fairly typical town.  When we finished the bus tour, we walked down the main street and had a stickybeak in a few stores before heading back to the ship.  Dad still wasn't feeling 100%, so we didn't want to do too much walking that day.  The show that night was titled 'Piano Man' which was performed by the Royal Caribbean singers and dancers.  The show featured the music of Billy Joel, Elton John, Barry Manilow and Ray Charles.  This was a new group of singers and dancers and was their first time performing on this ship.  They were pretty much what we have come to expect from a ship's singers and dancers - the main singers were pretty good, but the others were just okay and the dancers were okay.

The Wollongong Mission Uniting Church -  built in 1882 - we saw this church as we were walking down the main street heading back to the shuttle bus which returned us to the ship - I love the fact that they left this beautiful old building alone when they built the two new modern buildings on either side of it

DAY 14 - Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Today's port was Newcastle which is just north of Sydney.  We have been to Newcastle before - Dad worked there a few years ago and we did quite a bit of walking and sightseeing around the city at that time.  However, our trivia friends, Ken and Katherine, offered to show Dad, me and our other trivia mate, Richard, around Newcastle, so we took them up on it.  First, Dad arranged an Uber to get us up to the beginning of the Newcastle Memorial Walk. This is a clifftop walkway which was built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli and to honour the men and women of the Hunter area who served their community and country in World War I.  It's a beautiful walk overlooking the ocean on one side and the city on the other - it was a really lovely walk.

 View of Newcastle from the start of the Memorial Walk

Surfers in the ocean taken from the beginning of the Memorial Walk

 Part of the Memorial Walk on the right overlooking the ocean

 Our trivia mate, Richard, on the Memorial Walk

 The walk features steel silhouettes of soldiers inscribed with close to 4,000 family names of almost 11,000 known Hunter Valley men and women who served during World War I

 Views from the Memorial Walk

 Our ship is in the middle of the photo (taken from the Memorial Walk)

 View of the beach taken from the Memorial Walk

Another view of our ship docked in Newcastle

After enjoying the walk, we took another Uber down to Fort Scratchley - it was a former coastal defense installation built in 1882 to defend the city of Newcastle against a possible Russian attack and is now an interactive museum.  The fort is normally closed on a Tuesday, but as our cruise ship was there for the day, the fort was opened specifically for cruise passengers to be able to tour it.  We walked around the fort checking out the various buildings and reading about the history of the fort and what each building was used for - it was very interesting.  After checking out inside the buildings, we walked around the grounds.  When we came to the flag pole, we noticed that some people were trying to put up a Canadian flag.  It turned out that a Canadian guy had brought with him from Canada an official Canadian flag which he had obtained from his member of Parliament.  He asked one of the volunteers if they would raise his flag up the flag pole so that he could take a picture - that was a cool thing to happen on this day. 😃

 Raising of the Canadian flag on the Fort Scratchley flagpole

 Selfie sitting on a bench on the Fort Scratchley grounds with the ocean in the background

 Newcastle Ocean Baths - carefully crafted Federation Free classic style facade and ocean baths complex - the baths pavilion was designed in 1922 - the baths are a significant heritage asset that are free and open year round.

The Death Plaque - during the First World War, the first a family would know of the death of a loved one was the arrival of a telegram from the Australian Government.  Following that notification, the next of kin of the serviceman/woman would receive this plaque.  It had several names including the 'Death Plaque', the 'Widow's Penny' and the 'Dead Man's Penny'.

 The servant's quarters with a wash tub, wringer and an iron

 Views from the fort

 Getting ready to fire the Time Gun

 View of Nobby's Beach from the fort

The Time Gun at the fort

After we had toured the fort, we walked down to Nobby's Beach so that Richard could get a photo taken of him there and so we could all get a nice cool drink (I got an iced chocolate, of course! 😃   We decided to start walking back to the shuttle bus from the beach, but hadn't gone far when it was close to 1pm, so we stopped in a park where we could see the fort from.  At 1pm, the volunteers fired the Time Gun (a cannon) indicating it was 1pm or 13:00 hours, with our ship's captain and other officials present at the fort.  During cruise ship season, the guns are fired in salute on departure of the ships from Newcastle Harbour; generally three rounds are fired.  This occured for us while we were in the middle of playing trivia.

Looking towards the lighthouse on Nobby's Head

Enjoying my iced chocolate 😃

 Walking away from Nobby's Beach heading back to the shuttle bus

  Looking back at the fort

Can you see the smoke from the firing of the Time Gun?

Dad's video of the firing of the Time Gun

After viewing the firing of the Time Gun, we continued our walk back to the ship.

 Customs House - it was built in 1877 - it housed Australian Customs offices and was used for the collection of customs duties - in 1995, alterations were carried out to convert it to the Customs House Hotel and includes a restaurant and bar, an outdoor beer garden and upstairs function rooms

The Civic Precinct Advisory Group of Newcastle commissioned a local artist to paint murals on bollards around the city - Dad is leaning on one of them

 Beautiful architecture in Newcastle

 Queens Wharf Tower

 Loving this architecture!

 Harry's Cafe de Wheels (it's a converted Sydney R-Class Tram)  - we ate there when we were in Newcastle a few years ago - I was hoping to be able to have one of their amazing meat pies with mashed potatoes and mushy peas, but we only got to see it from the shuttle bus

A cool sculpture outside the Newcastle Museum - Constance the Camel - it represents the history and culture of migrants - it is made of metal and covered in rivets and bolts 

 My dessert on the last night of the cruise - soooooo yummy!

My brownie with chocolate sauce - I got that to take back to the cabin each night starting about half way into the cruise - it was a delicious way to end each day 😄

On Wednesday, it was time to disembark from the ship and head home.  Since we both had nasty coughs and hadn't felt 100%, especially Dad, we weren't too unhappy about getting off the ship this time.  This was our seventh cruise and this was the first time that either one of us had felt under the weather on the ship - it's much nicer to be well when you are cruising.  After waiting a very long time for the shuttle Dad had ordered, we FINALLY made it to the airport (in time, thankfully) and flew our two planes home to Hervey Bay arriving back to our house at about 6pm.  It was good to be home!  We spent the rest of this week resting up, drinking lots of water and just trying to get better.  Our coughs were still noticeable today and so we didn't want to go to church and pass it on to anyone.  We hope that we will be over this nastiness soon.