Bank Holidays and the Cooloola Way!

One of the best things I've discovered about Australia is the number of public holidays ... 14 in a year! (now get your diary out and count the number you have in the UK). The last two consecutive Mondays have been bank holidays, which means nice short four-day weeks for me. The first was Anzac Day (25th May), to remember all the ANZAC Gallipoli soldiers that us "Pommie Bastards" sent to their deaths (I made a bit of an effort not to wind anyone up about this!), and we've just had Labour Day last week (2nd May).

We didn't do a great deal for Anzac weekend. Ella worked on her PhD and I did some exam marking for a local University on the Saturday, but by the Monday we were going a bit stir crazy and felt like a trip to the beach, so we went an hour to Currumbin beach.
Here's a picture of Ella at Currumbin beach on ANZAC day. Currumbin's on the Gold Coast, which is south of Brisbane, and very popular with surfers, and seasidey people. I mean it's hardly Skeggy, but I guess they don't have such luxuries here!!!


For the May Day Bank Holiday Weekend we drove up to Coolum, an hour and a half north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast. We met Helen and Jacques who had won a weekend at an apartment at Coolum and invited us along. A fun weekend ensued, with lots of dirt-track driving (and a Monday morning exhaust repair on the Brumby to follow as a result), and a brilliant "bush-walk" on the Sunday on the Cooloola Way.

Here's Jacques, Helen and Ella yomping through the bush.




The lunchtime stop was at the very impressive Wadi Waterhole, this shot doesn't really do it justice ... but you'll just have to settle for this unless you a pay a visit yourself!



So I've had two four-day weeks in a row, which have been pretty hard work, actually. Football is going well at Kangaroo Point Rovers (you can have a look at their website if you can find it through Google) and I play my first game for them this afternoon. I hope the weather stays fairly cool!