Roll on Spring

We're are now in winter and you can tell there is a nip in the air. It went down to 7 degrees last night and will only climb up to 17 degrees during the day bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrr! At least the sun is shining which is much better than last week's rain.

But then again, I've looked at the weather in Derby and it's pretty much the same and it's there summer. Sorry guys.

I've been whale watching again. It's been a great season so far and I've lost count of how many whales I've seen going up the coast. Normally I haven't got my camera with me but I did manage a couple of photos recently.

Relooking at the photos, I need to try again. This was a humpback whale's flipper and was spotted at the end of our road.

A visit to the UK

Jacob and I have booked to visit the UK in September. We'll be landing at Heathrow on 22nd September and returning to Australia on 21st October. We're stopping with my parents and also plan to have a week in Spain but will have plenty of time to catch up with friends and family.

Dave has decided to stay here and we'll be using his annual leave wisely. We have asked to return to Europe in March and will be having a few more holidays within Australia before we leave.

Lack of updates

The family Allen have been on a road trip up to the Sunshine Coast.

We decided to have a long drive up to Queensland visiting some friends on the way. If we had drove directly there, the journey would have taken just under 11 hours and around 940 kms - and that's only one way!

To cut a long journey short. We stopped in a couple of places on the way there, as we didn't want to make Jacob stay in the car for too long. We found that MacDonalds had great play areas for Jacob to burn some extra energy and the coffee wasn't too bad in the McCafe either for us. Jacob can now claim that he has been on swings and slides all along the coast and back! We stopped with Jules, Lincoln, Morgan, Milly and Jenson for a couple of nights on the Gold Coast and then via Caloundra to see Karen and Kirrily before finding our place in Noosaville for three nights.

It was lovely and warm and the sun shone quite a bit. We could wear shorts and t-shirts once again and enjoy playing on the beach. We found some nice places for the odd breakfast and lunch out and caught up with Karen, David and Kirrily again at a place called Cotton Tree. Jacob and Kirrily had a great play on the swings and slides there and we also managed a nice walk and a good catch up too. Lunch was brilliant and we didn't need to eat for hours!

On our return we stopped at Byron Bay for one night. I wanted to check this place out as I'd heard it was a lovely bay and that they had some good markets. No markets on the day we were there but we watched the sun go down, Jacob founds some swings and we managed to get a beer each too. It was then off to Coffs Harbour for the next night, a quick photo at the Big Banana and then on the Sunday we had a 5 hour drive home.

It was a great road trip, we enjoyed it but Dave managed to pick a cold up from somewhere, we've found that Jacob is into everything (including cupboards!) but it was nice to have a whole week together and discover some new places.

These are just a selection of the photos taken - there's plenty more ...