VanDijkTrack

Already soon after the holiday we visited a monster truck show. It was a fund raiser (one of many) from several schools together. One of the trucks already had visited the school of Nicole and Jorick. After that the kids were really exited to go and we bought some tickets. The whole show contained monster trucks crashing a row of cars (we kept ours at the car park), a jump show by a local motor club and a stuntman driving through fire. It was fun to see it, once.

On the 25th of April it was Joricks 5th birthday. He already got us out of bed very early so the presents were unpacked soon after sunrise. He also got several presents from overseas. Thanks for that ! Your are still on their mind ! Often they think and talk about you friends and family in the Netherlands and are looking forward to meet you again (like their parents do).

A week later Jorick had his birthday party with some friends from school and his former pre-schools. Already half a year he was telling us that he wanted a treasure hunt on a pirate party, so that’s what we did. In our garden we made a treasure hunt with several games and finally they found … YESS! It was a challenging walk making them tired, not quiet 🙂  We also had some games in the shed as you can see on the picture.  (as always, for privacy reasons not many pictures are shown with others and some cannot be enlarged)

The next day Jorick had a lot of presents to play with and we took a day to relax in/around our house. The trampoline is sometimes a good way to spend some energy. Also the frog pond is still fascinating. Especially Nicole can spend hours watching and catching.

And a shower coming over is not any problem. You just sit together under the umbrella to keep watching all garden activity.

The next day we went to Tamborine National Park, around 80 km south of Brisbane in the Gold Coast Hinterland. It’s a rainforest close to Lamington Park (where we will go camping next week). There are many walking tracks to choose from. We did the Witches Chase Track and the Witches Falls circuit. The big Red Cedar trees can become 60 meters high and many hundreds of years old. Often they are surrounded by Strangler Figs are very impressive.

On the mountain there’s the village Tamborine Mountain with a lot of (touristic) activity. Shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. Here also you can find many places to picnic with barbecues.  In effect we met several people walking in the Park as well. After our quiet experiences further north two weeks ago it was a bit different. Nevertheless the nature is beautiful.

Below you’ll find a commercial touristic movie about Tamborine Mountain and a movie of the local road, both giving an impression of the area. 

Cheers,

Jan, Anita, Nicole and Jorick.

In the weekend we made a beautiful trip to Benarkin State Forest.  Benarkin is a village located off the D’Aguilar Highway with a general store and a population of around 200 residents. Before we went into the Bush the kids had a play in the “First settlers memorial park” after a long trip from Brisbane. Following to that we went into the bush and ended up at a Picnic place where we had a BBQ.

Closer to the city you often find gas-barbeques, but further into the bush often the barbeques need to be burned with wood that you have to take with you or gather it from the bush. So that’s what we did.

When we stated a walk along the Emu Creek Gorge, we saw an exceptional  beautiful environment developed in the humidity of the gorge. We saw many birds, snakes and other animals.

A snake that’s not frightened and doesn’t flee from you is often not a good sign. Nevertheless Anita couldn’t leave the animal before taking a picture. It shows where the snake is watching us with his head hidden under a leaf. After having  seen this and other snakes we continued our walk very carefully.

Overall it was a great walk in a beautiful area, although the combination of a high density forest with the high humidity and the (sounds of) many (hidden) animals sometimes were a bit scary.

Nicole is proud, and so are her parents, that she received a “Head of School Award”. This award is given to her because she already earned 5 Merit Certificates. Taking into account that she started last year 1 month after the start of year 1 AND without speaking any word of English she has done very well. In the past she earned the following Merit Certificates:

1) “Excellent progress with learning a new language – English ! (28 May 2008)

2) “Good progress in Reading” (24 June 2008)

3) “For beautiful, neat handwriting when copying from the board.” (28 July 2008)

4) “Outstanding homework” (27 October 2008)

5) “Being an excellent helper during our art lesson.  Encouraging others. (2 March 2009)

Besides this she got a certificate for good behavior and several reading awards. Although this “Head of School Award” one of the most important ones and is showing good performance, we are confused by the honoring system. We are positive about the fact that the school tries to stimulate kids with this type of tools. However, sometimes it is confusing (for kids and parents) to see all kind of different awards, certificates, medals, stamps, etc.

Warm regards from us all.