On Wednesday morning we had to pick up the children from school being part of precaution rules. Also many people were sent home from work (Anita included). Many roads weren’t accessible anymore giving enormous traffic problems.
The creek in our garden is now several meters wide with our dam overflowing, but we don’t suffer from any damage. The house is up high and dry, electricity is on and we are safe.
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.
