Australia

Well Noosa Heads in Queensland, Australia could be hard to top. Between the incredible weather (normally in the 80’s with pretty high humidity), the crystal clear water and fabulous surf we’ve had a wonderful 3 weeks here. We actually flew from a small industrial town called Gladstone which was where the ferry from Herron Island lands. We flew into Brisbane on Saturday night the first of December with the Irvings, rented a car and drove – on the left hand side of the road from the right side of the car no doubt – about 2 hours in the dark trying to find our accommodations.

We immediately found the great farmers market the next day and had incredible days surfing all different beaches. We found some nice point breaks that allowed all of us to take some of the longest rides of our lives. Our favorite turned out to be Tea Tree point which was about a ½ mile hike through the National Park on a shoreline trail. Absolutely spectacular! We’d see Koala’s in the trees, 3 foot long monitor lizards roaming the forest floor, Sea Turtles and Manta rays in the water, massive spiders and Kyle and Griffin were actually able to pet some large looking lizard before it high-tailed it to safety. Of course we saw Kangaroos in the wild and the kids were even able to pet them in a little park at the Zoo. Then of course there are tons of deadly snakes and spiders roaming around but we never saw a snake and don’t know if any of the spiders we ran from were poisonous or deadly. The small town feel of Noosa and the surrounding towns of the Sunshine Coast, the incredible beaches and the friendly people make this a place the Sweasey Family could enjoy living in.

One of the more exciting adventures was Blake and I deciding to give Kite surfing a try. With a great instructor who gave us helmets with microphones in them so he could bark instructions we ventured out across the Noosa River mouth which right into the ocean and parked on a massive sandbar for our training. I’ve done some windsurfing and wakeboarding and this is a “little” like a combination of those except the kite can actually lift an 185 American right off the ground and out of the water into the sky if you get it in the wrong spot. So learning to guide the kite is the skill that’s essential. It’s hard to describe but if you get the kite in a particular zone then you’re going to get launched like superman and when you’re learning that’s not a trick it’s “ #$%&up”. We’ll Lois it looks like the river mouth is safe today because it happened so quickly that I have no idea what happened but spectator accounts tell me I flew (without the board unlike the experts up the beach who were getting incredible air intentionally) about 20-30 feet before landing head first like a torpedo back in the water for a sinus enema. The great part is after much preparation on land with the kite, then in the water where simply “drag” with no board but practice going upwind, cross wind etc. that once I was actually handed the board I got right up and my coach was telling me what a great job I was doing and 5 seconds later he’s screaming at me saying I’ve lost total control and I need to calm down. Honestly, it happened so quickly I barely remember standing or flying or panicking but now I’m excited to give it a go again later.
So on 20 Dec we drove south 3 hours to Coolongatta on the Gold Coast which is more developed and crowded than Noosa. We’ll spend a couple days here till we drive to Lennox Head and spend 2 weeks before flying to New Zealand on January 6.

We had a wonderful 7 days back in SLO. We are happy to know after traveling the entire country that we live in the best place in the country with the best people. It was so nice to see so many of our friends. The young ladies staying in our house have been so great and moved out the week we were home as we had originally agreed but they’ve kept our home in such wonderful condition and we’re so appreciative. So we got our feet wet in the US in terms of extended travel and the next phase is Australia. Our scheduled departure was 7:49 PM Sunday. We answered the phone at the house on Sunday the 18th – our date of departure - and it was our airline telling us the flight from SLO to SFO was cancelled…yikes…. 4 years of planning for this trip and they cancel the flight! However, as long as we could come to the airport a couple hours early it was no problem to go through LAX. So we hustled up and got to the airport and made the departure at 10:30 PM Sunday for a 9:00 am Tuesday arrival. Virtually the same timeline as if we’d gone through SFO. Sydney and Manly Beach were incredible.

We enjoyed the Opera House, Marina and Zoo of Sydney but missed out on some of the other attractions we were interested in seeing because Manly was so perfect for us. Our apartment was ok but the view from the 9th floor was incredible. A huge sandy beach with a town established in the late 1800’s that has maintained much of the original architecture with plenty of new buildings as well. We walked the wide pedestrian only streets,ate in small cafes, shopped in the fresh fruit stands and bakeries. Apparently the population swells incredibly in the summer. Our typical day was up around 6:00-6:30, volleyball at the beach around 7:30 to 9:00, a little bodysurfing, go get some breakfast, do a late morning surf till 2 or 3, have lunch, back to the apartment to relax and then dinner and rent a movie. Of course there was reading and homework interspersed but you get the idea. 6 days, no car, take the Ferry or walk…it was incredible. Then we made the 3 hour flight to the small industrial town of Gladstone that’s a jumping off point to Heron Island – a 40 acre nature preserve on the S. end of the Great Barrier reef. It was here we caught up with our good friends the Irvings.

This small resort is world renowned for diving, snorkeling and fishing. The first day we got in the water, snorkeled across the reef to a partially submerged shipwreck and snorkeled around it with white tipped reef sharks. Of course most of us were VERY nervous but by the last day the kids were actually swimming after the sharks that ranged from3 to 6 feet in length. The amount and variety of marine life is overwhelming and more diverse than Belize, Mexico or Hawaii where we’ve snorkeled before. Maria, ever the claustrophobic one, actually signed us up for a scuba diving class where Blake, Carol, Maria and I learned to scuba in what seemed like 5 minutes of training before our instructor took us out on the roof in a boat for the real thing. Well, I’ve been in and around the Ocean most of my life but just putting that breathing thing in my mouth with that massive tank on my back and sitting underwater in a pool was unnerving to say the least. All of us were dealing with our own fears as we sat on the boat, put on our equipment and eventually jumped of the boat in about 30’ deep water. Then came the real moment of truth, grabbing a hold of the anchor rope going at an angle to the bottom which we couldn’t see! Hand over hand we went down, breathing, clearing our sinuses, adjusting our buoyancy and following most of the steps we had been “taught” just an hour or so earlier. Then we were off to explore The Deep. Well….explore is a bit of an embellishment, it was more like this in my mind “How come my ear hurts so bad, oh right, plug nose, blow out. Oh, that’s better. Why is the instructor waving at me…what’s he doing with his hands…oh no, he did that in class but I was joking around. What do those hand signals mean? It looks serious. Of course, I’m rising to the surface and everyone is 10 feet below me. I need to kick, ouch, my ear hurts again. I’ve got to blow through my nose. Darn it, I keep forgetting to breath…GASP, GASP, massive wheezing Gasp. What was that? Oh a fish. That’s coo….. I’m going to the surface again. My mask is full of water, gotta blow it out. Hey, where’s everybody else. Uh oh, swim fast, swim fast, catch the group, breath again you idiot.” Well you can imagine how much of the marine life I noticed. I’m pretty sure there was more than one fish in the vicinity in the 45 minutes we were underwater but I sure didn’t notice. After we got the signal to go up we did have a sense of accomplishment but realize that with time, practice and experience one could actually get an amazing perspective on The Reef which is teeming with life. Later that day we took the kids snorkeling virtually right off the island by the lounge and found hundreds of fish in knee to chest deep water and passed by over 10 sharks, a shovelnose guitar fish which was probably 7 feet long and saw a huge turtle laying it’s eggs on the beach. In all it was an incredible time. The final excitement came when we had to leave the island on a 100’ motorized Catamaran in pounding rain and gale force winds which had been steadily increasing for about 3 hours prior to our departure. After 2 bumpy hours we made it back to the Mainland before flying to Brisbane Australia and getting in the car for the 2 hour drive to Noosa Heads/Sunrise Beach where we are staying for about 3 weeks right next to the Irvings.