Monday 14 May 2012

Hamilton Island Paradise

11th-14th  May 2012

With Friday and Monday booked off work, we headed to Hamilton island with the family.



Hamilton Island is one of the largest islands in the Whitsunday isalnds, otherwise known as paradise!

The island airport is pretty small and the runway tiny, we must have landed 1 meter from the sea and by the time we finally stopped we were a meter from the sea at the other end of the runway!

As soon as the plane doors opened we were greeted with a more humid 25 degrees! Ben was also our chauffeur and was waiting with our golf buggy. The 'bug' would be our mode of transport for the next 4 days, as there are no cars on the island and everyone drives around on golf buggies.

Friday afternoon we headed down to the beach for a swim, Ben and James were the only ones brave enough to head in for a swim in the clear blue water (even though the sea was warm).

We finished off the day with a bbq on the terrace and a good few bottles of wine.


BBQ and Beers!


 The view from our Balcony!

Saturday 12th was our 10 year anniversary of when we first became a couple, for an anniversary we were returning to Whitehaven beach, the location we got engaged 6 years ago. We got a catermaran out to the beach, we went a shore and had time for a walk up to a viewing point to take in the entire view of the island and beach.





Joanne, Ted, Ben and James donned their stinger suits (used to ward off the jelly fish) and went swimming in the crystal clear blue waters, while Sarah made friends with some Sydney-sider's



Stingers!!!
On Sunday we started the day with a walk on one of the islands many trails up and over the rolling hills, it was a hot day and a picnic at the top was awesome! the views were stunning.



Sunday afternoon saw us rent a small dinghy and sail around one of the beach inlets, great fun, and admiral Lawton came in to her own out on the water!

We then retired to the yacht club for a glass of wine and Sarah made friends with the sunsail crew on thier 39ft boat.

The aliens are coming!

With another bbq, and many bottles of wine our trip to Hamilton island was almost over. We packed up and returned to Sydney on Monday, while Joanne and Ted got a flight to Brisbane.

Driving back from the yacht club!

Its pretty amazing to have such an island paradise only a 2 hr flight from Sydney and it wont take us 6 years to return again!

Sunday 6 May 2012

Sailing, Indian costumes and beach BBQ's!

This weekend was jam packed with activities!! Saturday was Sarah's first day racing around the harbour from Kirribilli Royal yacht squadron. She managed to get a crew spot (after submitting a crew experience CV) on a brand new 35ft Beneteau Yacht and spent the day racing against 20 yachts and flying the spinnaker (her new role on deck).

Joanne Ted and James went to Surrey Hills for lunch and we all headed out to Ro and Dan's for an Indian party, in full Indian gear:









Sunday we headed off to Palm Beach (where Home and Away is filmed) for a beach BBQ and some fun in the sun!



Doing the typical Oz thing! A BBQ... :)


Yummy!!!!


The boys feeling the love!!







'Home and Away'





The end to a perfect day!


Friday 4 May 2012

The family arrive

We are so sorry for the immense lack of blogging of late! As you can imagine once life settled down a bit we were able to relax and try to be normal people.

That included kyaking around Sydney harbour, boat parties around the opera house and harbour bridge, dancing in the rain amongst sky scrapers to Circo loco tech house and Sarah getting involved in 12 hour drinking sessions with Ro and the girls (oh yes).

With the arrival of the end of April came the arrival of James' family to Sydney. First arrived Ben on Sunday 29th April 2012 then Joanne and Ted on Tuesday.

Ben and James endeavoured to go sight seeing on the Monday before Ted and Joanne arrived, but it sounded like they went sight seeing to the best of Sydney bars and crawled back in at 1 am!

Tuesday saw a casual stroll around Darling harbour, Wednesday was a walk around the botanical gardens and down to the Opera house with a ferry journey back to Pyrmont. On Thursday  a journey to the Manly beach was in order with Fish and chips by the sea front.

A stroll by the harbour bridge

Having a beer by the Opera house

Our ferry back to Pyrmont
The captain
On Thursday night we all headed out to our local Pyrmont Point hotel, to enjoy some Kangeroo.


Joey

Friday was devoted to lunch at Google with Sarah, and a wild ride on the harbour jet boat.

The Google balcony


Pre soaking

Post soaking

Not an advert for westfield