A whale of a time

Yes I know - I'm not very funny.

So this weekend was another very touristy weekend. We had a public holiday for the Ekka last Wednesday (the Ekka is like a big country show thing and everyone in Queensland gets a public holiday to go visit), and then Stu and I took the Thursday and Friday off, so we had a lovely 5 days of sightseeing.

On Friday we hired a car and drove up to Hervey Bay, stopping off at a really really lovely little beachy town called Mooloolabah on the way (as we know, Australians are all about towns with loads of Os in the name). We had a nice spot of lunch, pottered around a bit, just generally enjoyed being by the sea and not in the big smoke. Then we went on up to Hervey Bay and found our B&B which was just scrumptious. From the road I feared that we had made a big mistake, but out the back it was all glass with a fabulous view of the lake and a myriad of wildlife, and a shitload of wee turtles living in the lake. Once again our hosts were just lovely. I just can't get over the fact that Australians don't really seem to be that into B&Bing as they really do have some fabulous ones.

Saturday was the main event - whale watching. Around this time of year the humpback whales are migrating down the east coast of Australia back to Antartica, and they hang out and have a bit of a rest just off the coast of Hervey Bay - it's the only place in the world where you're pretty much guaranteed to see them spy hopping, breaching and bobbing around and doing all the stuff they are famous for.

We went out on a wee catamaran, with only about 20 of us, which after seeing all the laden multi deck big yachty things we were pretty pleased about. We first came across a group of 3 'teenagers' who were doing a pretty good show for one of the other boats - at one point one of them stuck his head right out to the other boat to see what they were up to. I was quite crippled with jealousy at this point I must admit. The folk who ran the boat said that often they are attracted to interesting things in their environment, so they come up to the boat which is making the most noise. They are pretty much big show offs, so if they get big claps and cheers etc they'll do more.

We returned to those 3 again later in the day, and at this point we were the only boat with them, so we got very busy with the clapping and cheering. They were so so so close - and then someone noticed that we could only see 2 of them. We looked down and the sea under the boat was totally turquoise because just enderneath us was a belly up whale. He then spy hopped out of the water right in front of us - probably about as close to me as you are to the computer screen. I nearly wet my pants. They hung around for ages, and on about 3 or 4 separate occasions bobbed out to see what we were up to. It was AMAZING.

Below are some pics etc - they don't really do it justice as we were pretty busy just watching to be honest, and Stu couldn't follow my very simple instruction to put the camera onto record instead of pictures (I was very cross). A word of warning with regard to the videos though - you might just be able to make out the sounds of a very over-excited and annoying pom whooping and cheering for all her life's worth. Let the record show that we had been asked to do this - and by heck it paid off.

The great Hervey Bay Wildlifeathon

England regain the Ashes!

Busy old weekend last weekend...

On Friday - miracle of miracles our stuff finally arrived from England! It only took a brief 5.5 months for them to get their fingers out of their arses and sort it out. Also we didn't get any customs or quarantine charges or anything, which I was a little surprised about, but pretty pleased. Maybe this is because some senior people from customs were at our conference and I pestered them to just wave it through or I would stand next to them scratching my lurgy til they were sick.

Saturday morning I volunteered, and Stu went to look at a house. I had a great morning volunteering - a rainbow lorikeet was brought in, and decided that I was his best buddy. He wouldn't budge off my shoulder all day and ran away from anyone else who tried to handle him. As I was chopping all the fruit for everyone else he kept climbing down my arm to pinch it. It was very sweet and I am a little bit in love with him. Unfortunately no-one warned me about their amazing liquid projectile poo. Also I got chatting to one of the cat ladies, and she said that there are some vacancies coming up there soon, so I might get to indulge my love of the kitty soon, and help find them all new loving homes. Yay!

Stu went to look at this house, which is in Paddington, a very nice burb of Brisbane and next to my work which is nice. We have put in an application, but are having some trouble with getting a reference from our current apartment. The staff here are about as much use as tits on a bull, and keep on losing the reference requests. If we lose out on the house because of their crippling incompetence you will probably be able to hear me shouting from the UK.

On Sunday we went over to a park in Kangaroo Point for the inaugural SMS ashes. Stu's company have hired a shitload of poms lately, and in the interests of fostering cordial international relations they arranged a poms v strines cricket match. Which bright spark thought it was a good idea to organise a competitive event in order to bring peace, harmony and understanding between these 2 nations I don't know. The important thing is - we won. In your FACE Australia. Stuart Robinson (despite having an interesting running style) managed to take out 2 wickets. I was all proud.

The SMS Ashes

Today is a public holiday here, which is nice. Then we have Thursday and Friday off, and on Friday we go on a wee road trip up the coast to go whale watching. I am quite excited, and may have to invest in some Tena Lady to avoid embarrassment. I am also quite interested to see how our driving is after 6 months off. You can expect an extremely over excited blog next weekend sometime.

In other news, we are now fully set up on Skype. If any of you have the equipment and want to talk to us (and see us!) for free, our username is teamrobinson. I have to say it is ace and I am quite the convert to internet calling.

The Bleak Midwinter

Well I suppose it isn't really all that bleak on the whole, but the weather has certainly taken a turn for the chilly in the last couple of weeks. I haven't yet succumbed to the temptation to wear a scarf, gloves and hat in the office, but everyone here is very smug that I have finally started wearing long sleeves and jackets and the suchlike. At least it's raining though - it's nice to see the parks and stuff turning a little green, rather than drought brown as they have been (perhaps a nice suggestion for a dulux colour palette).

Not an awful lot of news to report from the Robinson house as usual. We are finding ourselves desperately skint at the minute - it's a costly business setting yourself up all over again. Bloody bloody Allied Pickfords have given us a wee rebate though, which is nice and will go some way to making my final payment to Reed for what I owe them for the privelege of being made redundant. However in typical Robinson style in order to combat the money blues we have booked ourselves a couple of touristy trips that we can't pay for. In a couple of weekends we'll be going to Toowoomba, above 130ks west of here. Don't know what prompted it to be honest - I just saw a travel type program about a lovely B&B there and decided we needed to go. It'll be nice to get out of the city at least, although I am assured it will be positively freeeeeezing there (the temperature may even reach SINGLE FIGURES PEOPLE).

Also we're going on a whale watching trip to Hervey Bay in August, to see some Humpbacks before the Japanese kill them all in the name of scientific research. I am so excited I could pee, so probably should not bang on about that too much as I am currently at work and peeing at my desk may be considered inappropriate.

This weekend we went to see Dame Edna Everage for a work paid jolly by Stu's company. It was a very nice do - champagne and canape reception and whatnot. We were all pretty concerned when we got our tickets that we were in rows A-C which implies front row, which is not necessarily a good thing in what would probably be an enforced audience participation show. Fortunately we were spared too much humiliation - unlike the poor soul who was hoiked up onto the stage and made to give up his Mum's phone number so Dame Edna could ring her up. Very amusing.

Ummmm.... not much else to tell. Other than - if you remember - there is a big building site over the road from our building, right in the line of fire of our view of the botanical gardens. Turns out that not only are they building there, but they are building the biggest bloody tower in Brisbane, twice as tall as everything else. Fab.