We woke after a lovely nights sleep. Our cottage has a breakfast hamper included every day and were looking forward to seeing if was as good as described. It was delivered on time at 7:30am and ..OMG The smell of a fresh warm loaf of bread was DEVINE!!
In the basket we unloaded, Bacon, Eggs (fresh from their own chooks!) German Sausages, 1/2 an Avodaco, Tomato, Mushrooms, Juice, the loaf of bread and a bowl of jam, honey, vegemite and peanut butter
M cooked us a lovely breakfast and we managed to not eat ALL the bread 🙂
Being Good Friday, we knew many places would be closed today, so the plan is to do a forest walk this morning.
We had seen that there are many walks close by our cottages, but on looking a bit deeper, many of them seem a bit long and/or steep for us to risk. It can be a little precarious hiking when you can’t see well 😀
One of the brochures we had collected was for Skywalk and it was open today. Everything is only a short drive on the mountain and we arrived a few minutes after they opened. We had expected it to be busy, and we were glad there not too many people around early.
One bonus was they had a discount for using the Seniors card. 🙂 There has to be some benefit in being “old” haha 🙂
Neither of us are particularly great with heights and I did not know how I would be. M said he is OK with heights now that he can’t see the drop!! As it turned out, the high railings made it fine and I did not get any vertigo at all.
We enjoyed a slow wander through the forest. The paths are really well maintained, with lots of sign posts along the way explaining the plants we could see and some history of the area.
Finishing the loop we arrived back at the entry way and were surprised how busy it now was. We were VERY happy we came early.
Heading back into the village we went on the hunt for lunch. Driving back up the Gallery Walk proved fruitless as there was no parking available.
We finally found parking for “Bailey’s Irish Pub”.
We were very lucky as they were also very busy. We managed to secure a table for two, but we noticed many people being turned away because they were full.
The pub had decorated a tree for Easter. It was very cute 🙂
We had a very delicious meal of Lamb Stew with Soda bread for me and a Beef and Guinness pie for M.
Feeling very full, we headed back to the cottage and relaxed for the afternoon. (With another fire :). )
We do always try to get way at both Easter and Christmas and this year is no different.
After seeing a travel show a while ago highlighting the Scenic Rim and Tamborine Mountain. We thought it looked like a good option.
Tamborine Mountain is roughly 2 hours from home (which we expect to take longer thanks to Easter traffic.)
Google showed us lots of accommodation options and finally we settled on a “Private Rainforest Spa Cottage” at Witches Falls Cottages.
I also had a vague recollection that one of my friends had her partner surprise her with a weekend away to Tamborine Mountain recently. I spoke to her and YES they had been in the area last Easter. She gave me a list of “must see’s”
Armed with my list I hit Google to get a good idea of where everything is. I like having a loose plan—not too structured, but enough to know what’s nearby and where we might want to stop.
So that’s our Easter! A few relaxing days in the mountains, surrounded by trees, good food, and hopefully some lovely cool days (Hopefully cool enough for a fire in the cottage’s fireplace)
I’ll be sharing our adventures as we go, so follow along if you’re curious to see what Tamborine Mountain has to offer.
The family arrived at our apartment around 5:00pm. As we expected the boys are growing so fast. We had a lovely time at “Nana’s New Holiday House”
The boys were very surprised that the Easter Bunny had been early and left some presents here. The decision was made that he had dropped them off here early because they were not chocolate eggs, and he would have been too busy and not had room in his basket on Saturday. 😀😀
After dinner we chatted for a while until the kids got tired and it was time to take them home.
We had a comfortable nights sleep, and after breakfast we headed over to the family’s new home here in Newcastle. They have been in their new house for a couple of months now and have settled in well. The house is set on a hillside and is gorgeous, with lovely views over a green leafy suburb. They have natural bushland behind them which adds to the charm.
The boys were so excited to show us their rooms and the pool.
For lunch we headed to a lovely big local park for fish and chips, a kick of the footy and playing on the equipment. The council have done a great job with this park.
After lunch it was time to go to BMX. It has been a long time since I have been to BMX. Not since their dad was not too much older than T.
T made sure we knew exactly which outfit he was wearing so we would know which rider was him. I told him all we had to do was look at the front rider. 😀😀. He replied with “Not always”. but it mostly was, with T winning 3 out of 4 of his races, only narrowly coming second to another rider..
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Leading the pack right to the finish.
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Little H does so well. He is only 3 and cannot make it all the way around the track yet, and Dad has to run around after him to give him a bit of a push over some of the hills, but he loves it so much and comes back off the track with a HUGE grin on his face
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🙂 Poor Dad has just as much exercise as Little H
Little H nearly “did a Bradbury” when some of the others had a crash.
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While we were at BMX, I got a text message from the hotel saying that they had bad news. The hot water system for the resort had broken down d we would no longer have hot water and it was unlikely to be fixed for the duration of our stay. We were offered the option of staying and receiving compensation or they could help find alternative accommodation. We decided that the chances of getting alternative accommodation at this late date would be pretty unlikely, so we chose to stay. We will have a “bird bath” on Sunday morning and stop off at the family for a hot shower before we hit the road on Monday.
Back at home after a big day in the sun, we had dinner and were in bed fairly early looking forward to another day of fun tomorrow.
Finally, our holiday plans are coming back to some sort of normality post CoVid.
This year we are travelling south the Newcastle to visit the grandkids and then to Hobart to look at a house we are considering.
If you have followed my blog, you may remember we have bought a block of land overlooking the Derwent River in Tranmere. We have made the decision to sell that block and purchase a house on a slightly less steep block to cater better for M.
We have an offer on the block and are waiting for it to go unconditional. In the meantime, we have found a gorgeous house that we want to view before we sign our lives away 🙂
The decision to fly to Hobart came at the last minute, after we had already booked our roadtrip south. Rather than coming all the way back home from Newcastle, we are driving to Brisbane Airport and flying to Hobart.
The itinerary looks like this…
Thursday
6th
Accom
Coffs Harbour
Charlesworth Bay Beach Resort
Friday
7th
Newcastle
The Brighton Toronto
Saturday
8th
Sunday
9th
Monday
10th
Glen Innes
Glen Innes Motel
Tuesday
11th
Northgate
Comfort Inn Toombul Road
Wednesday
12th
Parking
Airport
Park’n’Fly
Flights
BNE>HBT
Virgin
Car
East Coast
Corolla
Accom
Howrah
Shoreline Hotel
Thursday
13th
Friday
14th
Saturday
15th
Sunday
16th
Flights
HBT> BNE
Virgin
We have packed the car and are ready to head off bright and early in the morning.
We awoke to find a grey and drizzly day looming. The weather reports had shown we were in for a wet Easter, so we felt lucky to have dodged rain for the last couple of days.
After breakfast in the apartment we decided to head into Rockhampton to have a look around and find “something” to do. Before that though we knew we wanted to visit a French Patisserie/Providore for morning tea. Baked on 44 did not disappoint. I chose an Apricot Danish and M had a Vanilla Cannoli. I forgot to take pictures but you can be assured they were both perfect. The range of goods in the shop was extensive with something for everybody.
We decided to go to the Rockhampton visitor information centre to get some inspiration for the days activity. The information centre is location ON the tropic of Capricorn and its Spire acts as a sundial to show Earth’s movement around the Sun.
With the main street of Rockhampton being closed today due to the Rocky Nats car festival, we decided to take a drive out to Mount Morgan. It is a fairly short 35-40 min trip. About half way the road climbs up the range with a stretch of highway that is very steep and windy. Luckily the speed limit is only 40km/h and it was not too scary 🙂 We stopped at the Mt Morgan Lookout at the top of the range. This lookout was designed to replicate a mineshaft and provides a great view over the valley toward Rockhampton. I am sure on a fine, sunny day we would have a much better view.
Somewhat grey view from the Mount Morgan Lookout.
We arrived in Mount Morgan shortly after and found the bakery for lunch. Mount Morgan is a typical Aussie country town, with a number of historic buildings. Sadly (as is often the case when we travel at Easter) many of the attractions and museums were closed for the holiday. We sat at a picnic table to have our pies before heading back toward Rockhampton and home.
The trip back toward the coast was a bit slower as it was raining most of the way. We got back to the apartment shortly before 4:00, did a load of washing, prepared dinner and had a quiet night watching TV.
We were just about ready to turn in when we heard “boom boom boom” I realised it was 9:00 and the noise would be fireworks from the “Easter Extravaganza” at Emu Park. We opened the front door of the apartment and sure enough the sky was filled with colour. Just about everybody from the resort was out watching – most in our pj’s. We enjoyed the show for about half an hour before finally going to bed.
