Well mum &dad arrived safely, a much better journey than they anticipated! They stayed over in Dubai for 3 days but at 40 degrees they didn’t venture outside much! It was a bit like Christmas because they brought over my orders from Boots, M&S and Debenhams! They have seen a lot of Melbourne now and have ventured into the city a few times, the train network is so easy then they get the free tourist shuttle which gives a commentary and hop on/off at many points. They have stocked up with UGG boots for the family from Victoria market already.

We have been to Sydney for 4 days in early Oct, that was a busy time with lots of sightseeing and walking. We had a cruise around the harbour and sailed alongside the Sydney harbour bridge and Opera house, visited Bondi beach which was very quiet as it was a weekday and walked the botanic gardens. The gardens were beautiful and I happened to glance up to the tree tops to see bats hanging from the trees! Apparently they were fruit bats and there were lots of them, chattering to each other and swooping around – uggh!

We got back from Queensland last Wednesday, we had an amazing time there as I have never been to any tropical parts of the world before. We stayed in a lovely town called Port Douglas which is 60km  north of  Cairns, so lush and green with coconut palms, fruit trees and tree palms growing in abundance. The garden of our apartment had mango and lychee trees growing, every morning we picked fresh mangoes! The temperature was 30 degrees everyday and the scenery was stunning.  We went on a riverboat ride through a rainforest and saw 5 metre salt water crocs lounging on the side, and on a ski lift ride over the canopy of the forest and returned on a rickety old train. The following days we went to the Great Barrier Reef. The boats departed from Port Douglas and was about a 90 min ride out to the many reefs. We went to the outer reef which is apparently one of the best reefs, Ellie and I went on a snorkel trip with the marine biologist who pointed out many different fish and coral, including a giant clam. He brought up a purple starfish and a monster fish which we held, and we saw all the fish that are in finding Nemo, including Dory and Nemo hiding in the sea anemone! The catamaran docked at a large pontoon and had semi-submersibles which mum, dad and Steve went on and saw the reef that way.

As the climate is tropical the ‘critters’ up there were large and scary! We arrived at our hotel at 9pm so sat in the outdoor restaurant as it was still 24 degrees, hawk eye Ellie kept spotting the insects by uttering ‘what the hell is that!’ The waiter brought this huge black bug over that was the size of a 2 pound coin, it was a rhino horn beetle and when he touched it’s back it reared up and hissed like a snake – jeez, we nearly knocked the table over as we jumped back! We used to get a visit from the fruit bats and flying fox bats every evening at dusk who would sit in the mango trees every night munching through the fruit  and the occasional cane toad would hop by, what a strange experience. I have  never seen the yellow warning signs indicating crocodiles were in the creeks and bottles of vinegar on the beaches in case if jelly fish stings before either! It was a fabulous holiday though and I would definitely go back.

The weather has been very changeable, we can have a 30 degree day followed by 18 degrees and rain! It has been very wet of course and they have had to release one of the dams for the first time in 15 years, people are still blaming us for bringing over the ‘English’ weather!

Work is going ok at the moment, though it has been busy and getting a lunch break is becoming a luxury – here we go again! Part of the problem is the age of my colleagues – most of them are approaching or over 60, so they either have 6 months or more long service leave or are off sick!  Our new manager started 4 weeks ago, she is lovely and about my age (so not  old!), she has made a few changes already and has many more in the pipeline, there are practices happening that make me shudder and would never happen in the UK, but they are being addressed. I’ll just keep plodding on and see how things go, I still have my job offer from the other hospice!

Steve’s work is going through changes, they have to do psychometric testing and are re-writing job descriptions etc so everyone is very unsettled and morale is low, we will see what happens over the next month or so. Ellie is fine, doing end of year exams as they finish for the summer hols mid December.

Tom will be coming over on 6th Dec and Sam will land the week later, the year has passed by so quickly. Tom will have completed his 3 years at Oxford in June ans is looking for internships/jobs at the moment. Xena is having a good time as she gets walked a lot and treats off mum & dad, she will be lost when they leave next week!