On Holidays for an Australian Christmas

Our lunch-time stop on the trip up to Rockhampton. There's
been lovely rain along the coast recently and we enjoyed
beautiful green along the road.

I'm well and truly into our Australian Christmas holiday mode now. Christmas holidays in Australia for me in the last 18 years has been travelling between our two family geographical areas: Toowoomba and Central Queensland (Rockhampton/Springsure). Granted this is only the seventh time but still...it's what we do when we're in Australia.

On Monday we came up to Rockhampton (it took 8 ½ hrs to drive it) to stay with David's mum. I realised how tired I was. I was really flagging by the time we arrived. 

So Tuesday we did a little bit of shopping, and not much else. Oh, the boys played lots of Wii games (and were very grumpy as a result).

Menacing creatures. This farm has thousands of crocs.

Can't believe I caught this image with my smart phone's
little camera.

We watched them harvest some crocodile eggs.
It required several people in order to hold back
mum, distract dad, spot, and collect.

Gorgeous view on the coast. The water was beautiful in colour.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we got into our tourist strides. We visited a local crocodile farm, which was great (my boys had a great time asking questions and learning about these amazing animals). Then we had lunch near the beach followed by a swim at the beach close to where David grew up. A couple of his aunties and one of his cousins with her two children came also. It's been dreadfully hot, so it was wonderful to hop in the water. I'm not a beach loving person and would usually sit and watch. But we were so hot yesterday (around 35 degrees or more) that I was the first into the water! The water was as warm as a pleasant bath. Amazing.

Can you possible guess that this is the inside
of the caves. My smart phone camera
didn't cope so well with the low-light of the caves.

Today I ended up going Christmas shopping with my mother-in-law. She wanted help in buying our family's presents. I have to say I'm a little embarrassed, she was very generous! This afternoon we revisited the local caves. We checked these out four and a half years ago when we drove through here on our way to Brisbane at the start of our last home assignment. The caves are still beautiful. Bonus in this weather is that is was lovely and cool inside.

Tonight David's mum looked after the boys so we got to go out on a date to a local Malaysian restaurant. Yum! One of the downsides of spending your holidays visiting family is that David and I get little time to ourselves. It was wonderful to just sit and chat.

Tomorrow we drive for half a day west to the rest of David's family. We'll stay at David's sister and brother-in-law's place again (like we did in September) and have an early Christmas with them on Saturday. Looking forward to seeing them again.

Next week we'll head eight hrs south to my family and celebrate Christmas on the actual day with them. The first time in 10 years that we have done that (on the 25th) and the first time ever for our youngest. It'll be a great day.

But all that mostly to say that I won't be writing here much in the next couple of weeks, writing when I have the urge and the time, but not daily. Sorry folks, I need a holiday.