We're fresh back from holidays. So much happened during our time away that I want to take some time to write it down and process it a little here. But I'll also share some beautiful Queensland scenery that we saw!
Two and a half weeks ago, on Saturday Jun 27th, we drove to what Australians call the Sunshine Coast. It's the coastal area north of Brisbane (as opposed to the Gold Coast, which is south). This part of Queensland includes several cities and towns and about 60 km of coastline. It's one of the holiday "playgrounds" of southern Queensland. My family took a number of holidays there when I was a child.
We spent the weekend meeting people and speaking at a supporting church, which was both busy and very encouraging. 
Wurtula Beach on Sunshine Coast
But, from the Monday we were on holidays, free of obligations and deliberately took a break from email and social media and staying up-to-date with stuff. We were thankful for a free housesitting opportunity close to the beach for a week. Though we didn't swim, we walked along the beach several times. We even got to collect and eat fresh eggs from the house chooks. I came down with a cold during this week and was thankful for time to rest.
Our youngest son and a friend also joined us there for 24 hours. We had fun hanging out and playing games. It was fun to cook for them too.
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| Urban chooks...who were a bit more fussy than the country chooks we've met. |
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| Nice walkway just inland from the beach where we were staying. |
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| Moss on Wurtulla Beach |
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| The Peanut Van was a flash back to my two years living in Kingaroy in the Burnett region of Queensland. We were thrilled to find they sold nuts other than peanuts. |
We parked my parents' motorhome (our transport and often our bed for these 2 ½ weeks) outside my mother-in-law's house and slept there for our stay, keeping her guest rooms free for our eldest son and his family, who drove down from North Queensland to meet us. They also got to meet most of David's immediate family. It was the first time for almost any of them to meet our daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Another first was all of David's siblings with their spouses (and David's mum) to get together for a meal without any kids!
The "Singing Ship" of Emu Park. An installation that "sings" with the wind.
It commemorates the discovery and naming of Keppel Bay by Captain Cook
in 1770.
Locals know this as "Causeway", it's south of Yeppoon. I discovered this is a place of nostalgia for David's siblings who spent their childhood in this area. The Causeway Lake is a tidal estuary that was created in the 1930s by building a bridge and road link across the mouth of a creek. It's a popular recreation area. We had lunch here one day with family. 
On the road again. It's been 2 ½ years since we spent two months in this
motorhome, but it felt very familiar when we hopped in here again.
It was several days of a lot of family—especially a lot for these two expats who usually live on the other side of the ocean to family! But it was worthwhile to take the time to reconnect with family, because at the end of the day, regardless of everything else, we're related to them all.
We did get four precious days with our granddaughter, who, at seven months old, was very different to when we last met her as a newborn. She was full of smiles (and frowns, and very much knew the difference between her parents and everyone else). We ate and played, explored and rested. My daughter-in-law and I took over my mother-in-law's kitchen for a time preparing food for our mob.
But, then we also had to say goodbye to them all. Maybe my heart has grown tough? I didn't find it as difficult as you might think I would. I guess we've accepted (long ago) that we don't live close to family and therefore don't have the same expectations of our relationships with them?
In some ways it was a relief to head off on our own for the next six days and have some very slow days. We were tired and a bit over-peopled, and also noting that we've been living in other people's homes (very nice and generous people!) and away from our own little apartment since mid-May.
We split the journey south in two, driving about four hours on the Thursday to Lake Monduran (west of Bundaberg) and the Saturday to Lake Somerset (south of Kilcoy). And then, on Tuesday this week we drove two hours to return the motorhome to my parents and a bit over an hour back to our hosts in Ipswich. A fair bit of driving, but in many ways that's part of our Australian DNA as "country kids". Driving country roads just feels normal to us and something we have to do to visit family. Also, having spent two months driving through four states and territories in that same motorhome back in 2024, we felt very much at home on the road in it.
We indulged in some free Mini Golf at one of the campsites. 
Our second campsite (Lake Somerset) had many kangaroos, especially
after the school holiday crowds left. It's fun seeing them
lounging around, free to come and go and not in a zoo!
Sunset cast a beautiful glow on the lake and surrounds. 
We enjoyed a roast dinner one night in the motorhome. I quite enjoy
cooking in its tiny, but well-equipped kitchen. We didn't actually roast
the chicken in the van, we bought it already cooked, but the motorhome
has an oven, so I could have roasted a chook myself if I'd desired to. The
vegetables were all cooked on the gas stovetop.
One of our delights is finding an Aussie burger (including beetroot) at a country shop.
These were bought on our journey between campsites, at Ban Ban Springs.
The first campsite. Most of the people at this site were fishermen. 
Sunset over Lake Monduran. 
There were signs at the Lake Monduran campsite advertising this as a
walking track, but we found it fairly dissatisfying. Very high grass and a washed out
bridge (below) that didn't allow us to complete the full walk.
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| Also Lake Monduran (and below). |
Our time on our own at those two lakes comprised of reading, solving various puzzles in two puzzle magazines bought for the purpose, walking around the local area, doing laundry, cooking, and generally just resting and re-setting prior to the push of the last three weeks of deputation we have to do before flying back to Japan.
Looking back at our time away we are so thankful for time with various family members, including each of our sons individually. A friend pointed out one interesting theme: that we played board games with each of our sons during our time away (either in person or online!
For some time we have been discussing what home assignment would look like for us after all our kids left home. One of the key decision points to doing any home assignment is what to do about the responsibilities that you hold in your country of service. As a school teacher, it isn't easy to take random lengths of time off to do a home assignment. Most teachers would do it during their summer break. Otherwise it means taking six months or a year off as anything else is difficult for a school to manage. But home assignment is work, so taking all of that holiday time to work isn't the wisest course. Therefore one "big rock" that we had to plan for this shorter home assignment was holiday time, because we need to get back to Japan refreshed, not ready for a break as we'll both be jumping back into work within a couple of days of landing there. Having this break part-way through our 11 weeks in Australia was hopefully a good choice.
A friend asked me the other day if we'll do this style of home assignment the same next time. I said we'll finish this one and let the dust settle before we evaluate it. So, stay tuned! (Might I say it also depends on what we're allowed to do, we had to get approval from a number of different people in order to pull this one off.)
Anyway, that's enough reflecting for one blog post. If you've read this far then I'm impressed as I've written for myself as much as anyone!
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