Gold Coast & Sunshine Coast

With our time in Australia hitting the halfway mark (we only have a year and a half left), we figured we needed to add another destination to our list of places visited. We wanted something easy since it would be Matty's first flight, so we chose to head to Brisbane as there was a direct 1.5 hour flight option from Canberra. From there, we had easy access to the Gold and Sunshine Coasts.

This was a very last minute trip, but we've found that these types of trips often end up being the most fun. And this trip didn't disappoint!

We were a bit worried about Matty's first flight, but it turns out we didn't need to. He was awesome. On the way there, he stayed awake the entire flight, but was completely quiet. He just seemed to want to take everything in. On the way home, he fell asleep before the plane even took off and only woke upon landing. We can only hope he will be this good on future flights!

Upon arriving in Brisbane, the heat and humidity hit all of us like a brick...and it sent Matty into hysterics. We're talking purple-faced screaming with tears and everything. To help him regulate his body temperature, we quickly stripped him down to just a shirt and nappy, and soon afterwards we had our mild-tempered Matty back. Lesson learned. :-)

After getting loaded into our rental car (and cranking the A/C way up), we were on our way to our hotel on the Gold Coast. We didn't have big plans for this trip - we did want to see both the Gold and Sunny Coast - but mostly, we just wanted to relax. We spent the majority of our time sitting by the hotel pool, but did manage to get in some spa time and some sightseeing.

And as for Matty .. well, he had many firsts: his first flight, first time in a swimming pool, first time on a beach, and first time in the ocean. Also worth mentioning was his first visit to a Hibachi restaurant (Benihana's). We're not sure how he pulled this off, but he managed to sleep through the entire meal despite the craziness of it. All in all, he was a great little traveler and we can't wait to add more destinations to his list of places visited! :-)

Our hotel

Snorkeling lagoon at hotel

Surfer's Paradise, Gold Coast

 

 

Blair and Matty at Surfer's Paradise!

Gold Coast from Miami Beach

Benihana's

Blair and Matty in front of the "Big Pineapple"

Steve Irwin Way, Sunny Coast

Steve Irwin Zoo. Only picture we have because we arrived 10 minutes before closing. :(

Ettamogah Pub! Finally seeing it...even though all we did was drive by!

Floriade

Floriade is "Australia's biggest celebration of spring". It is an iconic Canberra event in its 26th year, and runs for 30 days from September to October. It showcases a million flowers in bloom, quite similar to the Tulip Fest back in Ottawa. There are many vendor booths (including lots of yummy food), carnival rides, and weekend concerts. All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

We tried really hard to get to Floriade last year, but never made it. So this year, we went the first weekend it opened. We only had a few hours there before it closed for the day (since Blair had to work that Saturday), but it ended up being the perfect amount of time for us with Matty.

Here are some pics from that Saturday afternoon.

Some of the grounds

Tulips!

Reflective kangaroo

Another reflective kangaroo

The main concert stage

Traveling street organ

Blair and the babe

Gnomes, gnomes, and more gnomes!

Baby Room

Obviously the baby is here now, but we thought we'd share some pics of his room (for privacy reasons, there won't be any pics of him on the blog - so hopefully a few pics of his room will suffice). :-)

Since we are renting our home in Australia, our ability to do any major changes to his room were limited. Things would be a bit different looking if we were in our own home, but we're still happy with how things turned out.

Blair and Brady putting the crib together

Baby's closet...when it was 'empty'. Should see all the clothes he has now!

The cats weren't sure what the heck was going on, but they sure were enjoying their new-found beds! We were worried that this may be a problem when the baby arrived, but so far they've stayed clear of all of his stuff.

Trip to Sydney

Over the July 1st long weekend, we decided to do a last minute getaway to Sydney. We figured it would be our last weekend away before the baby arrived, so we wanted to take advantage of it. We had big plans to do a whole pile of nothing while we were there. :-) It was to be a relaxing getaway, and I think we were very successful in catching up on some much needed Zzzz's.

We left Canberra on Friday night after work and arrived in Sydney just after dinner.  Shortly afterwards, we checked into our hotel in Circular Quay and grabbed some food at a nearby asian fusion restaurant that we frequent when in the city. Afterwards, Stacy (being 8 months pregnant) settled in for the night, while Blair headed down to the Opera House cafe to meet up with some friends.

Saturday was a rainy day, so we decided to head to Bondi Junction to do some shopping. We wanted to check out the new Pottery Barn Baby and West Elm stores that had just opened, and walk around the super-sized Westfield shopping center.  Stacy was so excited to visit the Pottery Barn, but it turned out to be a bust! Since it was a new store at that time (the first PB in Australia in fact), they were still struggling with stock issues. Everything that Stacy wanted to buy was apparently 'on its way to Sydney in a boat in the middle of the ocean'. Sigh.

West Elm, on the other hand, ended up turning into a winner! We stumbled upon the perfect glider for the baby's nursery (we'd spent months looking for a modern glider that was also comfortable -- a near impossible task in the severely lacking consumer market here in Australia). Check it out below (note that it also came with a matching gliding footstool)!  Yeah...the task of finding this chair was so difficult and time consuming that it made it into our blog. Haha.

Saturday night saw us swimming in the hotel pool, watching a movie, and catching up on sleep. Exciting times!

On Sunday, we had High Coffee at our hotel booked in for 11 AM.  As we had been told this was quite the extensive 'meal', we planned on it being our breakfast + lunch for the day. Good idea! The amount of food we were given was incredible -- it took 3 hours to get through it all! And the best part? Just like pairing wine with meals, the barista paired coffees with our food. It was an amazing experience and we can't wait to do it again!

Coffee martini for Blair (I had OJ - boo!)

This was just the first course!

Following our High Coffee, we needed to walk the calories off. So we headed down to the Harbour and veered off towards the Rocks. We toured through the Sunday market and then ended up at Sticky, where we watched them make candy from scratch. Fun, and a great way to end the weekend!

New Car from Wagga Wagga

When we were out shopping for a car seat for the baby, we came to a rather unfortunate conclusion.  Our Mazda 3's back seat was simply not large enough to safely hold a baby seat.  We tried every single car seat on the market here in Canberra, and not.a.single.one would fit in our car.  What went from us shopping around to save a few bucks on a car seat and stroller, turned into us having to shell out major moolah to buy a new car that would fit our new babe safely.

After learning our lesson the hard way, we made the decision to buy an SUV. There was no way were we going to run out of room in our vehicle again! Once we made this decision, we began shopping around trying to get the best bargain we could find -- Since we knew we would only need this SUV for 2 years before moving back to Canada, we didn't want to invest too much money into it.

We quickly found out that Canberra's second hand car market was much more expensive than those found in neighboring states. The same SUV (same model, year, mileage, and condition), was selling for $3000 less in New South Wales.  Although we really had no desire to travel 3 hours to view a car, saving this amount of money on a short-term use car really made it a no-brainer. So we packed up, and headed off to the not so 'bustling metropolis' of Wagga Wagga. The SUV turned out to be a winner and we left the dealership that day as first-time SUV owners. 

Check out our new wheels...  or should we say, the baby's new wheels. :-)