Chapter 54 - ONE WHOLE YEAR!!!

In which our hero has lived the longest she's ever lived in a place that's not home .... 

So, dear readers. Yesterday, February 11, marked exactly one year since I arrived in this fabulous land of Oz. It has been a fun adventure. I have about another year left. At least, almost a year. Semester 2 ends in November, and if I get a good job I'll probably stick around here for a while until I pay off my student loan thingy. If not, I'll go adventuring, visit the cousins in BC, then go home. It will be fun.

Strangely I can't think what to write. Since I've been here I've been to the beach more than I have in the past ten years. That's been nice. It's slightly frightening when the waves come in and you can feel the water sucking your feet out to sea, but if you hold your ground you eventually get walloped back to shore. I saw a jellyfish once on the beach,

but it didn't bite me, it just sat there. I also saw this mysterious alien footprint:

but it didn't bite me either.

I've seen a koala sleeping in a tree live and in the wild, and I've seen a cat sleeping on a bean bag live and in my house:

She also didn't bite me. Not then anyway. She bites me playfully sometimes when I rub her tummy. I think from now on you can assume nothing's bit me unless I say otherwise.

About a month ago we  had a massive storm one afternoon -- not the hail storm I told you about, but a different one. This one was just rain and wind. I was in the Helensvale Library at the time when it came up, and the sky outside went very dark, and the wind and thunder rattled the windows. I was emailing Mom at the time, so if you're reading, Mom, that's what I'm talking about. Anyway after the storm I was walking home with my bike, which I had luckily put under cover for the duration of the storm, and the sky looked like this:

Sunset after the January 6th storm.

Ah, yes. This is something rather important and exciting. Remember how I told you that I went on a Brisbane adventure with Glen and Christian on my birthday, and when I returned by bike was gone? Well, on December 8th I went to a place called The Tender Centre with Glen, where he had acquired his bike for about $60. I found one there that I liked, and put in an offer of $50 on it. The next day they called me and said my tender had been successful, so I went to get it. The thing is, though, and this will require you to use some Google maps skills, is I live in the north part of Gaven, and The Tender Centre is in Treetops, which is down near Burliegh. Now we are allowed to take bikes onto the trains here, but not on the buses. So I took the train from Helensvale to Varsity Lakes, then took a bus to The Tender Centre, collected my bike, which had slightly flat tires and a seat that was too high, so I couldn't exactly ride it, and walked it back to Varsity Lakes station. I think it took just less than an hour to walk. I then put myself and the bike on the train, and went back to Helensvale, where I went immediately to the bike shop to get some air in the tires and the seat lowered. The fella there said the seat post was fused in place with rust, so he put some kind of lubricant on it and told me to try loosening it in a day. I did manage to loosen it, and lower it, but now it won't hold still, despite the fact that I've tightened everything related to it as much as I can. So basically, long story short, I got a new bike. The total cost, including the 20% handling fee or whatever, and the $2 something else, was $62, which I think is pretty good. After I left the bike shop I went straight to K-Mart for a helmet. I'd already acquired a $10 lock from there before I went down to Burliegh to get the bike, but it wasn't exactly a top quality lock. So the next day I went to Bunnings, which is kind of like Canadian Tire, and got a u-lock and cable, for a total of $45. Now I have three locks, and my bike hasn't yet been stolen. Hopefully it never is.

The new bike. It's slightly big for me, but it works. It's fine while I'm riding, I just can barely touch the ground if I'm sitting on the seat. It's got 27' wheels, I think. It needs new tires because the current ones are quite likely original, which means they're like 30 years old, so they're a bit cracked on the side. The tubes don't leak, though, which is great, and Sarah recently acquired a new tire pump with a gauge on it so I can pump them up myself.

Now, you need to take note of the garage door there behind the bike, and the scale of the distance between the lines. It'll be important later.

There was one day where I went down to Burliegh Beach with the family because one of the kids had Nippers, which is like junior life guards. There was a plan for swimming, so I went dressed in my swimmers and with a t-shirt for some sun protection. It was my Princess Bride t-shirt, that Sharon bought me one summer at K-Mart in Rapid City. I love that shirt. Anyway, after getting rolled and buffeted by the waves for like, a while, and getting sunburned, we headed home. I went up to where the family had their picnic blanket, and washed all the sand and salt off me with the shower that was there. I placed my shirt on the fence right in front of me, with the intention of carrying it back to the car. A gust of wind blew it off the fence, and I thought to myself "You'd better pick that up, or you'll forget about it." Then I replied with, "No, I'll remember." I didn't. And I didn't realise that I'd forgotten it until we were about five minutes from home, so it was too late to turn back, and everyone was hungry and tired. So as soon as I got home I had a quick lunch, got changed into real clothes, and headed for the train station. I took the train to Varsity Lakes, then a bus to Burliegh Beach, then walked along until the Surf Life Saving Club, and there was my t-shirt, just lying on the sand. So I grabbed it and went back. Luckily the shirt is basically the same colour as the sand, so probably no one noticed it, or if they did, they assumed that whoever owned it was coming back for it. I was so happy to have found it.

While on that adventure I saw the following things:

A lovely flower in the sand.

A bus stop with my name on it.

I didn't go home after that adventure either. I went to meet my new friend Chris at Harbour town, then Christian and his friend Kim came, and we all went to see The Book Thief, which was great.

Now Chris is a whole other story. He was on the train on my birthday as we came back from Brisbane because he was coming back from work. We both got off at Helensvale, and he was waiting for a bus near the bike rack that my bike got stolen from. I said something like "Oh, #%@$!", and he said, "What? Is your bike messed up?", and I said, "No. It's not there." Then we talked for a minute or two until his bus came, and we Facebook friended each other, and then I didn't see him for like three months, mostly because it was getting into exam crunch time, and I didn't have time. Then finally, the day of my Burliegh T-Shirt Adventure, he called me and we arranged to hang out a bit before the movie. So we did. We also were getting a bit hungry, so we went to Woolies and bought two packs of mince pies, which were on sale for $1 and $1.50 because it was after Christmas. We also bought a thing of whipped cream, and then we sat down at a cafe table outside and had a dinner of mince pies. It was slightly ridiculous.

This is Chris. He's from Alaska. He'd never had mince pies before, but now he likes them. 

In other news, I put my head in a crocodile's mouth. Don't worry, it didn't bite me. It was dead.

 I saw a giant slug on the garage door. Remember how I said to take note of the scale of the lines? This is why:

 Here's the Wheel of Brisbane lit up with blue and red for Australia Day (January 26).

Here's Herbie the Love Bug in traffic ahead of us.

Here's a crow on a light post in the Westfield Helensvale parking lot, near the bus stop, at which I was waiting for a bus.

Here's two trees in a rain forest on Mt. Tambourine.

Look out! There's a Dalek in the library! (Part of Doctor Who Month (November) at the Gold Coast Libraries).

Here's a Star Trek pie I got from the Yatala Pie Shop. I think it's Star Trekkie because of that triangle thing, which is there to mark what kind of pie it is. It was actually chicken curry.

Here's a rhinoceros beetle I spotted walking across the street near my house.

And here's a giant vicious fire breathing dragon I saw at Movie World.

Well, OK. It's really about the size of a squirrel from nose to tail,  and it doesn't breathe fire. At least, I've never seen one breathe fire. Still, though, how fun is it having random lizards running around?

I think I will sign off for now. I'm not sure that anyone has realised that I'm doing these again, so it'll be a nice surprise for y'all when you discover it.

Tomorrow I'm embarking on an adventure with Christian and Maria. We are taking the Sunlander from Brisbane to Cairns, which is a journey of 31 hours. We're all in economy seats, which will be interesting. I figure it'll be about like road tripping to South Dakota, but without all the dog hair in my snacks. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon at 1:15, and arriving in Cairns at 7:15 p.m. the following day. I have recently managed to make my phone do internet things, so I might be able to put pictures on Facebook as we're going, which will be fun. We'll be there for three full days, then we'll leave Cairns at 7:15 on Tuesday morning, and arrive at 1:15 on Wednesday afternoon back in Brisbane. I may be out of email contact for that time, so hopefully nothing important comes up. I think the other two are bringing laptops/iPads, so maybe I can use them for a quick email check.

Anyway. Wish me luck on my adventure. I'll catch you later.

Chapter 53 - Hastings Point Expedish

In which our hero self-righteously claims that her gentle (though neglected) readers have nothing to complain about, and also gets sunburned ... . again ... 

So here's the thing, gentle readers. In another week and a bit I'll have been here for exactly a year. This is now my 53rd post, meaning I've fully completed 52. There are also 52 weeks in a year, therefore I have written an average of more than one post per week. So stop complaining that I never write to you.

So just before Christmas (December 19) the family and I went on a very fun expedition to Hastings Point, which might be down in New South Wales. If it isn't actually in NSW then it's very close to the border. It was kind of a full afternoon's adventure. We left around 11 a.m., and it was about an hour drive. The family had been there previously and enjoyed it. The object was to see some of the rock pools when the tide went out, and you could sometimes see starfish and other exciting things.

When we arrived the tide was still high, so we just went to the beach, which was kind of on what I think is called an estuary. It was like the mouth of a river as it went into the ocean, or something, I think.

The dark bit moved very quickly and was quite rocky underneath, so we went further to the left where it was shallower and gentler and smoother.

We found ourselves a picnic spot in the shade, from which the above picture was taken.We then loaded on the sunscreen, and, with strict instructions from Sarah to not even dare crossing the dark fast bit, lest we get swept out to sea, we headed over to the shallow gentle bit (not pictured).

At first we all went in and had a bit of a swim. Then at some point Sarah and munchkin #3 got out for a snack, and #3 slipped and cut the back of her knee on some oyster shells or something. So off they went to get bandaids while #2, #1, and I stayed in the water. Well, #1 and I did, anyway. #2 found a very tiny hermit crab just on the shore and was playing with it, trying to coax it into various bits of shells and things. #1 and I were essentially snorkeling, but without snorkels. We just looked around at all the interesting shells on the bottom and collected some. There were also some interesting fish, most notably some shiny pearly coloured ones about the size of my hand, and some zebra fish, which were considerably smaller and more shy. We found many interesting shells, and this is when I got sunburned, because my back was exposed to the sun for like an hour or so at high noon. Anyway. When Sarah returned from the bandaid finding mission we all got out and went over to the picnic site to have some lunch. Actually, the kids got out and walked, and I floated down the stream on a sort of flutter board thingie. I stopped myself at the deep dark rocky bit and went up to the picnic. Luckily I had my Keens on as water shoes, or I wouldn't have been able to stop.

After our lunch break we headed over to the rock pools to do some exploring. It was really amazing. Unfortunately there were no starfish to be seen, but there were plenty of other cool things. I think these things were maybe especially cool for someone like me who didn't grow up near the ocean. There was also many views of waves crashing onto the rocks, which is always a beautiful sight.

The view approaching the rock pools from the beach. The ocean's not really at an angle like that, I just had the camera a bit crooked.

Some of the rock pools...

The view back to the beach.

Waves and rocks. I love them.

See those little green blobby things? I don't know what they are, but they squirted water out their tops, where there's a little hole. It took me a while to figure out, as I'd be looking at a rock pool for for fishes and things, and then the water would move in the corner of my eye. Eventually I caught one near the surface actually squirting a bit of water. They were cool.

I'm quite proud of this one as I caught the wave crashing and actually in the air. I think it's this one. It's hard to tell.

Here's an anemone.

Here's #2's finger, about to touch the anemone.

Here's what it looked like once it hid itself away after being touched.

Here's Sarah taking a picture of me taking  picture of her.

Nope. This is the one with the crashing wave in the air. Pretty good for a cell phone camera, eh?

Here's the three munchkins climbing down the rocks.

At the end of the rock pool exploring we discovered one right on the edge of the beach that was big enough and deep enough to swim in, so the kids went for another swim. I hadn't brought a change of clothes, however, and I'd dried off fairly well while exploring on the rocks, so I decided to just go in up to my knees.

They had fun trying to catch the little fish that were swimming around in there too.

Now here's a really cute story. At one point #3, who's only 3, said "Goodbye Christine! I'm going to Sydney!" and started walking to the other side of the pool. "Okay," I replied, "have fun, don't forget to send me a postcard!"

A minute or two later she came walking back with a handful of sand. "Here you go Christine," she said, "Here's your postcard."

So I took it and pretended to read: "Dear Christine, Having a great time, wish you were here, much love." And then I thanked her and she carried on playing whatever she was playing. It was good fun. To top it off, when she walked away from me to "go to Sydney", she was actually heading south, which is the direction of Sydney.

Here's another cool action shot, with #2 diving from one bit of water to the next. Once again, I'm quite proud of myself for catching it at the right moment.

I think that's all for now. I do apologise for the long silence, and there's no real excuse besides laziness and forgetfulness. But now it's been about 6 or 7 hours since my awesome breakfast, so I'm going to head home for some foodstuffs. I have some emergency tuna and emergency raspberry m&m's, but they don't really make a proper dinner.

Also, I'd like to point out, due to flukes of time travel and whatnot, I actually managed to do a post for January, completely by accident. I actually wrote it on February 1, which is today, however at home it was still January 31, and the blog seems to think that I'm still at home. So no need to panic about not having done any posts in January. Saved by the timelapse. Or whatever.

Chapter 52 - A Boat Named Snoopy

In which our hero goes to her friend the Friendly Giant's castle** and encounters a boat named Snoopy.... 

So the date was December 17. I found myself needing to go to Glen's house for some reason. Maybe to get some downloaded TV shows, or to give him something, or who knows what. It doesn't really matter. The date doesn't really matter either, I'm just trying to let you orient yourself in the overall Tarantino-esque story that is my recent blog posts.

So I hopped on a bus, and then got off the bus, and then began walking to Glen's. I encountered three things that I took pictures of.

There was this shiny bark-less tree near the Ashmore TAFE. I think it might be a gum tree. I think I assume everything's a gum tree unless it's obviously something else, like a pine tree.

There was this lovely view of the city. This is on Benowa Road looking sort of south and east.

Lastly, and most awesomely, there was this boat named Snoopy. So naturally I took a picture of it.

**Disclaimer: Glen doesn't really live in a castle. I just said that because it goes with his being a Friendly Giant.