Matt has been spending a lot of time in Brisbane lately so
after a long week away, the kids and I flew up north to meet him for a long
weekend. I had to request special
permission from Cade’s school for him to miss 1.5 days. It involved a formal submission to school’s
Headmaster and formal approval of our request.
We met Matt at the Brisbane
airport and drove 1.5 hours north to a cute beach area called Noosa.
We spent three nights there and enjoyed the warmer weather,
beautiful beaches and lively community. The
main street, Hastings Street, is full of cute beach shops, open air cafes and
local art galleries. The kids are happy
as long as they are swimming and we had a great pool at our hotel. We enjoyed great meals, cocktails and
mocktails at sunset, and nature walks through the Noosa National Park. Noosa has several beach rivers where the
water is calmer. Many of beaches in
Australia are surfing beaches so they put me on edge with the kids in the
water. We 'hired' (rented) a boat and
cruised the rivers. We attempted fishing but unfortunately didn’t catch
anything. The kids loved taking turns
driving the boat. The Great Barrier Reef
is visible from Noosa and it was beautiful to see the different colors in the
water. We even had a whale sighting. I didn’t realize that the reef extended
1500 miles over the coast of northern Australia. It becomes more vibrant the further north you
travel.
On our last night, we were walking back on Hastings Street
to our hotel and an acoustic guitar player was outside playing great
music. He attracted all of the kids in
Noosa for an impromptu dance party, and it was the best entertainment of
the weekend. Cade’s class has been practicing hip hop dance
this term so he showed us a few of his moves.
We returned on Monday.
We love Qantas Airlines. The
friendly and quality service is not typical for Australia, so I really
appreciate them. Cade has just a few
weeks before his next term break and we are making big plans for early October when
my Mom is here to visit for a few weeks.
