Matt and Lisa's Adventures

We finished up work on the Friday before Christmas and were then lucky (or forward thinking enough) to have booked an afternoon flight rather than a crazy early morning departure. We picked up Gail from Lincoln (Alan was already in Australia after joining Nick on a trip to Darwin that Nick had received through his work) then off to the airport. Jetstar flight was good, however some weird chick sitting next to me on the plane tried to give me her number, I politely declined. Gail chose not to sit with us and so we ended up with a spare seat between us which was a win. We arrived at the hotel and had the first of many drinks, the four of us, on the apartment balcony. 

We had five days in the Gold Coast before departing on Boxing Day. It was lots of fun, especially getting to hang out with the children (especially Lisa who is the biggest of the children). Highlights:

• Meeting Emily at Starbucks in the morning. This has been talked about extensively in the months leading up to the trip – in the end it happened only once
• Getting to the different malls: Pacific Fair, Robina and Harbour Town. So much shopping was done. I ended up with some new jeans, a polo shirt and a hat. The girls also went to Pacific Fair first thing on Boxing Day – as a result Lisa purchased a lot more than me. But it was only one mall on Boxing Day which is a contrast to normal when it’s a full day of shopping at many different malls 
• The pool at our hotel turned out to be very disappointing – small and only 1.1 meter deep. Instead we spent our pool time at Emily’s hotel. A lot of time was spent playing in the pool each day. The children had a great time jumping in the pool – counting down and yelling “cannonball”! There was a contrast amongst the children: Emily was very confident and happy to jump in herself (the value of all those swimming lessons was well illustrated). Grayson loved to jump in but wasn’t keen on going under, this meant having to catch him each time which was hard work. Summer who is so still only two has no fear – she would jump in and was happy to go under, just had to grab her once she was in. She did love to tell me “I do it myself”. She was very funny and strong willed. 
• Each morning Lisa and I tried to walk from Broadbeach where we were staying down to Surfer’s Paradise. We had done this walk many times on previous trips but this time they had finally completed the remaining section of walkway along the beach. This meant there was no longer the annoying section along the road and this improved the walk immensely. Because of the heat the walk needed to be done either very early or very late in the day. The path is very popular and it was a great spot for people watching – especially the female fashion, which I appreciated. I had intended on some running but it was just too hot and I couldn’t be bothered to get up early enough for an acceptable running temperature. I was very impressed with Andrea who run 10kms on two occasions – even with a 5am start that would have been very hard work! 
• On Christmas Eve Lisa and I walked down to Surfer’s in the evening when it was nice and cool. We had dinner at a beer garden and as we had worked out it was our last Australian dinner out we went for the classic Australian delicacy of chicken parmy. Along with a beer it was a delicious meal. 
• I had previously only been to Queensland in winter – which makes sense as it is a great location to escape from the cold weather. Queensland in summer is HOT! The weather was beautiful every day but it did limit what we could do. Outdoor activities had to be restricted to early morning and evening. It was difficult watching people enjoy the beach in the middle of the day, but I suspect we would have burnt to a crisp if we had joined them. 
• Another weird quirk of Queensland is that they don’t do daylight savings time. This led to the weird situation of us departing Christchurch at 4:15pm and arriving at 4:45pm. The lack of daylight savings doesn’t make a lot of sense as the sun rises before 5am and sets about 6:30pm. Shifting this by an hour would just seem to be common sense.

One day we went to an art installation that had lots of 3D paintings that we could stand/lie on to produce some great photos.

Christmas Day itself was delightful, although we did have some stress on Christmas Eve when we realised the electric beater didn’t have any attachments. This led to a mad dash around the convenience stores that were still open looking for a whisk. I was unsuccessful but after some googling we ended up just shaking the cream in a cold bottle which was less effort than when we had used a whisk four years ago in Auckland! 

• We had croissants for breakfast with a slight Lisa deviation which was yum and in keeping with the VB tradition. 
• Everyone descended on our apartment at 8:30am for present opening. All of the kids had big piles to open. 
• We went for a quick beach swim with Gail, Andrea and Emily as we realised this might be our only chance to do it and it seemed crazy to come to the Gold Coast and not swim. There were lots of people on the beach and we had a very pleasant swim. 
• It was then back for a huge lunch of ham, sausages (at Lisa’s insistence) and salads. For dessert we had pavlova, chocolate mousse and brandy snaps. It was all delicious
• Afterwards everyone went into a food coma and we had some quiet time. Then it was off for a swim in the pool and a lot more “cannonballs!”
• For dinner the four of us had leftovers and drinks on the balcony. A nice end to a delightful day. 

Boxing Day was the start of our trip proper. Annoyingly there were track works in central Brisbane and so instead of a direct train we had to switch to a bus for part of the trip before returning to the train. The train to Brisbane central was busy and Lisa was sneezed on by a child – she very subtly then covered her entire arm in hand sanitiser. Brisbane airport was fine and then we were on our flight to Doha!