Sunday, March 04, 2007

Sunday Sunrise and the Sunshine Coast

Right now I am sitting in my home in Moonee Beach. From the window to my left side, I am watching a magnificent sunrise while listening to the pounding surf and the birds waking up. Just a few minutes ago, a kangaroo hopped along the road in front of me. (When I lived in the USA, people would ask me "do kangaroos really hop down the street?". I would tell them "no, I've never seen that.". But I lived in city suburbs for most of my previous life here so of course they wouldn't do that there. But they really do here!)

We just got back from a little trip up north along the coast. Cary really hasn't seen a lot of Australia and we decided it was time to just take off. We spent a couple of days on the Gold Coast which is an area slightly south of Brisbane (the capital of the state of Queensland). It's like a mini Las Vegas with beautiful beaches. After living in Las Vegas, Cary is finding our current area a little slow. He's been enjoying the decompression time, but is now longing for something else. We came to the conclusion that the Gold Coast was not it for us - too crowded and crazy. So we went to one of my all-time favourite areas - the Sunshine Coast which is about an hour north of Brisbane. As soon as we drove into the area, we felt a click. Cary liked it straight away. It has an abundance of fantastic beaches, rows of unusual shops (not the typical franchised shops), a very creative, laid-back feel and did I mention the beautiful beaches? We do have great beaches where we are and they are never crowded. On the Sunshine Coast, the beaches are a bit more crowded but the sand is whiter and softer. There are lots of rivers for kayaking or boating. The Glasshouse Mountains are slightly to the west and an interesting place to explore. It is an area that does not really experience 4 seasons, just various degrees of warm and wet. But I love that and Cary liked the area so much he feels he could adapt (as long as there was air conditioning in the house which is not a typical thing here). We walked into a fruit shop there and it smelled SO good. And it seemed to me that the fruits there even tasted better.

The lease on our house here is up in one month. We were very tempted to move up to the Sunshine Coast now but have decided to take it slow and give it some more thought. So we drove back to Moonee Beach yesterday. When we left the SC, we both felt a little sad. When we arrived back here, we were not excited about being back. Another thing I came to realise - I really miss the freedom of home/unschooling. We'd like to take more trips and I don't want to have to time them around school. If we were homeschooling now, I think the kids would be excited to move now. But Sami wants to spend a bit more time at her school and AJ doesn't want to leave Summer-Rain (his best friend). So we have some things to think about.

I need to download all of the photos I took while we were away and I'll post them next time.

Have a beautiful day!

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