Our Australian week-end

Over the week-end, there are two main common activities in Australia:

- barbequeing - "Sausage sizzle" is in fact the proper name when sausages are the victims of the BBQ

- going to the park and have fun as parks are well geared (great jungle gyms, tables, shaddy spots and of course BBQs).

This week-end we were real Australians. We volunteered to help the scout group to raise money at the local food festival. The scale of this sausage sizzle was just a little bit bigger than our normal "braai" as 800 sausages were sold in 6 hours!

We also went to an amazing park with Clea. Again, different scale: huge slide, long flying fox and lots of green spaces under an amazing blue sky.

...as you can see, it is not restricted to kids!

The boys were busy testing their camping skills at a scouts camp where more than 1000 scouts from Queensland.

Winter

It is cold, chilly, crisp and even frosty early in the morning. Last night, the temperature dropped to 5 degrees. It was only 13 on board when we woke up.

We dug out of the lockers the heater and thicker duvets. The kids decided that bennies were a great idea and I am even wearing socks.

Winter has  arrived!

PS: I haven’t been posted a lot recently as I was busy trying to find a name for my new environmental Facebook page. Amazing to see all the pages with a "green" or "eco" in their names. My new page is now created. It is called "Eco Notes" and it is fun to keep it active.

Le soleil se leve

...et nous aussi

Magnifiques couleurs pour un reveil tout en douceur sur la riviere.

Bonne journee!

Update on Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 6:35AM by Admin

Another amazing sunrise over the river.

What a colourful way to start the day!

Nouvelle rubrique radio (rubrique litteraire jeunesse)

Week-ends calmes en ces journees d’hiver ou la lecture est a l’honneur. Notre auteur du moment Timothee de Fombelle. A bord on adore, tellement qu’il fut le sujet de ma derniere rubrique radio:

A ecouter jusqu'au 28 juin: http://www.4eb.org.au/ondemand (selectionner "french" - attendre 9min)

Who said gale force warning?

Our best way to clear our mind and be really ourselves is leaving the docks, shaking Merlin’s sails and feeling the wind in our face. We skipped the Queen’s birthday celebrations and escaped to our favourite dunes across the bay. This time, we invited our friends, Desire, John, Zoe and Jazmin to join us.

There was a gale warming so we didn’t expect too many boats at the anchorage. In fact, there was only one when we arrived despite the long week-end.  As forecasted, it was windy and the swell was rolling us more than usual but nothing unbearable.  The dunes were ours, our kites had fun dancing with the wind, the kids climbed restlessly the dunes and we had a great time.

The trip back was fast with some gusts above 30knt, the ride wasn’t the smoothest but we arrived to Dockside with a high spirit and a smile on our face. Even a short sailing trip makes wonders.

More windy photos on: http://www.merlinsvoyage.net/australia/guess-where/