Sophie & Ollie´s Travels

Hey everyone,

I’m writing this while sitting outside in the sunshine, on the beach, just got back from a warm ocean swim and turning a wonderful tan colour. Or not. Really I am sitting under cover, in long pants, avoiding the rain. The spring rolls are delicious though. Anyway, talking about the weather is boring.

Ollie and I haven't been up to too much, relaxing and enjoying not working. Though everywhere we go Ol has to work on someone's computer. I'm going to start charging on his behalf. I've been reading my trashy $5 novel and Ol has setup his drums to drive the neighbours mad. So far we have seen Johnny English, Carlito's Way, Monty Python's Holy Grail and are continuing to work our way through his dad's DVD collection. To give you an idea of how busy and productive we have been.

We have been out and about a bit though. We drove down to the Gold Coast last Friday and stayed till Sunday. Did manage to get a nice tan sitting on Mark's (Ol's friend) lawn. Also, managed my first ocean swim of the trip – it was really nice, sandy beach, not freezing, clear blue, small waves. Spent about half an hour in the water but the shark patrol helicopters put me off after a while.

On Friday night we went to the local pub, a 2-minute walk away, watched everyone try and win big on the Chocolate Factory (the one with all the mini-chocolates and the sliding bit that pushes the chocolate out). They have Chocolate Factories everywhere and idiots who try and shake the machine till the chocolate falls out or the alarm goes off. They seem to enjoy their pokie machines over here as well. They send out mail with free pokie money vouchers and have a free coffee/tea machine (I was amazed) and lollies to help yourself to, encouraging you to stay and lose. We went to the Surfer's Paradise night markets on Saturday. Didn't buy anything but had a nice hand exfoliation trial without having to buy the stuff.

The main problem with staying in the suburbs is the terrible noisy crows. They wake up at dawn and fly from roof to roof crowing incessantly at each other. You want to go out and strangle the ugly, noisy things when they wake you up at 6am EVERY morning.

From the Gold Coast we drove back to Greenbank, the main place we are staying. Well, we kind of did. Intelligent as we are, Ol and I decided to drive back with absolutely no idea how to get back. Half an hour into the drive we realised we needed to figure out where to get off the motorway. We texted his dad for the off-ramp and we kept looking for it as we drove. About half an hour later I said, I didn’t realise the city was so close to Greenbank. 10 minutes later we were completely lost in Brisbane city. After a while of attempting to read the phonebook map while trying not to get car sick we found the motorway again. Eventually, after getting off the motorway, we ended up at a Chinese church and asked for directions and finally got back.

Being almost two hours late back we had to quickly get ready and head back out on the motorway for the Sunshine Coast, to Ol's grandparents. Luckily, this time, Ol's dad drove.

We did not get up to much on the Sunshine Coast as, despite its name, it rained the whole time. In fact it had rained so much the small drain had turned into a large pond and filled with ducks. The crows continued to wake us up at the crack of dawn as well. We took the dog, Lucy, for a few runs. Lucy and I running behind Ol, trying to keep up as he zoomed around the neighbourhood on his Grandpa’s racing-red, as he liked to refer to it, mobility scooter.

We are now back at Greenbank, relaxing and doing not much at all. We freaked ourselves out yesterday when we noticed that our next flight on the itinerary didn't match our tickets. However, two hours after emailing our travel agent to query this we remembered that the last thing she told us as we left was they wouldn't match. Duh. We have holiday brains now. Anyway, we are heading back down to the Gold Coast today, hopefully for another swim, and enjoying our last seven days of doing very little in Australia.

Sophie & Ollie.