See ya Maqai, If not in this life, in the one after!

Today is our last day at lovely Maqai. Still wind is strong and rain is in the air and we feel sad leaving Maqai and our new friends. When you leave they sing a farwell song for you and with tears in our eyes we said goodbye. Someday we will come back! Thank you all the staff and guests for making this a highlight on our trip! I am trying to post a video and hopefully it will here shortly.

Leaving Maqai

Our flight was even more delayed because of the weather. Tavenui airport is really tiny and you put all your bags and yourself on the scale. Incredibly beautiful view of the islands from the sky and we waved a last goodbye to Maqai resort. Being on a budget meant our flight went to Suva and from there we had another 5 hours by taxi and minibus before we arrived to Bamboo.

Our smallest aircraft ever.

Everyone has a window seat view

People with bigger pockets boarded the direct Nadi flight...
So nice to finally get to the hostel and again meet Elia, Luiza and all the other nice staff. We had dinner and then went to bed and slept like rocks.

Time for farwells

Good thing about travelling is you meet so many new friends. Downside though is you have to say farwell and hope you will meet again. Before tears comes joy and farwell party!

Inaki and Klara

Larissa and Franzi

Temo, Inaki and Big john

Also on our last night Simon performed his Fire dance. Thank you ever so much for that Simon!

Simon fire dancing

Off to Maquai

Today we went to Maqai, a short drive by car and then a boat came and took us to Qamea island. We felt at home directly at arrival!

Jippieee!

Our "tent" bure

After a relaxed afternoon with snorkeling and rest we joined the evening kava ceremony, after passing all tests we were formally members of the Maqai family :-)

Not one night without kava...

Ferry bound for Taveuni

After breakfast we took a minibus to Suva. A chaotic city! We managed to find the Bligh ferry office and bought tickets for the departure tonight. A visit to the market and later a couple of drinks at the Royal Suva Yacht Club were the highlights of the day.

Suva market

RSYC

At 6 pm the ferry left Suva, it turned out that our cabin was next to the bridge of the ship :-) Probably very luxury when the boat was new (50 years ago??). Anyway we had a good night of sleep and arrived happily to Taveuni after lunch.

Our "livingroom"

Bedroom

Call the captain?? (didn't work)

Hello Sydney, our last Aussie destination!

A taxi picked us up from our little house in Paddinton. Our backpacks are still heeavy from food and books and our indian taxi driver wondered if we were going mountaineering! Funny, we have spent a lot of time indoor climbing in Brisbane. Some of the chalk must have rubbed on... Its a short flight from Brisbane to Sydney, like from Stockholm to Malmö. Klara was releived, all our aussie flights has been at least 4 hours. 4 hours from Sweden we are amost in North Africa. Taxi driver had a hardtime finding our BIG Hostel in Elizabeth street, (its called Big hostel).

Nice Big Hostel

Acommodation in Sydney is very expensive so the dream of renting a flat with view over Sydney harbour bridge and the Opera house will have to wait. We went to the Rocks, Sydneys old town. The Rocks is a nice area with cafes, restaurants and art galleries. I love Ken Done and a galleriy had his paintings and works at display. We checked out the ferry at circular quey,  tomorrow we are going to Manly beach.

Great Apple store in Sydney

Sunny Sunday in Brisbane

Hello sunshine we have been missing you! We dropped off our car downtown Brisbane in the morning and continued to the river.

Downtown Brisbane

Through Brisbane flows a river and the taxi ferry is an excellnt way of getting around. At South Banks there was a festival celebrating Buddahs birthday and Brisbanians (do you say that?) out for a Sunday walk. A long the river is Brisbanes culture centre and we stepped in to the Museum of modern art, a museum built 2006.

Museum of moderna art, Brisbane

After our dose of culture Kalle went back to cake-house and the rest went for some more climbing. The Janlerts are turning into a ninja family....

Cake house

Meeting koalas

Today is last day we have our rental car so we aimed for seeing koalas. Again we were on the highway but in order to avoid calling the Govia to pay road toll we took the old Logan rd south to Daisy hill. This turned out to be a good choice since there was a huge traffic jam highway! In Daisy hill there is a koala centre where you can get close and see koalas. We met Freckles and Eukie, (short for Eucalypthus). Koalas are mostly active when its dark, they are nocturnal animals, but Freckles was awake and in full action. Koala action still means very slooow. The centre is nice and has a lot of info about koalas. Now we know how to arrange a koala and possum friendly garden! Around the koala centre there is a very nice park excellent for picknick with tables and BBQ:s.

Brisbane

Great to arrive in Brisbane, we have reached the end of our road trip. Going by car is a terrific alternative but its also exhausting sometimes. The house we  rent is like a piece of cake, nice and sweet :-). Perfect place for schoolwork, Vera and Oskar dived into the secrets of math and Pernilla and Klara took a different math approach, shopping.

Math is fun!

Childrens wardrobe got a very well needed update, I do miss HM, its so difficult to find clothes for 8-13 year olds. Maybe its because they have uniforms at shool??? We also had women vs city on the agenda since the iPad with the GPS map had to stay home and do math. I am impressed we made it to DFO (big outlet mall) and back. On the trip we got to see the airport and also go through the CLEM7 pay tunnel. Not bad without a map and lots of roadwork. Klara was angry we had to pay for getting lost.

Klaras big wish on this trip has been climbing and here its a very popular sport. Urban Climbing sounded like the right thing for us and it turned out to be a very nice indoor climbing centre. Now we all have a climbing certificate!

Arriving Exmouth

Before arriving to Exmouth we took a detour to check out Coral Bay. A longed for swim in the ocean felt great!

Coral Bay

At lunchtime we arrived to our chalet (or cabin...), the pool just outside. Our research expert Pernilla booked a Whaleshark tour for tomorrow, exciting! Oskar was the head chef this evening, delicious indian food was served.

More driving

Early wakeup call, the drawback with a car compared to a campervan is that you have to carry all your bags back and forth each day you move on. Anyway, the target is set for Exmouth so with Harry Potter on the radio we headed north.

The roads are STRAIGHT

A stop in Geraldton for seasick pills and a quick burger at McD and then out on the road again. We didn't stretch the day too much, instead we stayed for the night in Carnarvon. Time for a swim in the pool and filling up our supplies at the supermarket/bottleshop. At night we could see how many bugs and different creatures enjoys the heat! Klara was the best grasshopper hunter in our cabin!

Heading north for warmer weather

A morning round of golf was planned, but due to rain it was cancelled. Instead we decided to take off and drive north in the morning. Our plan is to drive to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef, it is approx 1500 km so it'll take a couple of days before we will be there....

We had to make a short turn into Perth to pick up Pernillas fleece jacket, she forgot it when riding at Wharariki Beach (NZ). But luckily the jacket was sent by post to KEA in Perth, Jippiey!

Before arriving to Cervantes for the night we visited the Pinnacles Desert, thousands of limestone pinnacles out in the desert. We were there at sunset and the scenery was very fantastic!

Golf and Dressage

Oskar and Kalle got up early for a round of golf at Albany Golf Club, a top class links course established 1898.

Vera had booked a dressage lesson, which turned out to be "interesting" according to Vera. Although it is always fun to hang around with horses!

Cruising to Albany

Just a short drive to Albany, we found a cabin close to the golfcourse. Albany is famous for wahlespotting but right now the whales our long gone to the Antarctic. The kids spent most of the day in the pool while the rest of us tried to figure out what to see and do during the remaining days we have in WA.

The bay outside Albany

Greens Pool and Elephant Cove

We decided to go back to Greens Pool so the whole family could enjoy this fantastic place. This time we had our picnic on the rocks (I don´t like sand...). After lunch we visited the Elephant Rocks, just a couple a hundred meters from Greens Pool. Amazingly cool rocks, very much alike elephants. Unfortunately we didn't bring the camera today :-(

Greens Pool

In the evening Kalle and Oskar went out running, great way to end the day!

Riding and Greens Pool

Started off with fresh bred from the local bakery, thanks to mum! Pernilla had an early start and prepared packet lunch for the family. Vera and mum had booked a full day horse riding and the rest of us went to Greens Bay, it turned out to be a stunning place with rocks and sand with crystal clear water. The new freesbee made debut today, great fun!

Saggö anyone?

Denmark, almost home!

After a couple of fantastic days in Margaret River we jumped in the car and headed south to Denmark! On our way we stopped at the Valley of the Giants, this refers to the great trees you can find in the forest here.

Red tingle tree

Red tingle trees can be up to 60 m high and 400 years old! After an informative walk through the woods we climbed up to the tree top walk, 40 meters up in the trees. Beautiful scenery!

Relaxing i Margaret RIver

Another relaxing day at our chalet, today we had PE on the schedule!

Basket!

Perfect climate for drying your laundry

Baking day, Winemaking and Cave tour

I love baking! Its easy and so rewarding to smell and eat home made bread. Every morning I try and make bread for breakfast, one thing you cannot make when you are at home. Time is not enough, or the energy…J Klara was looking for something to spill energy on so today we not only made the morning bread, we also set a dough for making cinnamon buns. With cinnamon in our hair we set off to visit Swallows winery, very small winery, only 5 acres, and 3000 bottles per year. Owned by Tim and his wife and he picks and make the wine himself. They have also built a very nice chapel called The flower chapel. The walls are filled with aquarelle paintings of all the wild flowers in Western Australia and Sue painted them.

Flowers in the chapel

Interesting to know more about how to make wine. Swallow focus on Cabernet Merlot and Cabernet Franc. You harvest the wine, put it in a machine and remove the grapes from the stalks. Then you put it in a barrel and add yeast for 1 week or so, stomping and turning it around before you press it and bottle it.

Oskar the winemaker

(or at least something like that). One wine plant can grow and be harvested for approx 50 years.  After watching the pond with green frogs and more paintings, next stop was Jesters flat, home of horses and offering horse trails.

Frogs in the pond

Almost everywhere we go you can see the traces of bushfires. Trees and bushes are black and if you make bushwalks your feet gets black. The last stop of this tour was the Lake Cave, a small but exciting cave. We joined a guided tour down in the dark, interesting!

Down we go

Staying longer in MR just hanging around

We had a lazy day in our chalet, did some shoolwork, jogging, reading books and baking bread, Super!!!

Yummie

Bunker bay

A daytrip up north to Bunker bay was on the agenda today, after a playing around at the beach we visited the the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse.

Bunker bay

Nice scenery, here like everywhere else you can see the effects of bushfires. We where not alone, millions of flies where our companions during our walk at the cape...

Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse

The trees never give up