I packed my bag the night before and was up at sparrow fart on Wednesday morning. On my way down to Coolangatta Airport, I made a detour into Southport to pick up Stephen. The drive to the airport was hassle free, however I couldn’t believe how many cars were in the long term parking – it was all but overflowing with cars parked up on the edges of grass. The flight down to Sydney was delayed for some reason but it was good to hear regular updates over the speaker of the progress of the delay. Stephen has recently returned from a few weeks in Japan and has been regaling everyone of his fantastic time over there. A few things that have come to light in his travels, which have subsequently become crystal clear to me – we do a spectacularly poor job of catering for non-English language people.

After arriving in Sydney, we took a cab to Sydney city. Being used to Brisbane and Gold Coast airports being quite a distance away from the central business district, I was expecting a lengthy drive and a cab fare to match but was really surprised by the close proximity of the airport to the city. Stephen & I spent what time was available on Wednesday inspecting a couple of the Mantra Group hotels. It’s always nice to be able to walk around a hotel, find out what it is near from the point of view of a guest – it highlights a lot of things that you don’t get a sense of until you’ve actually been there. From an employee or company stand point, it was also great to see how well we’re doing with consistency of presentation and services at the hotels – yet another thing that is hard to judge until you’ve been there in person.

Stephen & I stayed at one of our Sydney hotels, Mantra on Kent which is located on Kent Street and is only a block away from Darling Harbour. Not because we’d organised it, however we ended up in 1 Bedroom Deluxe apartments on the 27th floor. There was plenty of room, the bed was comfortable, had a flat screen TV, a great bathroom with good views over the Sydney city. We enjoyed a full buffet breakfast each morning as well, which was really delicious.

After inspecting a couple hotels, we walked down George Street towards Circular Quay and The Rocks. Of course, having not been to Sydney before – I had no idea where I was going and was relying and Stephen and the magic that is Google Maps on an iPhone. As we approached Circular Quay, we came across a large grassed area with a heap of people just relaxing, chatting and eating their lunch. I wasn’t expecting it at but was great to see people taking advantage of such a great space. A few moments later and suddenly I could see the tips of the Sydney Opera House. I think every Australian has seen the Sydney Opera House countless times on TV but seeing it in person, even at a distance was remarkable. Another five minutes of walking and we were down at The Rocks and the Sydney Harbour Bridge was our back drop. While I’d always known that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was big, seeing it on TV or engulfed in fireworks really doesn’t give you any appreciation for just how large and visually spectacular it is – it really is impressive.

I managed to sample a couple different foods and restaurants while in Sydney, all in the city centre. The first was a Mexican take away restaurant named Guzman Y Gomez and it was possibly the single tastiest take away food I’ve ever eaten – I really wish we had one on the Gold Coast. For dinner, Kingsleys Australian Steakhouse was on the agenda as Stephen had eaten there before. When I read the menu, I actually joked with Stephen whether or not it was pretty much going to be a great piece of meat and potato and he confirmed my suspicions - that was fine by me! The second evening, we were taken out to a restaurant sitting behind a nightclub, though I can’t remember the name. The food was great and for dessert I had my first chocolate fondant – that was something I could eat regularly! We were our really late that night, not that we realised at the time – I don’t think we really finished eating until around 11PM and didn’t make it to bed until circa 2AM.

The Sydney CBD is a really nice area, lots of great looking buildings – plenty of older classically styled, mixed with new modern design. Probably the most surprising thing for me was, the apparent lack of people within Sydney city. For some reason, I had it in my mind that the city centre was going to be absolutely abuzz with activity – however it wasn’t any busier than Brisbane – in fact I think it was probably less busy. On our way back to the airport, we left early to make sure we could find taxi rank and actually make it to the airport on time. That turned out the be the best decision we’d made, as it turned out there was traffic pandimonium on the Friday evening leading into a long weekend. The taxi driver we had was great, an absolute ninja behind the wheel and was tearing through the traffic and he highlighted numerous times that he is intimately aware of the spacial requirements for that car to fit between other objects – wow.

Overall, I’m really impressed with what I saw of Sydney. While horribly brief from a sight seeing standpoint, its certainly somewhere I want to visit again with Claire & Hugo at a less frantic pace so we can get out of the city centre and really take in the beauty that is Sydney.

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I was heading west on Smith Street, approaching the intersection and traffic lights of Kumbari Avenue and was increasing speed heading down the hill. The lights had been green for a little while so the dozen or so cars in front of me were all accelerating, due to the decline, green light pressure and the faster speed zone on the other side of the lights. With less than 50 metres before we cleared the intersection, the car in front of me decided to break suddenly as soon as the light went amber – when the car to his left and four more went through on the orange.

Had at least one of the minivan’s break lights been working, I would have slowed down with plenty of time to spare. However, it took another fraction of a second before I closed enough distance to realise he was breaking and aggressively.

Fortunately, I allow a little more breaking distance when driving my Ford Telstar; which has a striking similarity to a small tank and even smaller breaks!

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We were booked into stay at Mantra on Salt Beach, one of three accommodation options available at Salt Village – the other two being Peppers Salt Resort & Spa and Peppers Bale Salt. When we arrived at the reception, we were also greeted by a friendly porter. I don’t recall a porter when we stayed at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa last time, however it was great to have one available at Mantra on Salt Beach on this stay. The best thing was he took care of the luggage, which meant it was no hassle for Claire & Hugo. The other benefit I liked was he was able to direct me where to park in the secure underground car park to be close to the lifts that were servicing the section of Mantra on Salt Beach we’d be staying in – nothing worst than going up a lift into the wrong section of a building.

The room we had booked was a two bedroom ocean view apartment and we’d requested a portable cot for Hugo to sleep in as well. I was happy to find out when we arrived that the cot was already set up and it even came with a complete set of toiletries and linen – not bad for a little fella! It was setup in the master bedroom but Claire and I thought we’d move it into the second room. That proved a little harder than first thought as it didn’t fit through the doorways easily and I couldn’t manage to unpack it. A call to the reception and another staff member came up, unpacked, moved and set it up again in the other room in about 2 minutes flat – very efficient!

Hugo had his first real encounter with the beach, which was fantastic to watch unfold. Claire took Hugo down to the water to let the small waves roll over his legs and feet, which he took delight in – kicking and stamping in the water. It would have been great if the beach water wasn’t quite so cool, I think he would have really enjoyed the waves. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do in all the sand, so we put him down onto the firm sand to start with – which went without a hiccup and proceeded to move him into the soft, loose sand. He was fascinated by it, waving his hands furiously over the sand, hitting and knocking it everywhere and had an all round great time. After he had finished playing with the sand, he realised there was a big blue thing in front of him and took off towards it!

When Claire and I stayed at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa last time, we ventured into Kingscliff to have a mooch around and were happy to discover some great cafes and shops. The cafe we remembered had changed hands in that time, I tried a barramundi burger but I now realise that the error of my ways and will remember not to betray the beef gods next time. One shop we were excited to see was still operating was Boardwalk Books, a small book shop with good mix of mainstream reading and a fabulous range of eclectic books that you don’t see in other book shops. We couldn’t help ourselves and picked up a children’s book named Everybody Poos and a book by Ben Mezrich named Bringing Down The House – the true story behind the recent “21” movie featuring Kevin Spacey.

You can’t help but fall in love with Kingscliff, its small, quaint and is absolute beachside living. I think the Kingscliff Beach & Lawn Bowls Club must have the single greatest location of any bowls club in Australia – their backyard is the pristine Kingscliff beach. I imagine Kingscliff now is what the Gold Coast must have felt like back when it was still a tiny town growing up. Salt Village is also a really relaxing place to be, with the majority of the shops you’ll need to simply remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of everyday life to unwind.

I don’t know when we’ll be back to Kingscliff & Salt Village again next but I’m quite sure I’m going to enjoy it.

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We arrived at Currumbin Beach at about 10:00AM, found a park and walked briskly down to where the wedding venue was – as it took a little longer to get there than expected compounded by a wrong turn! I haven’t taken the pram onto loose sand before but with hard tyres it didn’t fair all that well so I parked the pram at the top of the beach. The entrance to the beach itself was down a relatively steep section of sand to get to the flatter section where the wedding ceremony as going to be held. While walking down it, I was actually thinking to myself that I hope noone slipped in the sand – good fortune prevailed and there were no accidents.

A couple things that were fantastic about the beach wedding, was that it had a magnificent outlook over the beautiful beaches on the Gold Coast and it was very intimate with about 20 guests. I always associated weddings with men in black suits dressed up to the nines and the women in beautiful gowns. It came as a small but funny surprise when the groom arrived in a slightly casual suit, with classy looking black thongs in place of black leather dress shoes! Likewise, instead of the bride wearing a flowing gown that would have dragged over the sand, it was ankle length and wore fancy sandles in leiu of high heels.

Ceremonies at weddings tend to vary wildly, some are short and to the point while others are long winded and drawn out. This particular beach wedding was the former, taking about 15 minutes from start to finish. It was incredible to have the ocean literally 20 meters away from where everyone was standing, with the waves crashing in the background. The only downside, if you can call it that, was that there was just enough noise from the ocean that it made it difficult to hear the celebrant in a few points but it didn’t last long.

I now know what the fuss is about regarding beach weddings, they aren’t for everyone but if they are – they are spectacular.

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During that trip, my older brother Cameron and I were exploring the Queenstown shops and found our way into a tourist style gift shop – full of the obligatory items such as stuffed Kiwi plush toys. One of the things that caught my attention while looking around were necklace pendants made from jade in the shapes of traditional Maori tribal markings. I was quite taken by them and on a subsequent visit to the shop, picked one up to bring home to Australia.

Once putting on the necklace, I didn’t take it off for months and it turns out, for good reason. As summer approached that year, I was around at a friends place to cool off in the pool. No wanting to damage the leather necklace strap, I took it off and sat it on a near by seat. You can imagine how horrified I was when some friends were fooling around beside the pool, knocked the chair and the jade pendant hit the bricks and broke in half! I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I thought I’d see if I could repair it and thanks for some an unknown super-esque glue available at the time – it worked a treat.

Since fixing it that afternoon, I have literally taken it off a handful of times in over 10 years. When I say handful, I mean literally, I could count the times on my fingers – so few in fact that Claire hasn’t seen me without it in over 10 years. It has survived football, soccer, karate, tennis, swimming, water skiing, wake boarding, motorbikes, BMX, rollerblading and every other thing I can imagine and it made it through completely unscathed.

Enter our beautiful son Hugo in September 2008, positively gorgeous and has little fiddle fingers. He takes great delight in touching, grabbing, fiddling, smooshing, yanking or banging on anything he can get his hands or feet on to. For the last month or so, he has loved fiddling with my necklace and it has stood up to the test – until last week when, after years of wear and tear – is finally undone by an eight month old baby boy!

The question on my mind now is – after it being with me for such a long time – should I replace the worn leather strap and return it to its rightful place around my neck or simply move on?

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The traffic was moving at about 80Km/h in this section of road and it was predicably smooth, as opposed to fast then slow. As I came over the crest of a hill and for reasons unknown, the traffic 10 cars in front of me decided to suddenly break. The heavy breaking rippled through the lane of traffic as per normal, however the two or three cars directly in front of me were caught out by the crest of the hill. To compound matters, the car directly in front of me had some issues which their break lights – specifically, breaking caused his break lights to turn off instead of on!

Night fall was upon us and everyone already had their driving lights on. With the free flowing traffic through this section of road, there wasn’t a reason for the driver in front of me to break – so I didn’t notice the reversal of his break lights earlier. Unfortunately for me, that meant I first realised something was wrong after he stomped on the break pedal to respond to the heavy breaking 10 cars in front.

As you can imagine, I was very happy that there was adequate breaking distance for my heavy little tank of a car to slow down or I’d be catching a lift to work for a while.

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We got away from the Gold Coast at about 9:15AM and topped up on fuel on the way to the motorway. To my surprise, the traffic was flowing smoothly over the M1 and the Logan Motorway – which was further improved by a lack of any crazy driving from other motorists. We pulled into the Parkhouse Cafe on Margret Street in Toowoomba 11:15AM to feed Hugo and have a driver reviver. As an aside, the cafe has been refurbished and had a slight change in name since I proposed to Claire there in 2004. I really like what they’ve done with interior of the cafe – much more comfortable, modern and fresh. Back on the road by lunchtime and we arrived in Chinchilla at about 2:15PM – more than enough time to unpack a few things from the car and prepare a 3:00PM snack for Hugo.

Claire and I really weren’t sure what to expect with the long drive, as it meant that Hugo was going to miss out on his normal play time between 11:00AM and 12:30PM-1:00PM. Instead of going completely bonkers, screaming and crying – he just cruised along with what we were doing. I suppose we shouldn’t have been so surprised, to date he has been fantastically flexible with us carting him around the traps and tolerating us breaking his rhythm from time to time.

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In the morning, we’re driving from the Gold Coast to Chinchilla to spend Christmas with our respective families and friends. The trip out to Chinchilla could be quite eventful, as it’s the first drive we”ll have taken with Hugo much over an hour.

Belinda has suggested that we leave when Hugo is due for his morning nap and stop in Toowoomba for a break. Due to our distance, the timing of that couldn’t have been much better as we’ll arrive at approximately 11:30AM. After the pit stop is complete, we’ll continue on the second half of the drive. Traffic and driving conditions permitting, we should arrive in Chinchilla no later than 2:45PM – which will give us a little breathing room before we need to feed Hugo again at about 3:00PM.

We’re on a schedule here people, lets hope it unfolds according to plan!

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The Brisbane Convention Centre is considered a best of breed facility, which you’d think would mean that they’d have all of the smaller points handled with ease. You can imagine our surprise when we went into the parenting room to fix up Hugo, that they didn’t provide a microwave to heat up a bottle. In lieu of the microwave, they provided a note informing people to go to the cafe inside the centre – a little odd but maybe they had people abusing the microwave. I head over to the cafe and ask them to heat up the bottle in their microwave and was told that they don’t have a microwave. Instead, I’m provided a paper coffee cup with hot water in it – quality.

After managing to get enough heat into the bottle that Hugo would probably drink it, I thought a couple of drinks would be nice. I order a coffee & a strawberry milkshake and they don’t do milkshakes – how many cafes do you know that don’t serve a simple milkshake. Moving on from that, I later ask for some plain potato chips and they have only salt & vinegar and BBQ flavours – a tad limited for such an large conferencing venue. I then notice that they have a Four’N Twenty hot box on the counter – nothing against Four’N Twenty but it seems a tad out of place in this setting.

All this mind you when they have a graduation on, where they conferred approximately 330 graduands. Doing the math on that for a moment would suggest that there was quite comfortably going to be at least 1000 people in the venue and they couldn’t muster a microwave for the obvious families attending, a better range of chips (of all things) and a milk shake from a so called cafe that serves Four n Twenty from a hot box.

The Brisbane Convention Centre itself was well presented, clean and the staff on the floor were polite and helpful. If only they could have got some of the smaller things right, this could have been a very positive review of a top notch facility.

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The Chinchilla Melon Festival celebrates all things melon including water melon, rock melon and honey dew. The week of the festival culminates on the Saturday with back to back events taking place from very early in the morning. Patrons are encouraged to take part and experience the whole event starting with a poets breakfast and finishing late in the evening with a free concert.

The Melon Festival is a family oriented event with lots of fun things for the kids to do, some of which include:

• Pip spitting
• Melon bungy
• Melon skiing
• Melon smashing

It is recommended that you bring an older set of clothes for your children if you intend to let them loose for the Chinchilla Melon Festival. Due to the nature of the event, a lot of the activities involve broken and smashing melons; which get quite sticky and makes a bit of a mess. You’re kids will love it, its a whole bunch of fun!

This year everyone was privileged to witness Australia reclaim a Guiness World Record for the most water melons smashed in sixty seconds. You’re probably thinking that you could smash a whole lot of water melons in sixty seconds; well you probably could with your hands but the record is for using your head! The record has been floating back and forward between a bunch of Italians and Australians for the last few years. Fortunately, this time our Australian competitor stamped his authority on the title – beating out the existing record by seven water melons. Amazingly, he was so far in front of the existing record that he actually ran out of water melons to bust on the competition table – so maybe he could have got a handful more in!

If you’re looking for something fun to do with the family in February 2009 (I know it seems like a long way off), you should consider the Chinchilla Melon Festival but remember to book your accommodation early; its a very popular event!

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