EXPLORING THE BAY

We had our first real sleep in these holidays this morning.  I mean we were away quite early but we didn't have to get up and we didn't....It really is lovely just being away together.  As much as I adore our kids and love them to bits,  I am kind of enjoying this time of our lives too, where it is just Steve and I and we can take off and enjoy each other's company.... I do indeed feel very blessed.

It has been a pretty hectic holiday without too much down time, so it was really lovely this morning to just sit around and pretty much do nothing but relax.  I sat and read a magazine,  checked out Pinterest, had a look at Facebook, and didn't feel guilty in the slightest...

A stroll along Urangan Pier

Loved seeing the pier used by some many young and old people alike.

There were lots of people fishing off the pier... They even have stainless steel filleting tables set up along it.

Saw lots of pelicans using resting up on top of the light poles...

Impressed with myself that I walked to the very end.... almost 1km ling...

By lunch time, we were ready to take off and do some exploring.... neither of us are feeling 100% so we weren't really interested in doing anything strenuous today.  We drove down to Urangan and went for a walk along the Pier.  It is almost 1 km long and it was a lovely day to take a stroll out along it.  It also got us out into the fresh air and sunshine...

Just as we parked the Car, we heard someone sing out to us....
Who would know us down here....
It turned out to be my cousin's wife.  They are also holidaying down here and we arranged to catch up with them later today... Unfortunately we were really feeling lousy so we postponed it until tomorrow...

After we had strolled along the pier we decided to go check out the Botanical Gardens at Hervey Bay. It was free, so we thought it would be a nice way to spend the afternoon.  They are not huge gardens, but nice...

Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens...

 The actual gardens themselves did not have a lot of flowering plants in them, not at all like the ones we went to in Cairns this time last year that have wonderful native flowering  and gingers everywhere...

The Highlight though of the Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens though would be their Orchid House...

Botanical Gardens...

This was definately worth a visit...

 It cost us $2.50 each to get into the Orchid House... Pretty cheap really considering that also included a cup or tea or coffee....  They have some really rare and exquisite orchids in there and we enjoyed photography many of them...

 These next Lilies were the richest red I have ever seen.  Steve's Mum grows these, but these ones were magnificent.... They drew you to them straight away...

The photos do not do these flowers justice.  They were vivid....

We actually could have spent quite a bit more time there but it was closing time so we were only in there for a little over half an hour.... and we had to leave... They did offer to let us come back again tomorrow free of charge.  They also told us about the annual spring orchid show that is being held in Hervey Bay this weekend, so we thought we might see if we can go....  It will just depend on whether we get out Whale Watching or not.... The weather is not at all good today...
 Whilst we were in the orchid house, we were given a map of the Botanical Gardens and told about the Chinese Gardens so thought we would wander off and go and find them...

On our way we came across this lovely little Bush Chapel...

Bush Chapel in the Botanical Gardens. 

 I am sure it is the scene of lots of wedding in this area... It was a lovely little area of the gardens.
We kept wandering until we came across the Chinese Gardens...

Entrance to the Chinese Gardens.

Having a rest in the Chinese Gardens

After leaving here,  we just wandered back through the gardens

The old tree stump

  and  headed towards the lake  where we checked out the water features and watched the ducks.

On the way back to the car, we came across a black snake.  I couldn't get out of their fast enough but Steve was happy to photograph it...

We think it was a black snake... 

We left the gardens around 4.30pm and then just went driving along the esplanade all the way down to Point Vernon.....

Checking out one of the many boat ramps in the area...

 Near this boat ramp we also noticed this sea plane....  I would have thought it was too rocky to land it around here.  This end of Hervey Bay has hardly any beach.... The shore line is all tessellated rocks and almost volcanic rocks.

Sea plane

    We continued our drive and we found a really lovely area around here that would be awesome to sit and watch the sun set.... We made sure we captured it on our GPS so that we could go back another night when we were feeling better and perhaps have dinner there just watching the sun set....

It was almost dinner time by the time we finished exploring as as neither of us felt crash hot, we stopped into the chemist for some drugs and then picked up take away for dinner......

Think it had better be an early night for us tonight so that we are feeling much better tomorrow....