CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA DAY....

This is the first time that I have not been at home to celebrate Australia Day....
I am pleased that we got to celebrate it down here....
Sarah had organised with her sister and brother in law to celebrate it with them and some of their close friends....
We were going on a picnic to the beach....
Well we thought it was Wynumn
She was very organised,  cooking the night before, packing the car the night before, but we had to wait until she dropped Colin off at the recording studio's before we could actually leave....

That was all fine,
We took off and headed down the motorway...
We missed the Wynumn exit so had to retract our steps back....
We missed a text from Sarah's friend Gemma who corrected us on the location of the picnic...
We then got to Wynumn,  it was crowded and we had to park a mile away....
We unloaded the car, the bike, all the picnic bags and esky and proceeded to lug it all a good half a kilometre up the road to meet the others.....

By the time we got there and Sarah went to ring them to find out exactly where they were, she realized that she had left her phone in the car....
I didn't have all their phone numbers and addresses. 
Meanwhile I lost Sarah at Wynumn, and she didn't have a phone so that I could ring her and find out where she was...
Meanwhile we are both wandering around here....

 Still unable to contact each other....

I did however manage to get hold of one of the girls who informed me that they were not at Wynumn after all but were at Wellington Point....

So then I had to continue looking for Sarah and Willow to let them know....
In the end I just kept looking for a bright pink bike and a little girl in a bright yellow shirt...

By the time we found each other we just felt like giving up...
It was a long haul back to the car.....
In the end,  I waited with the children and all our gear whilst Sarah ran back to get the car and she was going to meet us by the carpark and reload it all there again...
What a nightmare.....
Disaster all around.....

Anyway the only thing that stopped us going home was the fact that the others were definitely relying on  us  to provide them with a good part of their  lunch...

It was almost 1pm by the time we got to Wellington Point....
Feed time again for a baby....

Still once we got there it was lovely and we certainly spent a couple of relaxing hours sitting under the tree enjoying lunch and each other's company... Fortunately for me these were long time friends of Sarah's and most of them had spent time at our home whilst growing up so it was lovely to catch up with them and I enjoyed their company..

Our set up under the trees...

Dane and Pete

Josh and Lauren

Sarah and Jemma with Baby Max

Celebrating it the Aussie way...

 They had a good position here as it overlooked the children's play ground,  this allowed the three children to have a good time but at the same time under the watchful eye of the adults...

Audrey and Willow on the slide together...

Racing each other down...

They spent ages going up and down together....

Two best friends....

 They had lots of fun on the climbing ropes

 

 

Photos of long time friends....

Three of these girls grew up together back in Rocky...

And Amanda has now become Sarah's sister in law....

Life long friends...

 

 There was a great atmosphere along the bayside beaches in Brisbane for Australia Day...
Everywhere you went there were flags flying,  cricket games in progress...
Family groups picnicing together..
It was so good seeing everyone celebrate our National Day....

 

 

 I particularly like Wellington Point...
It is probably one of my favourite beachside places in Brisbane...
Plenty of wide open spaces,  lots of picnic areas set up..
Bar-B-Q facilities...
Jetty to walk out on...
On to top it all off...
You can walk out to King Island when the tide is low...
The tide was low whilst we were there and there was a constant stream of people walking out across to the island....

Walking out to King Island at low tide...

Sandbar going across to King Island

There were lots of people walking over to the island...

 

I think I would love to wander over to the island one day and have a good explore... It just looked so inviting with so many people wandering over to it.  You could also see quite a few people on the island itself...

Happy Australia Day....

One thing about people in Brissie, they really go all out to celebrate Australia Day.   Everywhere we went there were crowds of people....  family outings.... all with portable canopies over their tables....
I have not seen so many all together... Common occurance down here...

 

 It was good at Wellington Point.  Pete got a kayak for Christmas, so the guys had a good time with it out in the water....
We left mid afternoon,  the girls were sad to leave and they were keen to give each other a big cuddle...
Neither of them were ready to go home....
they wanted to play some more...

Good bye hugs...

Time to pack the car...

Ready to head home...

So despite all the confusion...
And all the mix ups.....
It turned out to be a great day after all..