Skye's birthday

Yesterday, she joined me in our thirties :) I'm not sure if I still feel hungover from saturday night in Bowral (today's wednesday!!) or whether we relaxed so much yesterday on North Stradbroke Island that I'm still feeling slowed down today.

This has been a big birthday for Skye, because it's the first for 7 years or so that she's been able to spend it with family. So, last weekend we went to the Southern Highlands and enjoyed lunch with the family at the pub in Burrawang. In the evening, we met up with friends and drank The Grand in Bowral dry (well, nearly...) and have been chuckling at the flashes of recollection ever since :)

For her actual birthday yesterday, I had a surprise trip to North Stradbroke Island lined up. We put the car on the ferry and spent the day enjoying the peace and quiet of the place. Day trips on weekdays are highly recommended! We swam in a lake, paddled in the sea, watched whales, dolphins and turtles while we ate our sandwiches on a rocky headland, spotted a wallaby and 3 koalas (first time either of us had seen them in the wild) and even had a possum run under my chair while we ate dinner. Lovely. To top it all off, I surprised her with having arranged for Nat and Al to meet us for dinner in the evening.

The only downside to taking a day trip on a tuesday is getting back into the office on the wednesday :/ Not only were we lucky with the wildlife we spotted, we were also very lucky with the weather. There's a very welcome interlude to the drought here at the moment, but luckily it held off for the entire day and left us with very comfortable temperatures and clouds to shelter us from the sun - perfect for bushwalking and swimming, and lovely conditions for late afternoon photos.
(these photos are just taken on my mobile phone - there are plenty of much better ones that I'll be posting on fatcat soon!)