The Hundredth day....

100 days- Narrabeen Beach, Sydney

Waiting for the storm- Hunter Valley

We left home on September 21st so today is the hundredth of our trip.
Lots has happened to us all- and we have laughed and learn’t at everything.
There have also been the negatives: lu’s 80 mossie bites in one night; the extremely challenging stresses of pre-pubescent daughters; the van break in and several other motorhome crisis’, to name a few, but we deal with it all and are taking an increasingly Aussie ‘no worries, no drama’s’ approach.
We set a pretty difficult task for ourselves today- pick the 5 best moments or places and your worst bit. I assure you picking the top 5 was hardest.
Here it is.

Olivia-
1- turtle rescue at Mapoon.
2- Aarukun speedboats.
3- Christmas day at Byron Bay
4- Dreamworld- ‘The Claw.
5- Meeting my new Aussie mates- misha, tashi and elyssa
Worst- The camp toilets in Serena

Georgia-
1- turtle rescue at Mapoon.
2- Christmas at Byron.
3- Movieworld- ‘Superman.’
4- Daydream Island in the Whitsundays.
5- Fraser Island.
Worst- Smell of Molasses at the Bundy rum factory. Georgia- top 5

Maddie-
1- Driving speedboats at Aarukun.
2- Surfing at Byron.
3- Movieworld- ‘Superman.’
4- Scuba diving the Barrier Reef in Daintree
5- Wild Dolphins at Yamba.
Worst- The nightime trip across a croc infested river in a tinnie at Turtle rescue.

Lu-
1- Whitehaven beach- just beautiful.
2- Turtle rescue
3- Spending time with indigenous peoples in Cape Yorke.
4- Winding down on Rawa Island.
5- Learning to surf in a storm on Rainbow Beach.
Worst- All 3 kids vomiting during our plane charter from Mapoon to Aarukun.

Andy-
1- Speedboat ride to Rawa.
2- Surfing at Byron
3- Storms at Rainbow beach.
4- Sunrise at Rainbow Beach.
5- Big Crocs, really close, in Cape Yorke.
Worst- Emptying the camper van waste water, every day.

The past few days have been a bit of a blur- 4 days of travel, but we did slip in a very enjoyable afternoon vineyard tour in the Hunter Valley yesterday. However we are now just outside Sydney in preparation for New Year fireworks at the Harbour Bridge.
Happy New Year. Love to all
Andy

St George Foreman- International Cultural Ambassador

Christmas eve. The ominous prospect of yet another BBQ beckons.....How do we convince the kids that this is how we should be celebrating Christmas ?
Then at 4pm Santa appears early. Our next door neighbour of the past 2 weeks offers us her magical ‘George Foreman portable roaster.’ Wow! an offer we couldn’t refuse. A mad dash to the shops in which we acquired a magnificient Turkey, Roast Potatoes, fresh gravy and all the trimmings. But sadly no pigs in blankets.
That done, the evening was back on course and we all got dressed up for a special Christmas eve dinner and drinks at ‘The Balcony,’ a place in Byron we have come to know and love for early evening gin and tonics. The heavens opening just as we were leaving so reminded us of England but a great evening of family tapas and paella followed and then back home to bed in expectation of Santa (who remember had to climb in through the vent in our loo!)

Christmas eve dinner

Christmas morning started at a very civil 6.45 am and Santa had somehow delivered. Our walk along the beach before breakfast, dressed up in white, red and green with Santa hats on, attracted the local newspaper reporter doing his piece on Byron at Christmas. Boxing day morning and we had made the front cover of the paper- unfortunately minus Georgia for who a call of nature coincided with the pic.

We take a walk whilst Fluffy pants guards the chocs!

Smoked salmon on muffins for breakfast, a present opening session and by a very relaxed 1pm we hit the beach. What a great atmosphere- lots of santa hats, barbies and very hot indeed. There was even a surfing santa wearing a mankini!

Santa's not so little helpers.

By 4 however the prospect of the turkey beckoned and we switched on George. Two and a half hours later we sat down to the most relaxed Christmas dinner you can imagine. What an amazing act of teamwork but we all agreed Lu gets a masterchef nomination.

Lu looking great- and the turkey wasn't so bad either.....

Alas, like all wonderful things, Byron is over. We loved every single minute.
The next few days we are heading south to Sydney for New years eve. We have just stopped north of Coffs harbour at a place called Split Solitude Beach. We spent the most amazing hour at the ‘Legends of Surf Museum’ run by the coolest 80 year old guy, Scott Dillon, we have ever met. He has been surfing since he was 3 years old and the museum is a tour of his memorabilia- great pics of him surfing the most famous waves in the world, a collection of amazing boards and other pieces of surf history. The camp is very relaxed, the only similarity to Byron is that we are right on the beach, but that is it. We are in the sand dunes, amongst the trees and it is very laid back indeed.
Take care and enjoy the holidays
Andy and Lu.
xxx

The Spaceman says eveybody look down....

Byron Bay, Tuesday 16th December 7.00am

Our second morning at beautiful Byron and it feels like the sun has not left a perfectly cloudless sky. This is our base for Christmas and it would be hard to beat right now. We are no more than 30 seconds from the beach and 2 minutes walk to the very cool main street of this bustling town. A real mixture of people- lots of families and backpackers as usual, but what seems to give this space it’s feel is the locals. They are, relaxed, man,.....of course they are all friendly and very chatty, everyone is in Aus apart from the low life who broke our van, but they seem to appreciate they live in an exceptional place- even the drunks who have a special tree on the beach they hang out under are cool. Add to that the surfers, their babes and a mix of hippies who appear to have got stuck here at some point in their lives, and you have Byron.

7pm Yoga and boarding at Byron

All appreciating a perfect surfing beach with crystal clear water, at Australia’s most easterly point. I think if Captain Cook had discovered it he would have abandoned ship, stayed, and changed the course of history!
A testing week beforehand though with both Lu and myself having our first ‘lows’ of the trip. Both really triggered by the handbag incident which unfortunately we are reminded about daily due to the stuff taken. What added to it was a mini cyclone that hit us on Tuesday evening in Ballina. Yet another storm had hit us and seemed to have passed whilst we were enjoying a ‘teach the family’ Black Jack’ session, when from nowhere a wind appeared, rocked the van like a toy boat in a bath and then ripped our canvas awning and almost wrenched the supporting steel frame from the van, completely bending it in the process. Luckily our insurance covers it (yet again) but we felt exceptional vulnerable in our little home.
We patched it up with string and tape and got out of town the following morning. The new one is being fitted next week.
And so to Yamba- another tiny fishing port about 350km south of Brisbane. Without doubt, Yamba grew on us. The weather was nothing special as we arrived but as with so many places, as the sun came out, so did it’s character. A campsite with pools, slides, free kids cinema, a great waterfront setting and an en-suite loo proved what we needed. With the arrival of Johnny, Indra, Mish and Tashy-our third encounter- our gloom was lifted and thrown out with the trash. Several bottles of Rose, local fizz and many beers all added to the fun and slightly cloudy head in the morning. The highlight of the stop however was yet to come.
We had tried unsuccessfully to rent some tinnies (small 4m motor boats) late Saturday afternoon so we booked an early Sunday start. The brilliant sunshine that greeted us when we woke up glistened on the Clarence river and we could see why it has been named Australia’s most beautiful. Half an hour into our adventure and Geogia and I noticed a fin about 10m from the boat. Two more appeared in quick succession and we realised we had come across a family of bottle nose dolphins- 2 adults and a pup- feeding.

Gulls on the Clarence

We were then treated to 45 minutes of slowly trailing this family as they fed in the shallows. Not another soul around and it was absolutely magical. Of all our wildlife encounters, whether in zoos’, parks or even the crocs in Cape Yorke, this was the most memorable.

Dolphin hunting.

Farewells again to Johnny and the Kurzines, we will see them again in the near future en-route to Melbourne.
So to Byron, the road trip winds it was on.
Take care all
Andy

mavis the motorhome

8th December 08

Hi its Mummy and Georgia here, nobody has caught up with the blog for a while so here we go.

Brisbane –Our first city! We stayed in a camp site only ten minutes from the city centre. This was great for all our sight- seeing, culture injections and our last chance to shop for Christmas, for anything that wasn’t going to be from a surf shop that is.
Brisbane is set up with its museums and galleries along a stretch called ‘The South Bank’ a very similar feel to London.

Day 1 was spent visiting Brisbane’s science museum which was really hands on and practical. Giving us a chance to sprint against Australia’s fastest 100m runner, problem solving, optical illusions, space, weight and much more. Mum says she couldn’t believe it when I tapped her shoulder and I was lifting a family size fridge, with the use of leavers, and Olivia with what looked like her head chopped off on a food platter thank goodness for optical illusions.
Over the next few days, we visited the Museum of Modern Art, The Brisbane Museum and an exhibition called ‘Game On’ a history of Video games. Great fun was had by all playing various games. Remember Ping Pong? Space Invaders (couldn’t get Andy off that) and hysterical time on the dance mat.
This year Christmas shopping just for the five of us was very strange , looking for small light portable presents that we could hide somewhere in the motor home. Happily Olivia will not be receiving any large pieces of moulded pink plastic this year. We did however start to feel a little bit in the Christmas spirit. There was a lovely large tree in the main square and children singing carols from all the local schools. There was a Australian post box in the main square which was just for letters to Santa, so the girls were able to send details of where we would be staying and asking him to climb through the vent in the ceiling, and to then balance onto the loo to get into our Motor Home (which we have now called ‘Mavis’) as we did not have a chimney. Olivia is still asking Santa to bring her Charlotte her best friend for Xmas.... Mmm not sure he will be able to do that one.
Another first for the girls on this trip and certainly a great experience for us all, one evening following a long shopping period we took them to have their first taste of Japanese ‘Teppenyaki’ We had wonderful chef who was keen to put on a great show for us pommes, all the girls could say was WOW. When it was time to make the egg fried rice we had to catch the raw eggs into our bowls......Andy did....the rest of us no way, so egg all over. Once the rice was cooked we also had to catch the rice in the bowl this time we all managed that one.
Brisbane bought more storms and high winds. The heat builds up each day and then like a flick of a switch, late afternoon the heavens open with rain, thunder and incredible lightning this goes on for most of the night, day breaks and you are greeted by a beautiful blue sky and warmth once again.
Pacific Pines, Claire, Tobi and the Theme Parks. – We arrived in Pacific Pines on the 30th of November, where we planned to stay the night saying hi, and ended up staying a week. We were visiting one of mummy’s old school friends (who she had not seen for 24 years) Claire Spillman and her gorgeous black Lab, Tobi.
We were greeted that night by a thorough face licking and lovely roast lamb. Our first roast for over 3 months! How did she know The Lucey’s love their roasts?
The next day we left the house at 10am to go to our first Theme Park, ‘Wet and Wild’. This was great fun going on all the water slides, the kamikaze, the black hole and all other sorts. Olivia managed to go on every ride. She has great guts!

The Aussie air seems to have given Mads a growth spurt!

The day after that, Claire had the day off work from the Gold Coast Hospital where she is a child’s physiotherapist. She told us about a place called ‘Tambourine Mountain with lots going on. I, Maddie and Daddy went on a very testing, 4 course of high ropes. That took us 3 hours, while mummy and Claire took Olivia horse riding. The day was great fun, having a picnic lunch, and afterwards an ice cream in a little village.

Decorating the tree at Claires.

On the 3rd day of December we went to Movie World. The Superman ride was the best rollercoaster. So fast, with vertical climbs, drops and loops.! The batman rides were good fun, as well as the soaking log ride and Land of Looney Tunes. Mum is sooooo not good at roller coasters so the land of Looney Tunes was about her level. Ha Ha

with mum in the Land of Looney Tunes!

School work couldn’t be forgotten, so another day catching up with that and our scrap books, which are beginning to look really interesting. That same day, dad went out to the supermarket and came back with his hair coloured peroxide white! Okay, okay, we all know that you were bleaching your hair for blond highlights, but now this!

Blondes have more fun.....

Last stop a day at Dream world. What a week of theme parks. We have definitely had enough of them for a long long time. At least we had experienced them before all the schools broke up for their summer holidays, they were quite busy with ‘Schoolies’ though which are the 16 and 18 year olds all out having fun after their exams.
We left Claire and Tobi who had been such great hosts all week. We did not want to leave our beds with cotton sheets, great showers, flat screen T.V the comfort of a home and good company. The aim for the next week was to travel south of the Gold Coast to explore as far as Coffs Harbour, about a third of the stretch to Sydney. That afternoon we met up with Pad and Lynn for lunch who were staying in Sanctuary Cove, just 10 minutes away. Unfortunately a few minutes after we had sat down, I went back to the Mavis – the van, to get a jumper only to find the glass smashed and the van had been broken into. Mummy’s new Orla Keily handbag which we had bought her for her birthday to use on the trip was the only thing that had been stolen but it contained a matching purse, mobile phone and everything else in the bag. Dad was amazed how much mum kept in her handbag...... So if you don’t hear from mummy that’s why. She was most upset about her photos she had in her purse of us since we were tiny, Olivia’s important glasses and of course her phone. At least the robbers had gone before I arrived back at the van. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to the police station to report the crime and then trying to sort out fixing the glass.
So we are now in Kirra near Coollangatta the border to New South Wales catching up with our insurance company, getting the glass fixed in the morning and mummy and Daddy have just said we can do some school work. Yuk.
Hopefully we are going to see high school Musical this afternoon.
.
All our love to you all,
Mummy and Georgia,
xxx

brisbane nov28

CRIKEY!!

Is it always raining when i do blog updates? The west coast of Aus has had a huge amount of rain over recent days- maybe its our british influence. We sat through 2 days of major storms last week. 1 nut case was killed- he tried to take pictures from inside a storm drain....darwin awards(?) so probably a good thing his genes have been eliminated from society ,some 120000 homes in the Brisbane area were damaged and numerous trees and power lines fell.
Meanwhile lu, Maddie and Georgia went to surf school! At 7pm that evening, when after several hours away they still hadn’t returned, i did begin to plot my course of crisis action. However they got back, totally elated, having been bashed around by 4 ft waves for a few hours. Definately the best way to handle adverse weather.
Nightime however was different. Having told the kids not to worry as we were protected by the rubber wheels of the camper being in contact with the ground, things did get pretty bad. My plan centred on explaining that if you count the seconds between the lightning strike- which were awesome as we watched them over the ocean- and the following thunder roll, that is how ‘far’ away the storm actually is. The count started around 15 which was fine but it steadily fell until by my own nervous reckoning it hit 2 and a collective wail rose from the kids beds. I said they had been counting too quickly and it was definitely more like 5!
We survived.
That all took place on a cliff edge at a place called Rainbow Beach. Without and doubt the coolest place we have been so far. Our tour of west coast Australia’s finest campsites has produced some pretty ugly contenders- Serena, Ingham, Mackay and some beautiful spots, but Rainbow Beach blows them all away.
A tiny town of about 500 people, 3 coffee shops- all serving awesome pancake breakfasts, 1 surf school and a couple of browsy gift shops- the owners of which knew Mads, Geo and Bugs on first name terms by the time we left (that involved an ever increasing discount whenever they spent there, which was an upside). Unsurprisingly in such a spot, they have just finished building some pretty awesome, ultra modern, ocean view apartments, so i guess in 5 years time the place will feel very differently.

Caught by the waves at Rainbow

Camp Lucey

We had a great 7 days there made even better for us by the arrival of Jonny and Indra and their 2 daughters at the tail end of that. We met them what seems like an age ago in Mission Beach as they were on a 6 month trip to the North from their home in Melbourne and they caught us on the way back down at Rainbow. I am sure we shall be leapfrogging each other a couple more times over the next few months.
The weekend was spent just north of Brisbane at a place called Dicky Beach- so named as the SS Dicky beached itself there about 75 years ago- where i spent yet another afternoon getting thrown around in the waves with a surfboard trying to perfect my ‘hang ten’ technique. Jesus, it is a tough sport. What is most frustrating is sitting on the beach, exhausted after 2 hours in the water, and some young kid turns up, throws his board in and within 1 minute is riding a wave to die for. I have a long way to go and perhaps not starting at age 44 is the best idea.....
On Monday we visited the late Steve Irwin’s Australia zoo. What a fantastic day. We hit it pretty much as the gates opened at 9.30am and were 1 of the last to leave 7 hours later. It is obviously super touristy –the crocodile show arena for example holds 5000 people and is like a Wimbledon show court in scale- but there is a very strong message of conservation, environment and sustainability all in a larger than life Steve Irwin style- Allrighty.

At the zoo with a huge groc and the great Steve.

A short stop to more friends who we have met en-route, Louise and Tony, who hosted a barbie and sleepover that night for us made a long day.


Now Brisbane. We are camped some 5km from the centre of the city in a nice sleepy suburb. There is a great Mexican restaurant 500m away so we introduced the kids to Chimichangers, Quesidillas and reconstituted beans. No Tequila but memories of some of several pretty riotous nights at Jeepers in Wandsworth town flooded back to us.
So we now have 5 days of city culture ahead. There are some highly rated museums here, a great modern art gallery and more importantly for the girls with Christmas looming, great shopping. My credit card is gearing up for a battering......
Take care in the snow back home!
Andy

let's go, adventure!

Maddie and Olivia’s Update on Sunday the 16th of November
Hi everybody, how are you? It’s Maddie and Olivia.
We know that Mummy and Georgia left you saying that we were going off to Fraser Island from Harvey Bay. Well on the 12th we left the motor home at the caravan park and got picked up by a huge four wheel drive coach. Alex, our wicked driver and tour guide, with a very strong Aussie accent was really funny and every time we got to our seats to go to a different venue he said things like ‘All righteooo!’, ‘Let’s go!’, ‘Adventure!’, ‘No Dramas!’ Now imagine that in the strongest Aussie accent you can think off. From the caravan park we picked up a few more passengers and the set of for the Urangan Boat Harbour, where we took a boat to Moon Point on Fraser Island. The first stop we made on Fraser was to Central Station for a rainforest walk. After the apparently ‘interesting’ rainforest walk we hit the stretch of beach and drove along the shore. It was an amazing sight. We stopped at Elli Creek and waded along the knee high crystal clear water holding up our shorts trying not to get our pants wet. In the end Maddie gave up, stripped off and daringly dived into the freezing water where everyone stared at her in amazement. Even our darling father was amazed...

Views from Indian Head, Fraser Island

For lunch we stopped at Happy Valley. Although, the atmosphere wasn’t that happy as we got caught in a rain storm. I felt like a hot cup of tea and when no one was looking, sneaked a takeaway cup and lid. Georgia on the other hand wasn’t brave enough to do it. After lunch we stopped off at the Maheno Shipwreck. It was really weird knowing that over 50 years ago people actually were on the ship and used it day to day.

Maheno at low tide.

That evening we stayed in a campsite in tents with really comfy beds. It was great to have a good night sleep. The following day we stopped off at two lakes for a swim and walked a 25 minute rainforest walk. To get to the first lake, Lake Wabby-the only barrage lake on the island- we had to walk 1.8km and most of the walk was across heavy sand dunes in hot weather. You can imagine the whinging and whining that was coming out Olivia. The second lake, Lake Birrabeen on the other hand was more like a 20 second walk, luckily no whinging that time. The second lake was supposed to be good for conditioning your hair and skin. We said goodbye to Fraser and got dropped back of at the Caravan Park.
The next day we said good bye to Hervey Bay and drove to Rainbow Beach. Our campsite is 50m from the beach and there are no mozzies here- it’s great! Unfortunately Georgia wasn’t well all day but Mummy, Daddy and us two headed down to the beach and had a fun time. Although, because the current was so strong, Olivia would have got dragged away so quickly if she hadn’t held on to Mummy and Daddy’s hand. Even me. Maddie found it extremely tough. Yesterday we bought some body boards. Daddy and us two had a fab time at the beach. Georgia still was under the weather. Also we watched the movie ‘Rain Man’ in the evening, with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. It was really good and a movie which Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for in 1988.
This morning we went out for pancakes for brekkie. Daddy had a surf lesson and Georgia, Olivia and I were in the crashing waves for four hours! We loved it. Right now we are all pretty sunburnt and sitting in the camper waiting for a big storm to hit.

4.45 am sunrise at Rainbow

Tomorrow, more surf lessons. We are staying in Rainbow Beach for at least three more nights, including tonight. This is a great place.
That’s all for now, missing you lots,
Maddie and Olivia xxx

hi georgia and mum here......

11.11.08
Mum and Georgia before breakfast thought they would update the blog.

After nine days at the Whitsundays, we finally packed up our bags and moved on. It was hard because it is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been to, and we will always remember.
Our aim was to get to Hervey bay, with a few stops along the way. Our first night stop was in scary Sarina,( psycho killers unite). The motor home company arrived at 6am with a new van for us to start us on our way. Sadly no bigger, but with a battery that worked.
We seemed to drive miles and miles and miles through major sugarcane areas with not a soul on the road.
We stopped at the Capricorn caves which were a series of 27 dry caves discovered in 1888 by a Norwegian searching for kangaroos. It was weird walking on hundreds of tons of guano poop! One of the caves was used as a cathedral for weddings and concerts. The acoustics were said to be more perfect than the Sydney Opera house.
We drove straight to Yepoon, where we stayed for 2 nights. We all remember listening to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech as we arrived into town, quite a special moment. Hopefully this is a special chance for the U.S and the World to get back on track.
The next stage was to drive to Agnes Water/Town of 1770. This is where Captain Cook first landed in Queensland and guess what year that was...?

During our stay there Maddie, Dad and i went to surf school. The people over here are so committed to educating the way of the water, the tides and lifesaving skills. It’s not just about

learning to surf.
We discovered some kind of jelly fish so that put us off going into the water. Later we found out that the little creature that we were so terrified of was called a jelly blubber that Australian kids throw at each other for fun... what do we know?

Our last day on the road before Hervey bay. We stopped off for a tour of the world famous Bundaberg Rum Distillery. Words could never describe the smell of the molasses in the air. Such a pong I’ll never forget it! I don’t think Olivia ever took her fingers off her nose. There has been many an evening when dad has lost use of his legs from drinking Bundy and coke.
That same afternoon, we finished the drive to Hervey Bay.
From here tomorrow we are off on a sand safari to explore Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island and on the world heritage list. Mum’s worried about sand flies and bugs again; she’ll use her new potion that the locals have advised. A mixture of dettol, Citronella oil and Baby oil, and boy she smells good.
Will update more after Fraser.
Missing u all so much. X

nov 3 - airlie beach, 7am, hot

A major day- after an unbelievable 6 weeks on the road- i have finally worked out how to use our blog... so much for forward planning whilst we were at home!
I think rather than try and catch up in 1 go- boring for you to read and equally mind numbing for me to write, i’ll do it in bite size pieces.
Right now we are back at airlie beach- if you are looking at a map, it south of Townsville, north of mackay and the closest part of mainland aus to the Whitsunday islands.
This is the 8th day we been here now so i guess you could say we have got a bit stuck but you know, it’s the closest place to perfect that lu or i have been to, maddie and Georgia love it also and the camp pool has a slide, so Bugs gives it a big vote also. I reckon however we’ll move on by mid-week.
We just got back from a weekend away from the van – 2 weeks in a room no larger than our kitchen at home so i think we were due it. An 8am ferry on Saturday, followed by a 5pm ferry back on Sunday with a night at the daydream island resort squeezed in the middle. Great beach, great pool, couple cool margerita’s and starched bed linen. Downsides- hotel aircon played havoc with my sinuses and lu’s uncontrollable shopping tendency, but we can get over both of them!
My suspicions about our camper’s reliability are also increasing, fuelled by a flat battery when we got back to the ferry carpark. Aussie racq were very quick but that due almost entirely to being 2 miles from a population centre. An outback road may not yield the same response. This on top of geo locking us out of the van on Friday (the day saved by Bugs the cat burglar....) and a couple of other minor issues.
I spoke to the higher company about it- very understanding and i suspect when we get to Brisbane (about 1250km) we may be in for a change.
one of our overriding impressions of this trip has been how unbelievably ‘nice’ everyone seems to be- without it being in that vile American over serviced way: From the guy at immigration when we first got to Sydney; any number of shopkeepers we talked to; general tourist info people; the breakdown guy last night, but also people at the camp kitchens we been using or just parents of kids maddie, geo and bugs have befriended , these are a really friendly bunch. No doubt some drunken as....e will try to spoil that view but he can wait. There was also the weird town of Ingham- home to Australia’s largest Capsicum festival (how many are there?!)- which had a bit of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre feel about it, but we didn’t stop there too long so it doesn’t really count.
I attached some pics- mainly from our day trip to Whitsunday island and the jaw dropping Whitehaven beach we visited last week. The girls are all growing really fast- (i am even noticing it- could be the sun). Look out for bug’s new teeth, maddies new hair cut – could you fail to spot it- and lu’s new ‘120 a day’ sit up stomach!
Take care, keep in touch.

Georgia (Asleep)

Guy(Daddys old client), Mummy, Daddy, Maddie, Olivia

Mummy

Daddy, Olivia and Maddie

Rawa

Hi everyone, we are now on the beautiful island of Rawa!!!
We were picked up in singapore and drove for 4 hours in an old taxi van. we went through palm tree and rubber tree plantations- it was really interesting. we stopped and geo took some pics of some of the rubber trees. we also saw monkeys on the side of the road eating all the rubbish people throw out of their car. dad says we musnt ever throw stuff out of our windows now.
we then got on a speed boat for half an hour to get to the island.
The weather is amazing and the sea a beautiful turquiose colour!! There is a cool slide on the pier and even though we got there yesterday the whole family have probably been on it a thousand times!!! lol!!! We swam out to the end of the pier in really deep water and jumped off the pier about 4 or 5 metres high!! Even olivia did it!!! Although we stopped jumping when some big fish came to see whats going on!!
When Georgia, Olivia and I were walking along the path to our hut a crocodile raced across in front of us and now we are all scared to walk back there(even though dady says that it wasnt a real one!!)
We have made some friends with two norweigian families and the children(girls) are all around the same age to us!!
Better go now but write soon and next time i will put some pictures up!!!
Madz xxx

Rowa

Family Lucey Diary

18 september. 3 days to go.
Packing mayhem about to start. Way too much stuff and more worried about where it's all going to go once we are there as opposed to can we can get it all in the bag.
Haircut dilemmas- i think the whole family should go for peroxide crew cuts. Think about it- no shampoo, towels, gel or even hairdryers required. And it means i may get in the bathroon in the morning. Pics would look pretty cool too- in about 20 years time!
Andy x

20th september. 1 day to go.
I cant wait. i have literally just finished my packing, and i am so excited, i can't wait to step onto the plane tomorrow and then step of in two days time! we are all soooooo excited!

Maddie and I had to say goodbye to our friends yesterday and we were all crying at school even though it's only seven months! Missing everybody already even though we haven't even left yet! Speak soon,

Georgia xxx