We had a most enjoyable train ride yesterday.  We went up in the hills where there are tea plantations as far as the eye can see.  We stopped at the highest railway station in Sri Lanka at 1891 meters. We rode along in the third class car and hung out the windows and the doors like the regular folks.  In order to see well out the window you had to kneel on the floor, there were no seats, but there were people sitting on the tables. that were in the car. There was a little concession that sold soft drinks, tea, coffee and snacks and another fellow who sold the most excellent  peanuts.  This train ride brought back memories of going on holidays when I was a kid and riding the train from Northern Manitoba down to Winnipeg. 

Barry and I each had a camera and we had fun taking all sorts of pictures.  Occasionally you get a spectacular one, at least I think so, this one was taken as the train reached the end of a tunnel.

Barry caught the train coming out of one tunnel and heading into another.  There were 12 tunnels in our 2 and 1/2 hour train ride.

Seeing the line up of passengers, it made me realize what a foreign country we are in.  Everyone has been very pleasant to us.  There are lots of people with their hands out for extras here.  We have been taking tours and paying to get into places, then a guide will take us around and we are expected to tip the guide at the end. Some of the attractions are free to the local population but visitors are charged an entrance fee.  I am okay with that, in Australia, people over 60 were given a break on prices but only if you were an Australian, I figure this is just the same thing.  

How does this man, who was the station master at one of our stops managed to stay so beautiful and clean in the dirty grimy atmosphere that comes with a diesel train. 

Once we started losing elevation on the north side of the mountain range, we started to see market gardens.The bluey green vegetation in the background are leeks and we saw carrots, potatoes, yams, beets and lots of other veggies being tended as we chugged by.  Tomorrow we  are supposed to go and see some ancient cities that were built over 2000 years ago, so that should be really interesting. I am so glad that we came on this trip.

We are on our tour of Sri Lanka now.  I don't have much time but wanted to upload some pictures from each day.  Yesterday we went on a safari in a wildlife park.  We saw over 30 species of birds, mongoose, monitor lizards, wild boars, deer, water buffalo, elephants and a leopard.  The leopard was quite far away but we saw a mother get up and her cub go gambolling after her, magnificent. Our guide has a web site that has some great pictures so you could visit it if you would like to see some of the wonderful places we going to go in Sri Lanka, go to    www.sampathtours.com

At the moment we are up in the highlands, which are covered in tea plantations.  Later this morning we are going to take a train ride and see some of the old colonial buildings left over from the British area.  It was so cool this morning that we put on our fleeces when we went for our morning constitutional.  

                                           

                                                                         A beautiful bird called a bee eater. 

We went on a day tour a couple of days ago and saw many very interesting things.  As we went by the main beach down town we saw these men pulling in a net by hand.  It was a huge net and our guide said it would take them about three hours to pull it in.  They would very slowly walk backwards with it and then would rotate to the front of the line once they had reached the edge of the beach.  The net piled up on the boat shows you how huge it was.

The next place we headed to was a silk factory. They showed us the silk worms and their cocoons, and there were actually spinning the silk from the cocoon to make thread.  The silk thread was extremely fine but very strong. They had lovely clothing there and I could not resist a beautiful raw silk wrap around skirt.  We met one fellow in Mexico that was comparing beer as he went around the world.  I have decided to buy an article of clothing in each country I am in.  I have some incredible clothes on board at the moment. 

The silk worms and a cocoon, there is 1500m of silk in this cocoon, AMAZING!

Next we went to a moonstone mine, there are lots of semi-precious gems in Sri Lanka, topaz, garnets, rubies and emeralds.  The gem store just in front of the mine was quite the set up and over a cup of tea we were shown the wares.  They had these beautiful pink stones that were called star rubies and they were beautiful.  When you pointed a light at them a star would shine from the center of the stone.  I picked one out and we were negotiating about how it would be mounted.  He then informed us that it would be about $1,000. USD so that was the end of that.  They showed us where the craftsmen were cutting the gems by hand. It was an incredible feat, they would turn the cutting stone by hand and the gem would be on the end of a stick and the would grind it on the spinning cutting stone. 

Our tuk tuk driver took us to a turtle hatchery next.  I applauded the fact that they were saving turtles, but to see the beautiful wild creatures swimming around in a small cement pond was very sad.  I have been in the water swimming next to a turtle and they can really move, a few flaps of their flippers and they zoom away from you.  I did not enjoy seeing those poor creatures in captivity. We were going along the rode beside the ocean when our driver said we were in a special spot where there were five types of transportation that could take place. There was an airport to the left of us as well as a railway track, we were on a highway and beside it was a sidewalk, the fifth mode was difficult to figure out but he said the ocean was a transportation corridor for big ships going to Bangladesh.
A tea plantation was our next stop.  I was very interested to learn about the tea and how it is grown and harvested. Here a woman is harvesting the tea leaves.  The plants are kept at waist height in order for the ease in picking.  She will pick all the fresh shoots and only a week later she will do it again.  The plants take about 2 1/2 years to reach maturity.

The fresh young shoots are taken to the factory where they are cooked.  The machinery in use in the factory was about 100 years old.  It was all very simple but still effective I guess,  there were not a lot of fancy parts and anything that broke down could be fixed fairly quickly. The machine below was the tea oven and the stuff coming out the bottom was the unacceptable stems, etc. the ramp by my head had the good stuff falling down it. 

  

After that we went to the tea tasting room.  You were given a spoon and there were about 30 different kinds of tea to taste.  I ended up buying some lovely lemongrass tea, a chai mix and some extremely smooth BLUE pekoe tea, non of that common orange pekoe for us tea conniseurs.  The tea plantation is a remnant of the British occupation and during the tour we stopped and had a cup at the plantation home.  We had to use the facilities and I got to ogle the wonderful old wooden furniture, the bookcases and the collection of family photos of the former plantation owner.  The plantation is still a going concern and at the moment it employs over 150  people.  

Our last stop was at a coconut factory.  We had been to a where they harvest the coconuts in Mexico so I wasn't sure it was necessary to go, but Barry wanted to so off we went.  They didn't do anything with the coconut meat it was all about the fibre.  The manufactured rope and stuffing out of the coconut husks. 

In the top picture you can see the wide loose rope that comes out of the first machine and then it is wound tighter so that it makes a rope.  The rope is used on the nets in the area, I  don't think it would cut the mustard for line on Cat's-Paw IV though.  This was the end of an extremely informative and interesting day.  Our tuk tuk driver drove us all over and conducted the tour for $4.00 per hour, we ended up giving him $26 for the day, what a bargain.  

Tomorrow we are headed off for a five day tour with another boat.  The crew consists of an Australian couple and 2 children aged 10  and 12, we have known them for awhile and we really like the kids.  It should be a fun trip.

Our tuk tuk driver, Batu with his trusty vehicle, it has a 150 cc engine, manufactured in India.

BEFORE

AFTER

Oh this is what else I did on the crossing,  this is for my granddaughter, Cassidy and I thought it was kind of neat that I was crossing the Bay of Bengal when I was working on this. Cross stitch is a great hobby to have on a boat because it doesn't take up much room.  Outlining the piece gave me an idea of how much work I have left, lots.

You know a storm is hiding in there somewhere, notice the  flat calm sea, hard to sail in that. 

We are safe and sound in Sri Lanka.  We are pretty tired but happy to be here.  Check in was not difficult but long and a bit confusing.  We motored the last 15 miles because the wind was on our nose.  Here are some pretty nice shots from our passage. 

Look carefully, there is a water spout. A tornado is it's land cousin, 

Just great, pan sized. 

Well, I am on shift again and it is 9 at night. We are motoring in dead calm conditions, the sea is so flat that you could see your reflection like it was a mirror. A freighter just went by to the south of us, we are within 100 nm of Sri Lanka and we have about 200 nm to go to get to Galle, where we will enter the country. I imagine we will be seeing more freighters and fish boats the closer we get, all the traffic from the Med. headed for the Far East take this route and just skim the tip of Sri Lanka headed for the Malaka Straits and Singapore. 

Speaking of fishing boats we were slowly sailing along today and a fishing boat appears on the horizon. As we get closer he turns and starts putting up a bow wave coming towards us. I get out the binoculars and see someone waving from the top of the boat. What to do, we are on the high seas heading into pirate country and a lone boat makes a beeline for us. Fortunately, others have told us that mostly it is just fisherman wanting cigarettes, sure enough, that's what it was. Neither Barry or I smoke and it has been proven to be dangerous to your health so although other cruisers stock up on tobacco products for trade and barter we never have. I bought a flat of Coca Cola for just that purpose. The guys (there were 6) onboard did not look too happy that we didn't have cigarettes for them and were even sadder when we said we didn't have beer but they took the Coke anyway. We were given 4 small bonito in exchange, a pretty fair deal all around. I cooked up one for my supper and it was delicious.

I thought I would let you know what a day on passage can be like. Most of the hours of darkness are taken up with sleep, one of us tries to get into bed at 1800 hours or 6 PM, he/she gets up at 9, does a 4 hour shift, to bed at 0100, back on shift at 0500 then depending on how you slept back to sleep again at 0800 for as long as you can. This sleeping between the 2 of us takes up 14 hours of the day each of us having the potential of 7 hours of sleep which in reality is usually about 5 1/2. We sometimes nap during the day. Yesterday I was inspired to design and print new boat cards, we have a small printer/scanner/fax on board that miraculously has survived in the marine environment for over 5 years and we can still buy cartridges for it, that took me about 3 hours. Barry and I had 2 games of scrabble. I am trying to teach myself to play the recorder, I can read music and have directions for the fingering so all I need to do it practise. I have 2 hymn books on board so I page through them looking for hymns in the key of C (no sharps or flats, I am not very good at those yet) and then I murder those poor hymns for about 10 minutes each until they kind of sound like they should, then I try to play them faster and mostly I fail miserably. At least only Barry is being subject to this torture, there is not another soul within 100 miles most likely. Today's project was to get our new sail cover to fit on our boom. We gave the wrong dimensions to the sail maker so that the bottom of the cover which was supposed to slide into the track on the boom was too loose and would not stay in the boom. We have some extra slides on board so in order to get them to fit on the boom Barry had to cut a section out it with our handy dandy Dremmel tool (Thanks GEORGIE. Once he had done that we discovered the slides were too big, out came the file and the Dremmel again and we filed off about 3 mm of hard plastic off of 11 slides. Then I sewed them onto the sail cover. The first one I made sure it was really going to stay on and made a thorough job of it. We tested it out and sure enough it was in the wrong spot, out come the scissors and I started over. In order to stitch these slide on, I have a palm which I wear around my wrist that has a bit on it that help to push the needle through the very tough plasticised fabric. Then I use a pair of pliers to pull the needle through the other side. I managed to sew on 4 slides today so I have a project for tomorrow. 
When we are motoring the boat sails itself, we put on the auto pilot and it steers to a compass heading that we set. All we have to do is look up every 10 minutes or so to make sure we aren't going to run into anything. When we are sailing we have to be a bit more vigilant because most times our wind vane in steering (in order to save on electricity and not run our batteries down with the auto pilot). When the wind vane steers it goes in the direction of the wind you have set it for. So for instance if you are heading 270 degrees or straight west all is good, until the wind shifts. The wind may veer 20 or 30 degrees and all of a sudden you are headed for Madagascar instead of Sri Lanka, OPPS! It would be necessary to adjust your sail trim and your wind vane so that you are once again headed in the correct direction. 

Okay, okay enough, I have not talked to anyone else but Barry and for 5 minutes every second night to another boat on Ham Radio for the last 10 days, so you are getting the benefit. The other things we have to do on board is cook, we take turns having our big meal about 1700 hours so we can get the dishes done before dark. Other than that we read an awful lot, I do cross word puzzles and sometimes play some computer card games. Oh yeah, we have to one occasion, rush up to the bow of the boat and watch the porpoises play in our bow wave, that has happened 3 times on this trip so far, someone reported whales close to Sri Lanka as well so we will have to keep our eyes peeled. I also log our position every day and post it to Yotreps so make sure you check it out on the side of the blog, just click on the link to our position. 

Okay the last little bit, who remembers Lotta Hitchmanova????? We are traveling across the Bay of Bengal and just to the north of us is, you guessed it, Bangladesh. For those of you too young to remember, Lotta Hitchmanova used to raise money for the starving peoples of Bangladesh, to my mind this was in the 70's. There were TV commercials galore exhorting you to send money. If I remember rightly poor old Lotta was later convicted of fraud or some such thing. Does anyone else out there remember her? Please let me know and if you can find out, what era it was. Badabadabadab......that's all folks.

Well conditions have improved quite a bit. After another brutal night, with driving rain and lightning, we are now sailing along at 3.5 knots under a starry sky with a light breeze pushing us across the Bay of Bengal. Yesterday was actually quite pleasant, we had 2 games of Scrabble and had the spinnaker poled out averaging 6 knots. I had some avocados that needed eating so I made guacamole and we soaked up the sun as we munched and sipped our Diet Cokes, life doesn't get too much better than that. They were right, there was wind after the Nicobar Islands, it is just a little light as last night we sailed very slowly, Barry made 4nm in his 4 hour shift, brutal. We contemplated motoring but decided that we needed to conserve fuel as we had used a lot in the first 3 days. We now have 535 miles left to go, so we are about half way, we should arrive in Sri Lanka next Monday or Tuesday. 
I was reading about the country and there are old British tea plantations up in the hills and I hope we can take a tour and stay a night or two up in the hills. I am looking forward to learning about how to grow tea and sampling some. From what I can gather you don't cruise much around Sri Lanka, just stay in the harbour at Galle and travel about. Apparently there are a lot of persistent touts (or people trying to get you to buy stuff) so I will have to harden my heart and practise saying no in a polite way. Hope all is well with everyone and can someone please let me know who won the Scott Tournament of Hearts, I am guessing either Jennifer Jones or Kelly Scott, the long shot would be Heather Nedowin(the internet connection sucks out here!!!)

The other day a huge event happened on the boat, BARRY CAUGHT A FISH! We are not very good fishermen so when this happens it is a huge deal. He had something on the line and it broke the line and took his hook and then a little while later he got another bite and managed to reel it in. His fishing rod leaves something to be desired, he picked it up outside a dumpster (I guess this is where you get it from Trish) and it has seen better days. While this fish seemed to be pretty big, he was having a tough time reeling it in. He decided in the best Barry fashion to just drag it along behind the boat for awhile. We were zipping along at about 4 or 5 knots so this fish was getting a workout. He used his watch and dragged it for over half an hour, much to my impatience, and then gradually wound it in. When the fish was about 10 meters from the boat the reel broke and he had to haul it in the rest of the way by hand. The stupid fish had managed to wind the line around his tail so when he was being brought in I think Barry was basically pulling him sideways, no wonder he felt so big. It was about a 7 or 8 pound bonito, not the greatest eating fish so Barry made a lovely fish soup with a tomato base, very tasty and a nice change. I hope this was the start of a trend.

It was a dark and stormy night (Snoopy fans should recognize that one,I feel like I should be sitting on top of the dodger with the computer writing this blog!!) and man oh man was it dark and stormy. We were sailing in a sailor's worst nightmare, a thunderstorm. It was not just from one direction there were storm cells all around with huge towering ugly cumulus clouds. The sheet lightning would light up the sky but the rest of the time it was completely dark. All the stars were obscured and Barry turned off all the instruments so that if we had a lightning strike perhaps it wouldn't fry everything, (I seriously doubt it would have made a difference, if you get hit by lightning your boat electronics are all toast)so it was well and truly dark. Fortunately there was not much wind so I guess it really wasn't that stormy but it was wet as well. We motored most of the day yesterday on a flat calm sea, you could see the reflection of the towering cloud cells in the water. Twice we saw water spouts develop under heavy black clouds, these are the tornadoes of the sea, not something we were particularly happy to witness. I wasn't surprised to get hit with the lightning storms at night, it was inevitable given the weather conditions during the day. 
So far this has been our calmest passage on record. If we don't get some wind soon we will be bobbing out here for quite a while because we don't have enough fuel to motor all the way to Sri Lanka. We have been on passage for almost 72 hours and we have motored 30 hours in total, we have made 250 miles for an average of 3.5 knots, we have been motoring at about 4.8 knot on average so when we have been sailing we are averaging 2.75 knots, at that rate it will take 22 days to get there, YIKES. I think we better make a sacrifice to the wind gods. Sorry to bore you with all the statistics but when you put it down in black and white it looks really BAD! We have almost crossed the Andaman Sea, the body of water between Thailand and the Nicobar Islands, which are claimed by India. Once we have passed the Nicobars, we will be on the Bay of Bengal and there is supposed to be some decent wind there. 
We both seem to getting enough rest and there has only been one shouting match which took place in the middle of the night when Barry reefed and then motored because he was worried about the previously explained storm cells. What madness, we finally get some wind to sail, he reefs and then continues to motor, WHAT WAS HE THINKING!!! Well I should head to bed so I can maintain my usual chipper, optimistic self in the face of another potentially windless day.

Feb. 27th.

Hello all,

They are off on another passage.  I received this email from the boat yesterday and am not sure if it was the blog or not so thought I might as well post it.  I am sure there will be more to come.    Trish  Oh yes and.....

Happy Birthday Sis. 

We motored 8 hours yesterday but have a little wind now. We flew the spinnaker for about 3 hours this morning then the wind shifted to directly behind us so now we are wing on wing with the genoa poled out. The weather reports indicate it is going to be a light wind passage so we may be out here for awhile. There were indications it might pick up the further out we get so I hope so.

We are back in Phuket now, having just returned from the Similan Islands, which are about 40 miles west of Phuket.  The water there was so clear you could see the bottom at 20 meters,it was phenomenal. Every day we were in the water for an hour or two at a time, most days I would take an extra dip.  We would either snorkel off the boat, or take the dinghy around to a prime spot.  Rather than leave the dinghy in one spot we would just tow it with us and get in when we got tired.  Barry has the tow rope with him in this picture

 . 

The topography was quite different on the west side of the island.  The rocks were big granite boulders that were stacked on top of each other at weird angles. The beaches were beautiful the sand was as fine a flour and a joy to walk on, Barry even managed a short jog, because he just had to. 

I look so small. This is the same rock, just from the other side.

We will be leaving for Sri Lanka on Saturday, it should be about a 10 day sail, depending on the wind.  We loaded up on groceries stocking the boat up for the next 5 or 6 months.  We spent over 19,000 baht, which looked really impressive on the cash register, that equates to about $600 CDN, a lot of grub in any currency.  I will be posting our position daily and hopefully sending in a few blocks via ham radio.  You can follow our progress by clicking on link to Our Position on the sidebar of the blog.  We would enjoy hearing from you on our winlink address while we are at sea.  We will get our new sail cover tomorrow and go and check out of the country and stock up on last minute fresh fruits and vegetables. 

We did the tourist thing today and had fish eat off our dead skin, it was very weird, they really tickle and they kind of suck away at your legs and feet and even between your toes.  It is supposed to be a real treat but I don't think we will do it again, once is enough.   We are going to experience another part of Thailand's culture tonight and we are going to a lady/boy show.  It looks like it should be interesting.  The fellow that helped us at this store could have been one of them, the only way I figured out he was a man is when he spoke to us with a very deep voice!!

Well,Thailand has redeemed itself in my view just by the sheer beauty of the landscape.  We have just spent over a week sailing and exploring among the karst limestone outcrops.  Many of them have caves hewn in the outcrops which lead to circular enclosed spaces called hongs. We have swam through the caves, rowed the dinghy through and walked through a cave at low tide, each one offered us different experiences.  I wish my brother was here so he could explain the geology of these hongs because they are quite amazing.  The cave seems to be a hole warn through solid rock, once you are through the cave you enter a open circular area that is surrounded by sheer cliffs on all sides.  The cliffs are generally straight up, several of the hongs opened up into another one. You had to go through a narrow passageway and another circular area opened up.

It was great fun navigating the dinghy through the narrow pathways.

An attempt to show the high sheer cliffs inside the hongs.
One night at dusk we sat and filled our senses with unbelievable vista around us.  The last of the glimmering twilight was lighting the sheer rock face and you could hear the gentle waves lapping at the jagged cliff edge. I concentrated so I could cement that picture in my memory and hopefully I will be able to recall it when I wish. That night a vicious thunder storm blew through and I will not forget the brilliant flash of the lightning followed by an immediate crash of thunder, it was really close.
We finished off the week by visiting James Bond Island, made famous by the movie The Man With The Golden Gun.  The scenery was spectacular but was spoiled  by the fact that hawker stalls were set up to sell trinkets to the hoards of tourists that were crawling all over the island.  We did manage to get a few pictures with just me in them though, so I guess there weren't that many tourists.

In the movie, this island had a solar collector on it that concentrated power to a weapon that blew up 007's plane.

That is me standing there it gives you an idea of how huge this slab is that just slid off the side of the outcrop.

I am really glad we sailed through this part of the world.  There are just some sights that are so impressive when you can see them with your own eyes. The pictures don't really do justice to their beauty.  

They really are magnificent. 

You had to watch your head when you rowed through this cave.

At sea 07 26.6 N 099 10.7 E southeast of Phuket, Thailand
We have been slowly making our way north to Thailand for the last 5 days.  The winds have been very light most days with a sea breeze of about 8 knots coming up in the afternoon, so the sailing has been lousy.  The scenery makes up for it though! We are in amoung the limestone karst islands that Thailand is famous for. If you ever saw the movie James Bond 007, The Man With the Golden Gun, it was filmed not too far from here.  The islands are monoliths that rise up out of the ocean for about 300 feet, straight up.  Their sides are usually striated cliffs, with crags and caves covering their sides.  We dropped anchor beside one and as we motored around in the dinghy we spotted ropes and rope ladders that are used to climb up and gather up the birds' nest for soup, a very dangerous undertaking. Yesterday we stopped at the Emerald Cave and swam through an 80 meter long cave, some in complete darkness that opened up into a small round inlet with a beach on one side.  There were towering cliffs around all sides, it was amazing, the area used to be used by pirates to stash their plunder. There were plenty of tourist boats around and the customers would get off the boats in life jackets and swim through the cave all holding on to one another, it looked like an fluorescent orange line dance in the water. On our way back we decided to go when we would be alone and we could not find our way through, we had gotten off to the right when we needed to go left.  Another group started back and we thankfully followed them.
Today we are headed halfway across an open stretch or water to Phuket and we should arrive there tomorrow night.  The next day in Chinese New Year and we hope to there are lots of festivities on the island.  We won't check into the country until Tues. as we have been told that we will pay an exorbitant amount if we check in on a holiday.

A travelling chicken coop under construction

We are back in Langkawi now. It is very quiet and I am missing our family.  I wonder what they are up to??  We arrived back to heat and humidity and the Royal Langkawi International Regatta.  There are lots of racing boats in the marina and hordes of sailors and volunteers running around in matching t-shirts. I am feeling a bit miffed that we did not volunteer before we left for Christmas and we would have been in the thick of things, but Barry didn’t want to because we were going to be arriving back just the day before the regatta started.  Oh well, we have been busy getting ready to leave and hope to cast off the lines tomorrow. We will sail around the island for a few days and then head for Phuket, Thailand.  We went diving today, Barry cashed in his coupon I gave him for Christmas.  The visibility was very poor but there were tons of fish and some very interesting coral. We saw 4 tiny seahorses as well as a huge moray eel, and a somewhat irate lobster.  It was good to get a Malaysian dive in our log books.

Our last few days in Bundaberg were taken up with the construction of a chicken coup.  Trish really wants to have fresh eggs every day and so she is pursuing this goal.   In keeping with her recycling philosophy she has scavenged materials to build what will become a travelling chicken coup.  Apparently she will be able to move it about the yard so the chooks (as they are referred to down under) won’t totally destroy one part of her yard.  She got some material for the frame from a dumpster parked outside of a building site.  The conduit was found at the dump store and the tin roofing material was discovered a few days later in the same dumpster, which is just down the block and around the corner and I think the chicken wire was acquired from the dump store (which is a veritable treasure trove for Trish, she faithfully visits whenever she can to see what she can acquire, I spotted an almost new bodem and the perfect paper towel holder, a duck head and feet.) Graeme, the craftsman, went to work with his radial arm saw and his tape measure and pretty soon a travelling chicken coup was emerging. 

 

Trish with electric drill and screw driver went to work fastening bits together; these chickens are going to live like princesses.  I was sorry to leave before the project was finished, I managed to convince the kids to go for a bike ride with their Grannie one evening freeing up some quality building time.  The shots of the kids are when they were drawing on the grass just outside the construction zone.  The coup is plenty strong enough; the kids have been climbing all over it. 

Our three weeks in Australia just flew by.  It was wonderful to spend the holidays with family.  We really enjoyed sharing the time with Graeme’s parents.  We spent many days down at the beach with the kids while Trish and Graeme kite boarded.  It was impressive to see how they both improved with some quality time in the water. A couple of days there were some hot shots from out of town strutting their stuff and WOW were some of them good.  They would launch themselves in the air and do all sorts of tricks before gracefully landing and zooming away.  There were some awesome face plants and body slams as well. Too bad the gingerbread houses don’t suit the Australian climate. I said to Trish if she does it again, you would have to make the houses one day and eat them the next day, no leaving them on display for days. It was great taking the land cruiser down the beach one day, a typically Australian Christmas outing.   I am so glad we went!!!

CHECK OUT THE DOOR WITH THE LATCH TO GET THE EGGS.
  I DON'T THINK A LANGE CONSTRUCTED THIS ABODE. 

                                            

We went to the Botanical Gardens the other day and Quinn got to go and ride on the cane train.  Quinn is definitely train crazy , he has Lego trains and Thomas trains and then there is the cane train. The growing of sugar cane is a huge industry in the Bundaberg area and a group of volunteers have restored a number of diesel and steam engines and run it as a tourist attraction. We went last week and had a ride with the steam engine but we made a special stop today because the diesel engine was working.

Quinn got a special treat because they opened up the engine compartment so he got examine the big diesel engine, then had got to get up in the cab and blow the whistle.  That was the highlight of his day. Last week after we rode the train we went and fed the ducks and the pukekos, a very odd looking bird that we first saw in New Zealand, another name for them is swamp hen.  I uploaded a video of Quinn and June doing some gymnastics in the living room.  If you would like to view it go to the side panel on my blog and click on the link.