A Land Down Under Part 1

The beginning of March saw Ric and I travel to Australia for Sandi's wedding. Ric flew out first as he had to go to Sydney for work and in doing so managed to blag a free flight (though horror of horrors had to go 'economy' to fly back with me). So on a sunny Brisbane morning he was met by a sweaty, smelly, hungry and jetlagged version of myself in quite the foul mood. So it was the perfect time for him to catch up with some old school friends whilst I slept off the jetlag...

Myself, Ric and Jess outside the Wickham on Big Gay Day

The next day there was no rest for the wicked as we headed off to the Wickham Pub for Brisbane's annual Big Gay Day. It is basically a street party with bad food, lots of drinking and some awful D List acts (Leo Sayer was performing!!!!). Being 37 degrees celsius certainly forced to aclimatise from the English winter. We met up with Columb, Damien, Jess, Graham and Sammy and drunk from around 1pm until around midnight. I introduced Ric to bundy rum and got appropriately feral and even managed to tuck into a proper Australian Kebab.
We spent the next couple of days crusing along the river, shopping, getting in some more drinks, food and plenty of sunshine. I met up with Vicki who had just finished 2nd in National Athletics Championships (High Jump) as well as Charlene who was as adorable as ever.

We then headed down through the Gold Coast hinterland to Murwillimbah (narrowly avoiding a Texas Chainsaw Massacre style hitchhiker) to see my dog Jorgi who is now staying with an amazing older lady called Sybil Primrose (she has no surname). Sybil's a bit of a meditation guru and self helper, a very interesting character who was taking care of a very relaxed and healthy looking Jorgi.

Jorgi

After a quick stop over in Byron Bay it was up the coast to Coolongatta to stay at the beautiful Blue C apartments. The complex is managed by Rene's parents and the rooms are just divine! Rene's parents were incredibly hospitable and really lovely people. We spent a very chilled out two days there by the beach (I even managed to get Ric into the water) and topped up our suntans for the wedding. Then it was back up the coast via a small traffic jam and onto a Jetstar plane up to Airlie Beach...

The view from our apartment