Winter is Here!

We are both missing the warm weather and trying to settle into Collingwood. It's hard to feel settled, I think were both in a rut. It's cold outside and we don't feel like going out and it's very sad because Collingwood has so much to offer. We find when it snows here it comes by the foot not by a little dusting like we are use too close to Lake Ontario.

Our balcony

It's very hard to get motivated this time of year but we are trying. We go out Friday nights for dinner and a walk. We have gone to the Curling rink to see if we would enjoy that. We are considering it. Last night we went for a walk around the Blue Mountain Village and it it was a nice walk but it was cold.

Oh Baby It's Cold Outside!

Ski season has started a little early this year. 

BLUE MOUNTAIN

Christine and Daisy came up to stay with us over night so we had a walk around Blue Mountain Village. It was very nice there is all kinds of things to do like checkers, mini put, zip line, a ride down the mountain, beaver tails and a lot more. We enjoyed the day!

We will do more exploring soon.

We have settled in at our new place in Collingwood Ontario but we haven't done to much sight seeing yet. There is a lot to see and do around here so we will slowly get out and look around. I will post some pictures soon of our new place.

Here's a look back at our trip. We have enjoyed all of it and we hope we can return to some of these places again and also meet up with our new friends .

 Oakville to Bahamas 2016

 Bahamas to St Martin 2017

Australia 2018

Busy at home

We have been home now for 6 weeks and we have been busy. We arrived home Thursday April 12th and three days later we had snow and freezing rain. We also did not have water and the power was expected to go out. It wasn't a pleasant welcoming home after spending five months in a very hot Australia.

 

We are now looking for work so we can get some money coming in. We have found a ski condo just 8 minutes from the hill in Collingwood. The complex is on Georgian Bay which includes a marina and there are many bike paths that go right past our new home. We are very excited to find a place in such an active town, there is something happening all the time.
 Both of us now look back on our experience's over the last two years and we are so happy to do this type of trip. These days with all the sickness taking friends at an early age we are thankful to be able to do what we did. Laurie and I are so happy because of the people we met and places we have been. It would have been a perfect trip if not for losing our boat to hurricane Irma in St Maarten. Thank you to every one who supported us through our time in St Maarten after the hurricane. I also hope every one enjoyed reading about our journey. Later I will post a video of some people we met and some of our favorite places.

Why did we leave Australia????

Our flight was very long and we didn't sleep at all. We arrived home around 8pm and turned up the heat in the house. We were tired and wanted to go to bed as soon as it was warm enough. Two days later I am still trying to get the water running but it's not going well. I think the line to the river is still frozen so I will keep on trying and hope it comes on soon. We have one big problem right now and that's the weather. It's snowing and blowing here right now and we are supposed to get freezing rain tonight and tomorrow. So now we have to hope the power doesn't go off.

Waiting at Brisbane Airport.

We are now on our way home. Arrived this morning at 6:30am now waiting to board for our long flight home. Brisbane to Vancouver 14 1/2 hours and Vancouver with a 2 hour lay over then to Toronto 4 1/2 hours then a 2 hour drive home, it's going to be a long day. Last night was a great night to end our visit here. We were asked for dinner to Sharon's sisters home down town Brisbane. They have a roof top area with pool, party room, BBQ and lost of tables to eat at. It was a great time with a beautiful view.

 

 

 

 

It was a great night.

Two more sleeps!

It's Tuesday here and we leave Australia Thursday morning. This might be the first time Laurie and I have traveled back in time! We leave Brisbane Thursday morning at 10:45 am and arrive in Vancouver 3 hours earlier Thursday morning at 7:00am.
 Yesterday we went into Brisbane to the Planetarium and then for lunch on the top of
Mount Coot-tha.  It was a clear day and we could see all of Brisbane. Forgot to take the camera again! Our last night we will go to Sharron's sisters for dinner. They live in the condo next to where we had our hotel room on the river in down town Brisbane. It should be a great view so I have to remember to take my camera. We will be home some time late Thursday night and we hope to get a good nights sleep after out 23 hour trip home. I will do another post then.

We leave for Brisbane tomorrow.

 

Today is Friday here and tomorrow we go to Brisbane and then leave for home on Thursday. Yesterday we took our last walk on the beach with Blue. We will certainly miss walking on the  beaches here and especially with Blue. It's been great to have a dog here to get us out and walking and what a great place to walk. Blue loves it and we love it.

Great beaches

 Blue found a stick!

We are going to miss Blue.

Her are some Blue Bottle Jelly Fish. There long tails will give a good sting.

 Last time Mark and I went for a dive I had a sting on my hand and Mark got stung across his face.

  Tomorrow off to Brisbane!

 

 

A Special Easter

 

It's is a special Easter this year, Laurie became a Nana again. Her daughter Rhianna and her boyfriend Dylan had a baby girl. "Peyton Amanda Dixon" was born March 31 at 12:58 am. She weights 7lbs 13oz and is 21in long.

 

 



 

 

Fun Time At The Byron Bay Blues Festival.

 

Mark Laurie and I went to the Blues Festival yesterday and had a great time and Cherie came after work. This is the 29th year of the festival and they do it right. This land is only used for the festival so it makes it easier to set up every year. They have lots of merchandise and food venders, you can also camp with a tent or trailer or rent a teepee or a camper. They have 5 different tents set up so there is lots of different music.  It starts at noon and goes to midnight for 4 days. We arrived around 2:30 and our first band was The Wailers witch used to be Bob Marley and the Wailers. Then we moved over to another tent and watched The California Honeydrops. We had something to eat and the went back to the main tent and watched Jackson Brown. We didn't want to stay for the last band The Original Blues Brothers Band. We left early because at the end of the night it takes about 2 hours to get out of the parking lot. We had a great time, the music was great and we were impressed how organized every thing is run.

 

California Honeydrops

 The Wailers

Jackson Brown

Big Tents

 Some old guy!

Perfect night with a full moon.

 

Mark will be going back to work tomorrow so we won't see him again until he comes to Canada. I'm still hoping to get one more dive in before we go. We leave next Saturday to go to Brisbane for 5 days then home.

 



Two more weeks!

 

We have two more weeks then we go home, five months have gone by fast. This weekend we are going to the Byron Bay Blues Festival.          https://www.bluesfest.com.au/
We will only be going one day to see "The Original Blues Brothers Band" and "Jackson Brown". It should be a great time.
 Last Tuesday we decided to go into Byron Bay to have a BBQ by one of the beach area's. The public BBQ's get very busy so we were lucky to get one without waiting. It was a great beach and BBQ area.

 Yesterday Mark and I did another dive and it was a great dive. Again lots to see, we saw a shovel head shark which are very rare to see.

 

 

Next Saturday we will be going up to Brisbane to stay with Ken and Sharron until we leave on the 12th. Hopefully we can get one more dive before we go home.

Great Time In Brisbane.

We checked into our hotel on Sunday night ready for a nice couple of days. We booked a superior room with a river view.                    Here's a picture of our river view!
                                                           Not really a great view.

 

 

It's to bad because you only get to do this once and it was a bit of a let down. Well we were in a great area of the city and we were going to make the best of it. The first night we had Greek dinner with Kenneth and Sharron. After that it was off to the casino to loose our money and we had a great time. Second day it was a walk around the area. We walked around the south shore of the river and this is really a great part of the down town area. I'm going to show pictures of our 2 days of walking around.

 Maritime Museum.

Pictures from the Botanical Gardens.

 

Picture's from the Ferris wheel

 You can see the man made beach in this picture. It's a great beach area and it's well used.

 

The walk was a little hot so we sat in the shade and we were entertained by this little girl.

 

 

We had a great time and Brisbane is a beautiful city.

 

Our last dive in Byron Bay Mark took a picture of a large Manta Ray. There is a program in place to identify these Manta Rays so Mark sent the picture to Project Manta at the university of Queensland. If this is the first time they have seen this Manta Ray then you get to name it. We found out this Manta Ray is named Chinook but they were glad to hear from Mark because it was the first time Chinook has been reported so far south.

 

 

Also last month we took a drive to Mark and Cherie's new 2 acre property. It's just outside of a town called Alstonville. It's very quiet and there's a great view.

 

 

Our next adventure will be attending the Byron Bay Blues Festival on Easter weekend. This should be fun.