Monday 31 December 2007

The Holiday


The Holiday up North was brilliant. Lovely, relaxing, sun drenched but not too hot, involved lazing around, relaxing, fishing and just enjoying the girls without having to run around to five billion activities (well aside from visitng relos, going to dentist, fishing, crabbing, etc etc...)

We started on the Monday with a taxi ride with our two bags, the carry on luggage, the mini pram and the carseat/booster, which cost approximately an arm and a knee which was punctuated with the Elfling exclaiming excitedly every few minutes that we were going on an adventure. Usually the trip to the airport from our place is about 15 minutes so that wouldn't have be so excrutiating, but after an hour the excitement of "Where are we going? Are we going on an aventure? It's very exciting!!" started to get a little less cute as we crawled through unexplained traffic.

We then got to the airport and waited around some more, standing in line with the other holiday makers and wishing that there was a better way than trying to keep the kids corralled in a queue. But we finally got to the counter and had the LOVELIEST check in lady that I've ever had. She was funny and nice and quick and she chatted to the girls. I wish I had her name so I could send them an e-mail (yes I konw Virgin is fabled for their service but this was the first time I'd really experienced it). A big shout out to her though as she reminded me that we should be happy and excited!

Went through security and then sat in one of the cafes that extort money out of people waiting for planes eating hot chips and talking up the 2 hour flight. I still get that faintly butterfly sensation of anticipation when going on flights and feel a little bit sad that our girls are so sophisticated that they barely raise an eyebrow. Flight itself was OK, excitement of holding a squirming 14 month old wears off very quickly though, and I found myself feeding her for most of the last 40 minutes just to keep her quiet. Think I raised a few perfectly manicured and perma-tanned eyebrows in doing so but couldn't care less.

Cairns was hot and sticky from the moment we walked out on the tarmac, but the girls were very excited to see Grandma who looked shocked at how big the Monkey is now compared to when she saw her last at about 9 months. The Monkey exuberant at being free from the confines of the plane was running up and down the airport giggling to the amazement of Grandma.

2 hour trip to the beach was relatively bad as expected and we were very very very relieved to be able to pull into the house and get the girls ready for bed. Then it was relaxing on the deck followed by a moonlit swim looking out on Dunk Island. We were also informed that we'd be out fishing at 5am so sleep tight! Amazingly the girls both slept through and were still out to it when we pulled out into the sunrise the next morning with the boat rumbling along behind us. The water as the sunrose is almost impossible to explain - it was like rippling glass. Shiny and unbroken with little shimmers like a piece of midnight blue satin shot with gold. I just stared at it the whole way out to th reef, feeling the salt wind on my face and marvelling at the emptiness that is the ocean when you're the only one out there in your tiny boat.

The fishing was pretty good as well - not a complete harvest but we came back with about 18 decent sized reef fish including my ~15lb coral trout (fuck he hurt bringing up to the boat!) We had had to throw back at least 3 times that number though as they were undersized, kept quite a few fusiliers though to use as bait. The one that got away was a beauty - I'm thinking a smallish reef shark because of the way that it fought the line. Cut up my hand even with a glove (we were using double hooked hand lines) Got it within about 10 metres of the boat (with LHs assistance because the bastard was strong) before it finally bit through the line. I was pretty disappointed not to get a look though as I had worked so hard to hold onto him! We also saw fat sea snakes, porpoises and a turtle before heading back.

The girls absolutely loved their time in the sun, going to the beach with Grandma and Grandad, eating their body weight in bananas (I eventually banned the Monkey from eating them as she was filling her nappy 5 times a day and getting shocking burns). We visited extended rellies, ate out a couple of times and swam every day in the pool. The Monkey absolutely thrived and the Elfing was just gorgeous and came home with a glowing golden tan thanks to her perfect German skin.

We also had our teeth checked and found out that the girls have perfect teeth at the moment but will definitely need braces (no surprises there) and that LH and I don't have any cavities though I have a rogue wisdom tooth that will need to be surgically extracted at some point by a maxfax. I am not thrilled with the prospect.

Overall though it was a sundrenched, happy, relaxed but busy week where the girls had an absolute ball. We are thinking of leaving them there for a week (in a few months time depending on how the weaning is going {or not}) while we go on holiday and it's nice to know that they won't miss us at all! I will still be paranoid about the pool though. Only downer was not meeting the lovely Kisses and Vanilla, but shall be driving up in July so there's hope!

2 comments:

Kisses said...

Wow, been missing you in here and glad you've finally written!

Greg is going spearing this arve and out on the reef tomorrow. Hope he catches a nice big trout too!

Averil said...

What a fabulous entry! And so happy to have you back online too!

I was very sorry we didn't get to meet...but very excited to hear you might be coming back again soon! Woo hoo!

xx Nilla

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