The Gang's all HERE!

Last year at Christmas we decided to give our kids tickets to come to Australia to visit us.  While this may sound like a generous offer on our part, it was pretty self serving....we wanted to see the kids and have some time together during our year away. We were hopeful it would be all together, but knowing the kids busy schedules we'd take whatever we could get. We started early by suggesting Christmas time as time to shoot for, and they started conversations with employers to make that happen. Getting a chunk of time off meant hoarding vacation and personal days, and carving the weeks at the end of the year for their time off. The plan was all working, the kids reserved the time and the tickets were getting bought, and then we heard the BIG news....Lynn and JP were expecting a baby.....due in February! That caused a pause in the plans as timing was discussed for them (Christmas was close to estimated delivery time), insurance and refundable tickets were looked into, and doctors were asked about the trip. The expectant ones got the approval of a doctor, found refundable tickets (insurance doesn't cover pre-existing conditions), and made their booking. Colin also had a change in employment, moving to Salida, Colorado, and had to break the news to his new employer that he would be gone over Christmas (only 2 month into employment) for this trip. Luckily, his new boss was great with his travel plans, and he, too, was a go.

The other part of the plan was for John to get the time free from his obligations at the hospital. His contract gives him 6 weeks off, which he, too, hoarded. He worked the first 10 months with almost no time off, except for a conference, so he planned the last 2 months of his employment basically on vacation. (There is something to the Australian concept of "working to live"....not living to work.) He was down to using every minute of time off, but he made it work. We were all going to enjoy our first Summer Christmas in Australia, and we'd be together. What fun!

We planned a limited amount of traveling as seeing our little corner of Queensland was probably enough with the time we had together. The kids staggered their arrivals, Scott and Colin coming first, and JP and Lynn arriving the day after. We kept our record of seeing rain the day visitors arrived, perfect (and it really does hardly ever rain here). Lynn was the official "Roo Sighter" as she spied a "mob" (what a group of kangaroos is called) of roos on the way to our unit from the airport. A FIRST! (She spotted them many times first during her time, maybe her condition had something to do with it?)

John wanted to share "Snakes Down Under" with the kids, and he did that without me (not my bag). They reacted the same way all our visitors have, disbelief at the access at the animals. The pictures show how much fun they had there.Why does Lynn look so happy?

We had reservations for Heron Island Resort where we had spent time with the Rader Family in August. We had enjoyed our time there so much that going back was a 'no-brainer'. It would be turtle season and that would be wonderful to see in addition to the snorkeling. We let them acclimate to our time zone for a few days and then left for the Gladstone Harbor and our ferry ride to Heron Island, a few days after they arrived.  We had rented a second car, a necessity with 6 adults, got directions on line to the jetty in Gladstone and were on our was by 10:30am to make a 2 hour ride, arriving well before the 2pm departure. Best laid plans....I won't bore you with all the missteps (John found another unpaved road "short-cut") but we made it to the ferry with barely 30 minutes to spare. The ride over was difficult, very wavy and longer than I remember. Lynn has a bit of trouble with motion sickness so we got the anti-nausea bands for her to wear, and I took my Pro-Calm....we both were somewhat miserable but made it without tossing our cookies (no spewing for us).

The Resort welcomed us and we were told to collect our bags and head to our rooms, but there was a definite change in the look of the resort. The birds we were overwhelmed by at Lady Elliot heard we were coming to Heron Island and seemingly followed us there. Literally there where thousands of birds there (everywhere!), living, breeding... and dying, I'll explain that later. The day was warm and the odor was.....prevalent.  It also meant the "serenading" all night; ear plugs were made available....nature, you gotta love it here (beware when you come to an "Eco-Resort").

The rooms were fine, and much to our delight (but not the delight of our tech-connected kids), no internet or phone service is the way here. The rooms don't have TV or radio, so reading and talking to each other would have to suffice. Interesting...Colin was out of his element for sure. (He had made a commitment to try and get some work done during his time away and this made that very challenging.) The Resort does sell internet access but it's spotty depending on the weather conditions. We had clear days forecasted so, if he needed to do some work, we hoped he could get it done between snorkeling and nature walks (and listening to birds squawking all night!).

We didn't have the stellar holiday that we enjoyed with the Rader's, you can read my TripAdvisor review here, it explains the issues we had. (I have since checked back on more recent reviews with many of the issues we experienced, I was hoping we had an isolated bad few days.) but the snorkeling and turtles more than made up for any down-side.

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g255081-d954101-r333952565-Heron_Island_Resort-Heron_Island_Queensland.html

The kids had a blast, enjoying seeing the Great Barrier Reef for the first time on this Island so close to us. Scott was able to Scuba dive, JP and Lynn snorkeled everyday, and Colin made his GoPro available for anyone to use as they got under the water. We played "Oh Hell" at night, and all got to bed early after the time in the water and sun. The turtles laying their clutches of eggs at night were an added excitement which we caught, barely. Some of us (JP, Lynn, Scott and the elders) set an alarm for 1am when the tide was in, and the turtles made their way to the island, and we headed to the jetty beach. We were amazed at the stars we could see, and we (sort of) saw a turtle track almost right away. We had been instructed not to use a flashlight on the beach as that distracts the momma turtle and could hamper her laying (read: cause her to not nest and go back into the ocean where she might abort her eggs). We stumbled around a bit, staying well behind her nesting, when we noticed a change in wind and moonlight. All of a sudden the heavens opened up and we got drenched!  So we made our way back to the rooms (quickly).  Oh well, we tried, there was another night we could try.

All our thoughts of getting up in the middle of the night were just that, thoughts. Happily for us, John had a restless early morning and went for a stroll on the beach, finding a turtle who must have gotten a late start, and came back to wake us up to see it finish-up with the egg-laying, covering the nest, and then making its way back into the ocean.

Not all the nature was pretty and exciting to see. One of the sights we saw was the life of some of the birds, and the death of many.

http://www.heronisland.com/Turtles-and-Birds.aspx

This link has all the information on birds and turtles, you can see by the numbers what we were up against.

The Pisonia Forest has an unusual way of getting the nutrients it needs to grow in the sandy soil of Heron Island.

Black Noddy nesting

The tree produces these sticky pods which adhere to the wings of many of the nesting birds. The pods get tangled in the feathers of the birds and more they try to free themselves, the more entangled they get. This eventually will prevent the birds from flying, then moving at all, then they die, decompose, and thus providing the nutrients in the soil where they die. Circle of Life, but really hard to see.

Black Noddy entangled

This happened not only to Black Noddy's, but many of the birds nesting and migrating through the Island. We really didn't enjoy that part of the experience, it is hard to watch a bird struggle, knowing it won't survive the fight. Clearly there are enough of these birds to survive, no danger of extinction, but the connection of these different pieces of nature is real, whether we enjoy it or not.

Now the turtles!

.

We'd love to think that there is no drama with the turtles and their hatchlings, but as a previous blog explained, only about 1/100 hatchlings actually make it to adulthood. They make tasty little morsels for shark, birds and other predators. But we are "sure" the eggs laid that morning will all make it to maturation and then back to this island to lay 30 years from now. 

Our time at Heron was almost over, we were headed back Gladstone on Saturday morning. We did have a shark encounter which was great. There were 6-10 Reef Sharks just lounging about the shallow water right by the resort. Colin and John got in the water to try and capture it on Colin's GoPro. It was a closer look than going out deep with snorkel and fins. (There is a PS here...this week an 11 year old was bitten by a Reef Shark doing just what John and Colin were doing here, so much for safe shark watching on Heron Island.)

Home for the rest of the time together which included Christmas! Lynn had a great idea of using our stick tree for a Christmas tree. 
Ok, it wasn't a full evergreen, but we had a place to place the gifts. (And it wouldn't be a hassle putting the decorations away, we could eat them -- foil-covered chocolates!) The kids were making their way around Bundaberg, shopping, skate boarding, going to the movies (Star Wars was opening) and generally just relaxing.
John found a way to borrow some surf boards and that was great fun to try at Nielsen's Beach.
I was busy getting seafood ordered for our Aussie dinner which is traditional. I got the order in the nick of time, don't know what I was thinking, waiting so long to order. 

This is what Christmas morning looked like here, opening gifts and laughing, then heading to the beach at Coonarr. Colin found a virtual fire for the TV, but the beach bag being on the floor really captured this strange and wonderful day. 

On return we unpacked the seafood we I had picked up the day before all sealed up in a cooler with ice and a guarantee the ice would last until the afternoon of Christmas Day. We stored it in the bathtub, not wanting any melting mishap to ruin our day. Now I had to figure out how to serve it.
It was a lot of food, all cooked to perfection, (not displayed very professionally) and ready to peel and eat. I made an unnecessary pasta salad, and we dove into the meal. Lots of shells later we were sated. The leftover shrimp and crabs were shelled for use in some nameless dish for the next day. We were all ready to clean up the mess when we heard a crash and someone yelling "Oh, my God" outside.  Our intrepid reporter Colin went down to discover someone mistook our underground garage for his, couldn't understand why his opener didn't work, and drove through our door. Big surprise...this guy's blood alcohol was 5 times the limit, as reported on the news the next day (a bit too "Merry" Christmas for this Aussie).

We were now down to just a few days together, Scott leaving first on early on 12/27, JP and Lynn 12/28 and Colin staying on until 1/1. Our last dinner together was Shrimp Scampi, using the leftovers from the Christmas feast....and I found these poppers that we forgot to put on the table Christmas night. We had fun popping them and playing our last game of Oh Hell. Lynn had a perfect game, never loosing a bid and playing a hand where she bid 7! All hail the Queen!

The end of this blog entry is the tale of everyone trying to get back to the US. Scott got held up in Houston with the terrible storms that wracked the southwest and then the midwest the days after Christmas. His flight was delayed then canceled all together.  He was booked for the next day, but his flight got diverted to Bloomington, Illinois because of weather. He missed a day a work arriving very late the 28th to Chicago by Amtrak. Poor guy, no luggage, no sleep, and work the day of the 29. JP and Lynn left the day after Scott and actually arrived before he did. Of all the travel woes we had, we were all glad the couple expecting a baby had the easiest time getting back. (and only 2 of them -- no in-flight delivery!) Colin had his own issues trying to get back to Denver.  His flight from Chicago was delayed for mechanical difficulties, then canceled. He got in very late on the 2nd of January, also without bags. 

All in all it was a wonderful time, more than we could have hoped, getting everyone on this side of the world, together.