Saturday

We're experiencing Internet issues which are affecting my ability to upload pictures. So I'm afraid until things change, the posts will only be text. After a very pleasant breakfast--or brekkie, as the Aussies call it--Nancy and I took a walk along the Nambucca while Pat and Phil Skyped the youngest son Tim to see how his daughter Hannah had fared with her surgery. We soon had the car packed up and continued our way up the coast. Soon we were pulling into the "Big Banana," a farm/tourist attraction that featured everything banana. Imagine pictures of banana trees, which were smaller than we expected, loaded with bunches of bananas. In the shop Nancy and I shared a frozen banana dipped in chocolate and Pat and Phil shared a banana smoothie. We were back on the road until lunch, stopping a rest area that featurd everything Italian, commemorating the Italian settlers of the area. They had gardenias growing in the garden. By late afternoon we were passing through resort cities: Miami, Nobby Beach, Mermaid Beach, Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise, Labrador. Our destination was Runaway Bay, where Helen has offered up her home along a man made canal. The four of us met Helen back in 1997, along with her husband Marty who has since passed, on our European tour. On Tuesday we will be leaving here for the Sunshie Coast where Helen now lives with Andrew. We went grocery shopping so we could eat in and later spent a quiet evening watching British crime shows.