On the 19th of April Halcyon Greens organised another themed party – Back to the eighties.
We had great fun.
Frank having funBack to the eighties
A group of home-owners have been busy organising a cabaret. This all happened on the 21st of April. There were two performances; a matinee and an evening show.
First we were surprised with performances of the Village People.
Village People – In The NavyVillage People – YMCA
Aftere these great performances, we enjoyed two performances from Donna an the Dynamos (from the Mama Mia movie). This was followed by Halcyon’s own Manpower.
Donna and the Dynamos – Manpower
Frank was one of the crew members, which kept him busy with a variety of tasks.
crewmember Frank
After the break, royalty entered the room- Queen treated us with multiple songs.
QUEEN
Thank God for the excellent crew member that caught Freddie’s guitar 🙂
crewmember Frank – Queen
As much fun as these past two months have been, we saved the best for last: On the 28th of April, our first grandson, George, was born. This officially makes us a proud opa and a proud oma!
We are excited about our upcoming organised group trip to China.
We’ll be leaving on the 22nd of May and we will return on the 7th of June.
We will have a blog and post it once we are back in Australia.
We started the year with visits to the Brisbane International tennis tournament, where we saw some great matches.
Ostapenko – Barty (in the audience) – AzarenkaRune – Dimitrov
Frank and Tim played a pickleball tournament in Redcliffe.
pickleball in the hot QLD sun.
There are some pretty good musicians living at Halcyon Greens.
Rickety Rock
great entertainment at Halcyon Greens
For Christmas, Tim gave us tickets to a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. The concert was in the amazing QPAC concert hall in Brisbane. Tim joined us for the concert as well. We had a fun night with lots of great music.
Fleetwood Mac by candlelight
Click on the link for a musical impression of this evening.
Fleetwood Mac tribute by candlelight Brisbane
Last week we took the caravan and drove 4hours west to the lovely town of Chinchilla, where Frank played a tennis tournament.
We stayed at the Rubern Lagoon caravan park, where we had a nice spot looking over the lagoon.
morning coffee at Rubern LagoonRubern lagoon
Chinchilla is famous for its many watermelon farms.
On the 9th of November, we arrived back home from our USA trip. It didn’t take us long before settling back into our ‘normal life’.
morning walk near our housemorning walk Gold Coast botanical gardenpickle ball champions
We (well… Frank) painted the media room. We are very pleased with the result.
cosy media room.
This was our first Christmas at Halcyon Greens. We enjoyed the decorations and the many celebrations/parties.
Christmas decorations across the road our house was modestly decoratedChristmas high teaCarols on the village greenChristmas gathering on the village green
We -especially- enjoyed the buggy parade.
buggy parade
We also enjoyed having Tim here for the Christmas holidays.
lunch at cafe KokomoFrank and Tim playing pickleball
In the past two months I (Astrid) have been enjoying the gym, the swimming pool and my daily walks around Halcyon Greens.
early morning walk near Halcyon Greens
Frank has been enjoying his tennis and pickle ball games. This months, the yearly Oceania pickleball games were held on the Gold Coast, just a few minutes away from where we live. Frank participated in the men’s singles, the men’s over 19’s (with Tim) and the men’s over 60’s. It was great fun!
Frank won the singles competition in his age group/level.
We also enjoyed the winterball and the Christmas in July festivities.
Winterball, organised by the pickleball volunteersChristmas in July
Being a citizen of one country and a permanent resident of another country has the advantage that you can cheer for multiple teams during the women’s world cup.
We watched The Netherlands against South Africa at Tim’s place and Frank and Tim watched Australia against France live in Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
Cheering for the Matildas
What a great match and what a great atmosphere!
Last week, we went to the Brisbane City Hall to attend one evening of the candelight concerts.
Candlelight concerts – Hans Zimmer
We enjoyed the -film- music of Hans Zimmer, composer of the music of many great movies such as Pirates of the Carribean, the DaVinci Code etc.
We have also been busy with preparing for our upcoming big trip to the USA. We are leaving next week. You can follow us on:
In the past two months we’ve twice been away with our caravan. Our first trip was to the Sunshine Coast, where we – as usual- stayed at the Golden Beach caravan park.
Golden Beach
Our second trip was to Hervey Bay. This time we didn’t stay at a caravan park, but we stayed next to the tennis courts where Frank played a tournament. As always, we loved the relaxing vibe of Hervey Bay.
Frank also played a tennis tournament in Tweed Heads. We decided to turn this into a nice day out.
We are absolutely enjoying our new house and the lifestyle that Halcyon Greens has to offer.
Sunrise at Halcyon Greens – early morning walksdining room/hall
We started the year at the Brisbane Gateway caravan park in Underwood. From here, we visited the impressive Fo Guang Shan Chung Tian budhist temple in Priestdale.
On the 25th of January, we received the keys of our new house and on the 26th Tim helped us move in.
The past couple of weeks, we have been busy with unpacking and starting to landscape our garden. We did have time though, to visit the nearby Outback Spectacular Show.
At this very moment, all boxes are unpacked. We are waiting for our blinds and curtains and we still have a lot of decorating to do. Our first priority for now is our backyard.
entrancestudydiningdining/livingmediaroombackyard – work in progress
We divided our time between Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast (Golden Beach and Maleny) and the Gold Coast (Canungra).
As I -Astrid- was walking along Maleny’s Obi-Obi creek, I spotted a platypus. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to get a great photo.
We visited our new house in Pimpama. We are excited, as we are in the final stage of building.
We are looking forward to moving in on the 25th of January!
It was great having Tim spending a week with us over Christmas. We stayed at the Canungra showgrounds.
Turtles – Canungra creek
From Canungra, we visited the Lamington National park. In the Binna-Burra part of the national park, we walked the Caves Circuit, a lovely walk with great views.
We had a coffee at the Binna Burra teahouse. Again, the views were amazing.
We returned to Lamington National Park and visited the O’ Reilly part of the national park.
Here, we also started with a walk.
We enjoyed the views.
At O’Reilly’s restaurant, we enjoyed our coffee, the birds and the view.
We finished our visit at the Lamington National Park with a tree top walk.
We also visited the Mount Tamborine area.
Lunch at the St. Bernard hotel.
St. Bernard dogs.view from St. Bernard hotellizard – Mount Tamborineview from Mount Tamborine
2022 has brought us many memories – we are looking forward to 2023!
We started this Month in the coastal town of Ballina (New South Wales).
View on our caravan park
Our caravan park is located on Shaws bay, between the Richmond river and the ocean.
The morning walks were great.
We went for a drive to the Tosha falls and the Victoria Reserve park, where we walked through the rainforest.
We also visited the Killen falls.
We saw many snakes on our walk to the falls.
cobragreen tree snake
We also made a tour to Byron Bay and Lennox heads.
Byron Bay lighthouse- most easterly point of mainland Australia.
We left Ballina and drove in westerly direction to the town of Grafton, where we stayed for a few nights. Here, we visited the Jacaranda festival. This festival is held yearly over the 2-3 weeks when the Jacaranda trees are blooming. It is a spectacular sight – the entire town is purple.
We made a tour along the Clarence river.
We parked our car under the giant fig trees and walked to the gorge and the rainbow waterfalls.
From Grafton, we drove further inland and stayed a night at the Jackadgery caravan park.
The view from the caravan park was great.
Jackadgery caravan park
We did a short, but beautiful, drive around Jackadgery.
From Jackadery, we drove further west to spend 3 days off-grid in the nearby national parks.
Via a nice scenic route, we drove the the Washpool national park.
In the Washpool NP we did a nice rainforest walk.
From here, it was only a short drive to the Mulligans hut campground, from where Frank did another walk in the afternoon.
WaratahMulligans hutMulligans hut campground
We stayed for one night at the Mulligans hut campground. We started the following day with a nice walk.
Frank then did another two walks in this area.
We drove from Mulligans campground to the Boundary falls campground for a one night stay. On our way there, we stopped at the Raspberry lookout.
The following morning, Frank did another walk in the area.
We left the Boundary falls and took the windy road the Mann river nature reserve campground.
We really enjoyed this campground – very peaceful and lots of birds.
Mann River nature reserve
Frank walked to the Tommys Rock lookout.
Tommys Rock lookoutMann river nature reservewash yourself in the river
The following morning, we first enjoyed our breakfast overlooking the river and then left for our next destination: Tenterfield.
On our way to Tenterfield, we first made stop at Glen Innes, a small town with a Scottish history. Here we admired the celtic cafe and the standing stones.
We had a lovely spot at the Tenterfield caravan park, where we stayed for 10 nights.
We explored the region and visited Stanthorpe, which is situated just North of the QLD-NSW border.
lavenderfarm near Stanthorpepost office Stanthorpe
We drove to the Boonoo Boono national park and walked to the Boonoo Boonoo falls.
From here, we drove to the Girraween N.P. where Frank did another beautiful walk.
The following morning, Frank decided to go back for another walk in the Girraween N.P.
We also did a scenic tour in the Mount Mackenzie area.
Mount Mackenzie lookout
We also visited the Glenrock gardens.
We had a cup of coffee in the shed/restaurant, overlooking the beautiful gardens.
From Tenterfield, we drove to Urbenville. On our way there, made a stop and walked to the Bean Creek falls. We enjoyed our overnight stay at the showgrounds, where we were the only guests.
Bean Creek FallsUrbenville showgrounds
In the afternoon, we drove to the Tooloom falls and the Tooloom loukout.
From Urbenville, we drove to Kyogle, another friendly country town. We found -again- a nice spot at the showgrounds. We decided to stay here for two night.
art deco buildingsshowgroundsview on Kyogle.
We did a trip into the nearby Border ranges national park and its surroundings. Our first stop was at the Border loop lookout, where we enjoyed the view and did a little walk.
Border loop lookoutBorder loop walk – big Fig tree
Another little walk took us to a 48m tall -approx. 1000 year old – Red Cedar tree.
gigantic Red Cedar treeRed Cedar loop walk
We enjoyed the spectacular views at the Pinacle lookout.
We did another 4km. walk to the Bar Mountain lookout, which was beautiful as well.
Bar Mountain circuit.
We then stopped at the Hanging Rock falls and enjoyed the scenery on our drive back to Kyogle.
We left Kyogle and drove to Nimbin, a little town inland from the Gold Coast. It is surrounded by beautiful nature. We had a lovely spot at the Nimbin caravan park, where we stayed one night.
Nimbin is ‘famous’ for its hippie community and alternative lifestyle.
We left Nimbin and stayed a few nights in Tweed Heads (no photos). Tomorrow, the 1st of December, we will return to Queensland. We had a wonderful few weeks in New South Wales.
Vanderlaandownunder 