Change of Lifestyle

We are now living down the Gold Coast - and are just loving it.

Its a real change of lifestyle for us, we have always lived within 15 mins of a busy city, and the Gold Coast is so relaxed, the traffic is non existent and the beach is awesome.

We have gone from one sandpit to another - but this is different I say.

I go walking almost every day along the beach.

Life is good.

We are living in a lovely apartment which overlooks a gold course and we can see Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise. Here a a few pics of our lovely view.

Early morning from the balcony

The Q1 building in the distance

This is the apartment building we live in

Sand Sculptures

My mum and I went down to Surfers Paradise to look at the Sand Sculptures that had been built - they were amazing....

New Years Day 2012

Today being New Years Day we headed up the Sunshine Coast to our favourite beach

Sunshine Beach and to the surf club for lunch - which just has the most amazing view of the ocean

Our view while having lunch

Nicks huge prawn lunch

My Chicken Salad for lunch

Enjoying the fresh ocean air

The Surf Club from the beach

The lovely Sunshine Beach

New Years Eve 2011

For New Years Eve we ventured down to Southbank here in Brisbane to watch the fireworks at midnight along the Brisbane River.

This is a selection of the over 100 photos that Nick took....

The New Year Countdown on the cities buildings

To The Mountains and the Beach

On Boxing Day we drove to Montville - a lovely little mountain top town.

From the lookout we got an amazing view over the Sunshine Coast

Looking out over the Sunshine Coast Beaches

After living in the desert for almost 4 years you appreciate little things like green trees and green grass

Due to a cyclone up north the waves were quite big - but there were a few surfers braving the waves

In a Montville Candy Store - making candy.

From this...

through the machine

To the finished product

Not Quite Settled

Well I have been back in Australia now for almost one month (Nick has been here for 4months) and its sure weird being back.

I drove a car for the first time in almost 18months and am pleased to say that I did not need driving lessons!!!! But it sure is nice to be able to get in the car and go where ever I please - but I must remember where I park the car....bad habit of mine is to park/get out and take no notice of where the car is!!!!

The price of food has been a huge shock - especially fruit WOW it is sooooo expensive. Grapes are a whopping $17.00 AUD/kg.... I cringe every time I have to go shopping for food. We thought our food shopping was expensive in Qatar - but compared to here it sure was cheap, even with buying all the imported favourites that we liked to eat.

Basically we are paying four times what we were in Qatar/Saudi - not looking forward to getting a electricity bill thats for sure....

We do miss the sandpit (believe it or not) but it is nice being able to breathe in fresh air, and the rain is fabulous, birds singing and blue skies.

But we are still on the lookout for our next adventure - we are just not settled here, I am sure it will take a little while to get used to "normal". I feel naked every time I go out in just my clothes - so used to not having to think about what to wear every day with my trusty abaya.

I will start working soon - am looking to go and do a few short contracts in the Australian Outback, so I'll keep you posted.