Slept about the same as usual, not much, lol. The ship is mildly rocking most of the time, but when the mild got a little stronger the unused hangers in the wardrobe rattled. They don’t anymore!!!

The blue dot shows where I was at 5 am this morning!

Headed up to the pool around 7.30. It was amazingly rough looking. With the rocking of the ship the pool waters were really splashing around. After a chat with the lifeguard we decided that the Solarium pool would be better for me as it had sloping stairs to get into it! As that didn’t open until 8, I sat around until the barriers had been removed from it.

I’ll try and get a better photo tomorrow. This also was very splashy. It had much better access and even better no one under 18 is allowed in the Solarium. The ship is overrun with children!!!!! I don’t know why, but I was surprised that it’s a salt water pool. Trying to exercise in it was quite a laugh, but I managed 35 minutes before I got too cold to continue. The sun hadn’t got to it yet so the water was quite cool.

Back to my room for a shower and change and then I went to the Crown Lounge for a continental breakfast. This is accessible to members of the loyalty programme that Royal Caribbean runs. Also no children!!!! Had smoked salmon for brekky, very nice!

There were a couple, from Indiana, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and were asking everyone, in the lounge, to sign their memory book for them, to read when they get home. I did my bit!

Then back to my room to nap, read, play games, do a bit of family tree and start on Maria’s mainly edge jigsaw!

This was the towel critter left for me! Cute little bird!

A picture taken along side the ship from my balcony.

Dinner was a bit strange. It was touted as Flavours of France, but the Coq au van was made with pork as was the Cordon bleu! However the potato gratin was definitely potato and the Salmon en Croûte was salmon!

Everything is taking a lng time to charge up with this American 120 volts, unlike our good old Australian 240 volts! Plus I only have one outlet available, so can’t charge overnight as using it for the CPAP.

Have to put clocks forward an hour tonight. Will be interesting to see if the phone picks up the locational change.

Had a quiet morning. I didn’t even look at the pool as I didn’t want to carry around wet bathers & towel!

Check out was at 11, dragging cases over carpet is not fun! I had a taxi booked for 11.15. Ian was the driver, he’s 86 years old, loves driving as it gets him away from the wife!!!

Then the bedlam that is a cruise ship loading passengers! Security was interesting. I had to take my laptop bag out of my small case, which I hadn’t expected as didn’t do that at Perth Airport. Anyway, I didn’t set off their metal detector, but had to go through it again as they wanted me to take both the laptop and my portable screen out of the bag for rescanning. Then one of the security team came up querying something in my handbag. They hadn’t liked the bits and bobs I had on my keyring. Note to self to put it in the suitcase next time!!! Probably add it to the suitcase now, when it eventually turns up!

My boarding time was supposed to be 2-2.30 but they didn’t seem to care that I was much earlier than that. Quite a long walk onto the ship, but once on had to check in at the designated emergency assembly point. The lifeboat is hanging on Deck 4 near the door between the Art Gallery and Main Dining room.

I found a quiet corner and sat down at 12.30 as the rooms weren’t available until 1. I, of course, then discovered I was on the wrong side and the wrong end of the ship! But I did find my room!

Just waiting now for a CPAP only extension cord to be delivered.

Had dinner and had to ask for the extension cord again, but I have finally got it. Now for bed, LOL.

P.S. for yesterday, a couple of things I forgot! – I’m on the 13th floor of the hotel and there’s an IGA just across the road, very nice and handy and they have amazing salads. I had seafood salad and pumpkin & feta salad for dinner!

The pool opens at 6 am so I thought I would have a look and see if was easy to get into before putting bathers on. There’s a nice outdoor area on the 3rd floor which has a bit of lawn, barbecues, seating areas etc. The pool is actually elevated at the end of this area and access via a small outdoor lift. Only problem all its lights were flashing red, so obviously not working!

So plan 2, I went for a walk across the road at the front of the hotel. There’s a quite large park area there with a circular lawn, lots of garden beds, exercise equipment and children’s play areas.

I found a bench (under cover) to sit and watch. It was quite cool but there was a bit of sun occasionally. Lots of people jogging, dog walking and ball throwing for a lovely border collie. They are just moving balls of fluff when chasing that ball!

Feathery looking pine trees, giant bromeliads, and an ibis.

Had a cream cheese roll, tomatoes, dried mushrooms and grapes out on my balcony and then spent the rest of the day napping, reading and playing games!

Popped over the road again for another salad, Japanese salmon & avocado. Very nice.

Packed my bags yet again! Checkin wasn’t until 2 pm, so Maria and I went to the shops via Anna’s. Said goodbye to her, Archer and Charlotte. I needed to fill a script at the chemist and Maria went bulk ice cream shopping. Amazingly enough the 2 shops were 3 doors apart. Mine though was 5 minutes late opening!

The carpark was chaotic when it was time to leave, looked like everyone had decided that this was a good shopping day! Probably because most of the shops were closed yesterday.

Home again for morning tea and lunch and time to do another jigsaw.

I hadn’t realised that my bed was very different to the usual. So much easier to make and lots of storage space!

Maria’s birthday present.

Then a drive into Brisbane and the hotel, which is actually apartments rather than hotel rooms. The travel agent had booked me in here as it was walking distance to the ship. She obviously hasn’t been told that the cruise terminal has been moved 12 km down the river. Ron said it was because the ships are getting bigger and they can’t turn around when leaving port.

Here’s the view from the balcony and another of the sky colouring with the sunset.

Sorry about yesterday’s blog. I did it as a page as the post wasn’t saving, it’s in the right place now!

Had a very quiet day again today. We were going out for a drive to a lookout, but the weather wasn’t looking good and it started raining, so just as well we stayed home!

Had a nap in the comfy chair and Maria and I finished off the jigsaw after dinner, so that’s another one done!

So just to finish off, here is another photo of the garden and the dogs. Rommel who is John & Tasha’s and Maria’s Chloe.

Off to the Brisbane hotel tomorrow for 2 nights!

Oh dear, this wasn’t happy yesterday so I did it a different way and it wasn’t showing in the list, sorry!

Well it wasn’t a ‘quiet’ day today. Archer and Charlotte had the day of school and spent it with us.

First up was a new jigsaw to sort and pancakes for breakfast!

We headed out to a munzee garden that had appeared not too far away, so while the little ones played games on phones in the back seat, Maria and I had a pleasant time driving around carparks.

We then headed for a splashpark near the Southern Cross University. Fascinating place with water coming out of all sorts of devices and receptacles. It included a large barrel shaped container that filled up until it was too full and then a huge cascade of water splashed down and completely soaked anyone under it. Archer was completely sopping when he tried it!

Had a large icecream thing from the McDonald’s drive-through on the way home.

Once home it was craft time. I helped Charlotte make a dream-catcher whilst Maria and Archer did some model making. Tasha watching in the background!

Dinner once they had gone home, Maria cooked tonight! Then I nearly fell asleep in the chair. Blog writing and then off to bed!

A few more images from the splash park. Interesting fruit in a tree, a mynah and a mudlark!

My flight through Doha has been cancelled, so now flying Seattle-Los Angeles-Sydney-Perth, still getting home on the 19th May.

Another quiet day. Helen and I went back to that little wetland we went to last week. I did have my binoculars this time! Helen went walking and I stayed in the bird hide. We both sat and watched for quite a while when she returned, such an interesting place.

Filled up with fuel on the way home, as Helen is heading to the airport in the morning.

Finished the jigsaw, Helen is taking it home so Mum can do it!

Ron had to rescue his lighthouse from the fishpond and Maria’s staghorn is amazing!

Had a family barbecue for dinner, 10 of us, so rather a madhouse, LOL. Helen did a great job keeping Archer and Charlotte occupied.

Helen and I headed out to a lookout to view the Glasshouse Mountains which are fairly close. We got within sight of the lookout and discovered that there was a very large mulching machine taking over the carpark (we didn’t actually get close enough to view it!) The park ranger advised us to visit the Tibrogargan lookout as that would be a much better view.

In the meantime it had started raining! Just a light drizzle, but enough to make distance viewing a little difficult.

We turned left off the highway, only to find ourselves confronted by big trucks and discover the road was being worked on. The lass there said it was a steep walk to get to the lookout and we should try the lookout at Maleny. So we kept driving and climbing up and down steep gradients in the road. When we got through Maleny we were in quite thick fog, very low cloud probably! We finally found a cafe in the Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve which has walks through the rainforest! As it was really rain forest we resisted the opportunity! Had a very nice smoked salmon turkish roll for lunch.

Stopped to take a photo of this Purple glory tree! Made our way home in the rain.

A not do anything day! LOL

We did finish off the dragon jigsaw!

Helen and I did go out to see the Caboulture Arboretum, but as the pathway was really steep, Helen did a walking tour by herself. However, there seemed to be a lack of trees, so not sure where the Arboretum was!

Ron and Helen did wash & clean the car though, it was very dusty after our unsealed road travels.

So there is something to look at, here are some more of teh John Murray art from Lightning Ridge.

We were up at 5 am, packed up the car and left at 5.32 am. It was very dark, so the stars and Milky Way looked great. Helen took it very easy and we all had eyes wide open for the kangaroos and other night time critters. Saw lots of roos and as the sun came up, emus, foxes and a feral cat. Lots of birds as well.

We went a slightly different route home so we could see the painted silos at Thallon. There were a couple of unsealed roads to tackle on this route. Once at Thallon, we also had a quick bite as Maria had made sandwiches for us.

From there we stopped at Moonie as the girls needed their morning coffee. They came out of the roadhouse with a box of free chips. The cook had exceeded an order and passed them on to us!

A flock of galahs eating sorghum seed. The accompanying weiros took off!

Next stop was Dalby where we fuelled up again. There was more traffic today, and we got stuck behind a cattle truck + trailer going over the D’Aguilar Range. Very windy road with steep grades!

Then home! Unpacked the car, had dinner and now just relaxing. Helen did a fantastic job driving us over to NSW and back to Qld.