As a gift from Gavin's parents we went to Stradbroke Island (off the coast of QLD) for a few days. We actually went in between our temple sealing and our tassie wedding. All the pictures in this post were taken with my iphone... i hardly took my camera out.. you'll see why!
You have to go to stradbroke island via ferry, which only crosses a few times a day, so on the night after our temple sealing we stayed in a hotel on the gold coast. We decided on one down there because that was where our wedding photos were going to be taken (which we didn't actually get to even do, which is a bit of a sensitive topic still and i probably wont be posting about that!)...
We stayed in a hotel called Mantra Legends, which was confusing for our gps because there are so many mantra hotels in that area! By the time we finally got to our hotel it was way past check in and i think about 11pm. We had to turn back towards brisbane at one point because i left my handbag and camera in mum & dad's car and wasn't going to be able to fly home without my wallet and our boarding passes...
I loved this hotel! I am big hotel person, i'd choose a hotel over a b&b or a camping trip any day. We had the best hotel staff, the staff member who helped us with our luggage to our room insisted on wheeling the luggage and got one of those fancy carts. I wanted to take photos because it was all so fancy but my phone had died trying to find the hotel on google maps (and to find the charger was a talk in itself!)...
The inside of the hotel was lovely, and all very fancy! The views were great too. I was sad that we didn't get to enjoy it very much as we got there so late and had to leave so early.. They gave us a tiny bit of a later checkout because we were 'honeymooners' but we still had to be out by like 10:30am.
Gavin and i were dying to get in the pool - it was so cool! but again - no time :( I probably would have snuck into it at night time if i had of known what stradbroke island was going to be like... somehow we got mixed messages and i thought we were staying in a hotel there too with a pool...
A nice surprise when opening our suitcases was some bottles of fronti and some glasses. We were given an ice bucket from the hotel which i thought was fun. Some other 'nice' surprises in our luggage was a LOT, i mean a LOT of glitter/confetti stuff. Someone had opened our suitcases and dumped it through them. Not just on top, but all through the layers of clothes and in shoes etc. It was even inside the bag to put my wedding dress away into. We are seriously STILL finding this stuff everywhere!! We have washed all the clothes and even moved house since getting back but we are still finding it!
An even nicer surprise when we got to the hotel though was that my mum had payed for us to have a buffet breakfast. We were so keen for this! we barely got to eat a thing the night before at dinner with everyone talking to us.
I wanted to stay in that hotel for a few days (and if we could do it again then that's what i'd do)...
On our way to breakfast in the elevator.
And enjoying breakfast together :)
After we checked out of the hotel we had to drive to the ferry terminal to leave for stradbroke island.. we stopped at some factory outlets to do a bit of shopping and also went down to check out the beach on the gold coast. There had been a cyclone only 2 weeks before we were there and the beaches were all still closed and no swimming was allowed... Oh well (we thought) we can just swim on stradbroke island!
You can see the sand banks in these pictures - normally it is all flat and not built up like that.
Also - check out the clouds! Rain was on its way...
We loved it there too, and i really wish we spent our whole time on the gold coast because there was lots to see and do and it was so fun...
we then found the ferry terminal and jumped on 'the big red cat' which i forgot to get a picture of. It took us straight over to stradbroke island. The ferry ride probably took about 20 minutes, any longer and i know i was going to vomit from the rocking of the boat!... unfortunately stradbroke island is in that really dark cloudy part to the left :(
this photo is in the wrong spot but i enjoyed my first slurpee from 7/11 on the way to the ferry. it was so good! wish we had one in tassie!
When we got to stradbroke island it took us a long time to find our b&b.. not sure what it is about us that isn't good with directions! It was a cute little place run by an older couple who were lovely.
I felt bad for them because i opened my bag onto the rug and it had little grooves in it that filled up with the glitter/confetti!...
Breakfast was included each morning which consisted of a fruit platter, toast and then hot food and cereal. we tried to eat as much as we could because they were so lovely but i'm sure that's why my dress felt tighter the next week!
The whole time we were there it was so windy and absolutely poured with rain! Check out the clouds - no sign of settling down! One day we decided to go for a walk in between the rain, to a whale watching look out. Stupidly we didn't take umbrellas....
We wanted to head down to this beach because it looked so beautiful but it was closed because of the weather! :(
we lasted about 10 minutes into the walk and then we were absolutely drenched! I had my big camera with me so we raced back to the car to keep it dry.
I can't remember which day we did what, but on one day we headed to the south of the island which was the 'busier' side where more residents live and not so much a holiday place. a lady in the newsagents gave us a map and suggested we head to 'Brown Lake' for the day... she said people go swimming there and it might be fun. When we got there it really was brown!!... There was no way we were swimming there! haha.
I wonder if they have a lot of people skinny dipping there? haha
This is also the place where i learned what a 'waterless toilet' is... it's just code for longdrop.... not my first choice of honeymoon activities...
And these next pictures are from a day when we walked around a track that took you around the north side of the island, and past the blowhole...
heading out to the blowhole... there wasn't one there at all! on the other side was a rescue ring that you could chuck in to people who fell off the rocks.. it had information on it about how many people had drowned etc.
There were some really cool trees along the track!
And then another day we headed to a beach anyway (even though there were warning galore about not going into the beach because of the weather)... we didn't want to go to the island and not step foot on the beach!
Check out the clouds!!
We know why it was closed! it was sooooo windy!
a little bit too excited to be at the beach...
I have some videos from this beach that show how bad the weather was but blogger won't let me upload them for some reason...
we were so bummed about the weather because the island is based around good weather for tourists. we were so keen to go snorkling, wind surfing and diving but we couldn't do any of it as it was all closed because of the weather :(
when we got sick of all the rain each day we went to the b&b to play cards and watch dvds that we hired from the shop. We couldn't even find an indoor pool anywhere, and all the tennis courts were closed....
And then the last day came and we had to get to the ferry by 11am.. we were glad to leave because the food was SO expensive there and barely any places were open as it was the beginning of the week. we spent a fortune on food which we were annoyed about, and it was also gross to eat take away every day. (and not the good take away!) they only had fish and chips and pizza! no wonder my dress was tight haha.
yup - still raining....
And when we got to the ferry terminal (we had no reception where we were staying) we got a text saying that the ferry had broken down and a different one was running that day and would be late...
I just love this picture of the boats - looks so calm!
when we got off we headed towards Ipswitch to stay with Gavin's brother the night before our flight the next day. We couldn't resist the 7/11 again! We also did a bit of outlet shopping on the way and scored a few bargains...
We spent the night with Peter and Cara, and then headed to the airport to catch our plane home....
... which was at the gold coast airport and we took a wrong turn and ended up missing the flight by 5 minutes! My sob story of how we were headed to our own wedding in only 2 days time got us an incredibly cheap flight the next day and no extra charges for luggage... We stayed the night on the gold coast with Gavin's friend (a blow up mattress for two that went flat!), and then got to our 5:45am flight the next morning exhausted and tired and sick of the rain!!!!
But we were finally headed home to tasmania for the really fun part - our wedding! woohoo!
We landed in tassie to blue skies and no rain!!
We also landed with absolutely everything still covered in glitter/confetti and all drenched from the rain, rain and more rain... all our clothes were soaked and didn't dry for ages... all except for our bathers - which were perfectly dry as we didn't even get to use them!!!
