We packed up and left the showground at half past nine. We arranged to come back to the showground when we return to Brisbane as we had appointments for service to the Motley and to the generator before we head back to Barraba.. We called in to Wyllie Park to deal with the waste water and headed off up the Bruce Highway to Caloundra. We got to the caravan park at about twelve o'clock and settled in to a nice site not far from the cabin the others will be staying in. Rachel, Jeremy and the kids were bumped from their flight and didn't get to Brisbane till after one o'clock. They visited Al and then headed up; to Dicky Beach. Rachel had to drive through two great storms on the way up the Bruce Highway but they arrived safely at about half past four.
We gave them all tea or chocolate milk and cinnamon bun all sitting under the awning of the Motley. Jean, Rachel and Julia went for a walk to the beach in the light rain while Jeremy, Claire and I chatted and played with our computers.
Claire bas one of the new OLPC laptop from the MIT project. It is so impressive. It cost $US180 and has a new user interface specially designed for kids. It has built in WiFi and has he capability to form wireless networks of these devices which can access the internet through any connected machine in the area. Claire was puzzled hat my MacBook doesn't have any films on it!
At about six o'clock we decided to go out to dinner and found that only one of the restaurants was open. We all had a good dinner and many long chats before we went back to the caravan park to get the kids to bed. We sat in the verandah of their cabin drinking red wine and chatting until we all had to take to our beds.
The weather had fined up quite nicely but we had a dramatic storm in the afternoon. I had arranged a wireless internet connection. We had been watching the storm approach on the weather radar and I estimated its arrival and its duration. Jean and I had to take refuge in the Motley for about half an hour. I found that the main hatch leaked quite badly while it was raining heavily so I have another maintenance task to do.
Rachel had suggested that we take a sunset cruise down the Pumicestone Passage. As we got to the jetty, Rachel got a message that the ferry captain had been caught in the storm and the trip was cancelled. We took the kids to the beach for a while to get them to dispose of some excess energy. Rachel found that she had mislaid her spectacles which was a bit of a downer. We got back to Dicky Beach in time for dinner but the spectacles still couldn't be found.
We went to a restaurant just across the road which Rachel had read about and wanted to try. It was quite strange with what I would call nouvelle cuisine, big plates with pretty patterns in coloured sauce but not a lot of food. When I paid the bill, i was asked "How was the food?" I said "Fine" to which I got a response "Just fine?" so I said "Yes, just fine, I'm not really into nouvelle cuisine", I did get a smile and a "Thank you".
Another beautiful day.
Al arrived from Brisbane at about nine o'clock. After morning teas, he and Rachel went to Nambour to get Rachel's spectacles replaced. The job took an hour and they were back in Dicky Beach before lunch.
Sarah, Max, Kelly and Ross turned up at about half past five.
We all had glasses of wine and fish and chips for dinner under the Motley awning. The others went back to their various places at about half past nine and we did the washing up and settled in for some TV viewing.
We went to Moffat Beach with Rachel and her family to have brunch with Sarah and her family. We sat in the cafe for quite a long time because a heavy rain storm came through the town.
We all went back to Sarah's resort unit for lunch. We returned to Dicky Beach, had some afternoon tea and went to the beach to watch the kids build a dam which was quite impressive but which eventually failed and released the trapped water into the creek.
In the evening, we went to Sarah's unit and had takeaway Thai food for dinner. We were all pretty bushed so we all went back to our respective places.
The Marretts had to leave their unit by ten in the morning so they came to Dicky Beach for the rest of the day.
I took Rachel, Alain, and Ross to Stocklands (Shopping Centre) so that Rachel could buy Ross a present. a new game for his Gameboy.
We all had lunch at the Motley. In the afternoon, they all went swimming but I took refuge in the airconditioned comfort of the Motley.
The Marretts went home before dinner so that the kids could get to bed early as they had to go to school tomorrow. The rest of us went to Bucket and Spade for another very nice meal.
The weather held up. It was overcast and moderately warm. At Rachel's request, I cooked sausages from the local butcher on the Cobb Cooker for lunch. We also has salad and fresh fruit salad and everyone seemed to enjoy it. There was a comment about how this was a real Aussie bush lunch.
In the evening, Al went home and I treated the remaining family to dinner at a lovely Thai restaurant in Caloundra.
I rained a lot overnight and the rain continued throughout the morning. Rachel wanted to visit the Queensland Air Museum. The place is quite amazing. The collection is vast and all encompassing. I was reminded of some of my own experiences as I walked through the exhibits.There is, in the collection, a DH110 which was the plane that crashed at the Farnborough Air Show in September 1952. I was part of that audience and remember the crash with great clarity. There is a Turana pilotless target drone which was integrated with the Ikara anti-submarine weapon system for the Royal Australian Navy which was a current project at AWA when I first worked there. There was a model Catalina as flown by my cousin Fred "The Fairy" Allsop during WW2.
We had lunch at a cafe in Caloundra before returning to Dicky Beach for afternoon rests.
In the evening, Rachel treated us to another dinner at the Bucket and Spade.