Back Home From Visiting My Daughter

I had a great visit with my daughter, Olivia and her two sons, Riley and
Craig. I arrived up at Mackay at 3.00pm on Saturday 3rd February, under
heavy overcast skies and drizzy rain. I picked up my hire car and headed
over to Olivia's house. Here is a extract from the local paper that greeted me.

I knew what sort of weather I was in for as I had been following the forecasts
prior to leaving Brisbane. A cyclone had formed off the top end of Queensland
and then a low pressure system was formed beyond the cyclone and was
heading south towards Mackay. There was a possibilty that this could also turn
into a cyclone. Fortunatly the low turned east and headed out into the Coral
Sea where it finally disappeared. Mind you this took a few days before all this
happened. We "braved" the weather and on Monday we drove down to one of
the local beach resorts.




















Craig and Olivia.
................................................................"Dumped" by a wave.

Riley is a real dare devil. Not afraid of the waves, runs right into the surf
gets knocked by a wave, gets up and straight back into the surf. He had to
be watched all the time otherwise some of the undercurrents could easily
suck him back into deep water and into big trouble. Craig who is 15 months
younger than Riley is nowhere as daring and would only stay by either his
mother or my side, but get him into a "kiddies" pool and he becomes more
daring.













Craig jumping into Grandma's hands...............Riley in the pool.


It's at the children's playgrounds where the real "kid" emerges.

No way could we encourage Riley to get into the crocodile's mouth, even
though the big "kid" was inside. He was happy to sit on it's head with Olivia.
We had been at the beach for a few hours and driving to this playground Craig
had gone to sleep in the car, so we left him with his grandma to look after him.


Two of my favourite photos I took of the boys.


















Riley on the slippery slide.....................and Craig at the beach.




..................................Wazza and daughter, Olivia.


......................."Poppy", Riley, Olivia and Craig.
















Although the weather wasn't all that good, we managed to go out every
day to the beach, or the pool, or McYuuchs (McDonalds) or just for a
drive. Unfortunately we had to pass McDonald's every day when we
went out and Craig would see the sign and yell "we go to McOonals".
He didn't want the food only to go and get on the slides at the playground.
I said to my daughter on Thursday that the blue skies would return on
Saturday (when I was leaving), but no I was wrong the blue skies returned
on the Friday, so off to the beach we went again.






























Olivia building sand castles for Craig. The last photo shows where Craig
has just stompled the sand castles, Riley had built, into oblivion.


.........................Last "cute" photo of Riley and Craig.

Although Craig is younger than Riley, he is the leader, Riley usually
follows doing what Craig starts and if sometimes Riley pushes/shoves
Craig then Craig doesn't stand back and take it, but he will push back.
They both seem to get on very well together and will play happily
together and very rarely do they argue over toys.
My daughter who is now a lone parent is doing a excellent job in
bringing up both boys in a caring and happy envirement.
After a enjoyable 8 days at Mackay, I boarded my plane on Saturday,
10th February and flew back home.
This post is now quite long with all the photos so I will do a shorter post
later, on the "history" of Mackay along with a few photos I took of the
city.