13. Melbourne via North Arm Cove (Port Stephens)

I had agreed to call in to see Rob on the way home and spend some time getting to know each other.  I arrived late Monday night and he picked me up which was nice.  I was uncomfortable though having an open wound on my back, the new dolphin tattoo, to be staying in his house that is just being built and could provide very basic shelter at best.  The house will be amazing when it is finished but it is a major undertaking on your own while trying to work!  I decided the best thing was for me to book into a hotel and I stayed for 2 nights at the Karuah Motor Lodge, which I have to say was a lot more pleasant than I was expecting.  The current owners had put some nice touches to the room and the service and breakfast was great.

The days we spent walking in the forest near where Rob is building his house, walking down on the beach. He also took me out to show me Moreli, the boat he lived on at Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron (RMYS) in Melbourne and still has.  We would eat at Rob's cooking in a kitchen exposed to the elements on all sides, an experience! We also went to watch the sunset over Myall Lakes which was spectacular as the water was exceptionally still.  Im quite proud of my photos from there and have included a couple here.  It is a beautiful area and I enjoyed spending the time outside despite the weather being quite cool especially at night.

On my last night there, we had dinner with my dear friends Kerrie and Leigh at their home in Medowie.  It has been a long time since we had caught up and it was so good to see them.  Leigh as always turned on a great feast, three courses no less.  The night went too quickly and it was time to say goodbye...I could have stayed and chatted until I had to catch my flight the next day but that would be silly!  A highlight of the night was that I got to hug Cheyenne, their daughter who has Rets Syndrome so this is very special...well I thought so anyway.  Rob dropped me at the airport after a hot, delicious breakfast delivered on time at the Karuah Motor Lodge and I headed home to Melbourne.  We agreed to stay friends and be in touch and see what happens.

I arrived back in Melbourne and Leah picked a work colleague and I up in my car and we headed back to Elwood to have some lunch and catch up.  Then I took the car as my first mission was to go and pick up some warm clothes!  I took the car back to Leah as her mum was coming over and I thought it would be good for her to be able to take her mum around.  I also had a very pleasant evening during my last week when Leah cooked dinner for her mum, another friend Lisa and I.

I was keen to see the family as always.  Its always fun to stay with Suz and Neil and to spend time with Taylor and Ollie (my great nephews).  I regret not having had the opportunity to spend as much time with my other 'greats' (niece and nephew that is) India and Sebastien.  I did get to watch them play golf on that Sunday morning...too cute!! And of course I also got to see them at my official family birthday dinner on the 2 July, yes still celebrating almost 4 months later....topped off with the presentation of a stunning watch to commemorate the occasion!  AFL featured again while I was in town.  I went to the Carlton v West Coast match and the old grudge match against the Western Bulldogs (my brothers team).  Getting to this last match determined when I was leaving to go to Bali!

During my time in Melbourne I also started making arrangements for my next trip.  Despite numerous attempts I couldnt get the travel agent who had organised my first trip to respond!  Luckily Alicia's cousin Sarah is a Flight Centre team leader at the Strathpine office (if you need a good travel agent, I would recommend her).  She did a great job getting me organised very quickly.  I spoke to her on 4 July, wanting to leave on 13 July eek!!  She got back to me that day with options and I was insured and had my itinerary the next day.   I had to draw the line somewhere as I did actually want to leave and be back by the end of September!   

12. Harry Potter and The Dolphin Tattoo....

No this is not an unreleased chapter of the Harry Potter story!  Just a couple of special anecdotes I wanted to share  :)!  During my time in Brisbane it was Alicia's birthday and Jamie took her out for dinner, then I met them and we went to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Excellent! During this was the promo for the last Harry Potter movie which got Alicia and I quite excited.  For my last weekend in town Alicia's parents agreed to have the kids so that we could go out for dinner and the intention was to go to the movies to see Harry Potter.  We were all excited and had spent the previous week watching all, yes ALL, the Harry Potter movies...one a night, sometimes two...eek!  We were on a roll!  When we went to book the tickets we were a little embarrassed to find that we were about a month early!  The film had not even been released...doh!

We spent the Saturday night quietly with a few drinks and an early dinner after a trip to the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.  The purpose of this trip was to show Alicia an image for a tattoo that I thought I might like to get.  I had seen it during a recent visit there with Rob.  I have always wanted to get a tattoo but wanted to get something that was meaningful to me.  I also went off the idea as tattoos are so popular here now and Im not one to do the popular thing.  This image was the first that had really stood out to me but it had gone out of my mind until we started talking about it.  Alicia was encouraging me to get the tattoo and so we went to bookshop there and I showed it to Alicia.  I still liked it, so that was a good sign so Alicia took a photo of it.

We tinkered with the design a bit.  Alicia offered to buy the tattoo for me for my birthday.  We talked about going to the tattoo shop that day but it just didnt feel right.  The next day we were close by the tattoo shop and so I said to Alicia, lets see if it is open (it was a Sunday).  It was.  Okay lets see if they can fit me in.  They couldnt really but as I was leaving the next day, Jimmy offered to stay back and do it at 6pm.  Who could argue with that!  Jimmy also made some suggestion about some changes to the design which I liked so I agreed.  I left after making the appointment feeling very nervous but that soon turned to excitement.  Alicias mum agreed to have the kids a little longer (as I had to have Alicia come with me...yes I am 50 but I was nervous!).  Jimmy was good and made me feel relaxed.  He got me to drink a can of coke so I had plenty of sugar to get me through.  It took about 45minutes and was a weird sensation.  Painful but bearable, at least I couldnt see as the tattoo is on my back.  I left feeling super cool, quite proud of myself and just a little paranoid that it would get infected so off to the chemist for some Bepanthen.  The tattoo is of a dolphin, mid leap out of the water, with a little wave symbol next to it.  I have always loved dolphins and never tire of seeing them, particularly when sailing.  I was able to relate to all the meanings that I came across and there are many.  Celts and Pirates believe they are a symbol of protection (and who doesnt love a Celt or a pirate right?); to a variety of deities they represent things including freedom, wildness, joviality, playfulness, sensuality, compassion all attributes I respect and aspire to, the perfect tattoo!  Not only do I have the perfect image for my tattoo, my friends bought it for me for my 50th, I had it done at the same place as Alicia got her tattoo AND Powderfinger (Im a massive fan) used to rehearse upstairs...rah!!  Ah, it was all just meant to be!!

11. Farewell Southport, Hello Brisbane

As expected we had quite a big night on my last night in Southport, complete with green drinks at a lovely restaurant called Saks.  We sat up at the bar to have a couple of pre-dinner drinks.  The service was great (and the waiters cute!) although the cocktail barman was a little embarrassed when he spilt a cocktail all over himself while making our green drinks.  He recovered well though and managed to do the whole cocktail show without doing it again!!!  We feasted on beautiful food and the bonus was that being berthed in the marina we were entitled to 50% off our meals.  This, and only this is the reason that we seemed to spend a significant amount more on alcohol.  We were the last to leave and had cleaned them out of whatever goes into the green drinks we were having.  It was a fun farewell for me.

At some stage during my time in Southport we went to Max Brenners.  I suspect it was Thursday morning, after my farewell night as Im a bit vague about when!  Now a lot of you have probably been there numerous times but Im sure it was the first time Ive had one of their cappuccinos!  OMG...topped with liquid chocolate and in a kangaroo cup, so named as it has a little "pouch" (or lip really) on the side of the cup where they place a square of chocolate so that it melts and can flow into the coffee or just be sucked off the side.  Amazing...I so wanted to have another but it was so rich, that would have just been wrong!!

When Alicia and her two munchkins Harvey (age 3) and Lily (age 20 months) arrived to pick me up on Thursday morning (19 May), we walked past the restaurant and saw the waiter who looked quite surprised to see me up and about!! I was a little surprised too, truth be known. Alicia's husband and my good buddy Jamie was away travelling with his work which is a regular occurrence as he is a bit of a high flyer...:).  Alicia and I and the kids had lunch, and did some shopping as Alicia was about to start a new job.  During this time we had torrential rain.  Not good when you are in thongs...eek!  We headed home to Hawthorne in Brisbane where they moved to in February.  The house is amazing and it is good for them to be close to Alicias parents and family.  As this was the first time I had seen Alicia since leaving in January there was the obligatory night of welcoming to be had...I think we finished "catching up" about 3am.  That was all good fun but the problem was that Jamie arrived home on the Friday and that meant, for me, another night of welcoming...so night 2 Jamie and I finished about 3am again.  Alicia had excused herself early and while I thoroughly enjoyed the 'welcomings', my reserves were running low!!

Somehow the weeks started slipping away again, filled with yoga, exploring the area, visits from Rob that I met in North Arm Cove and thinking about where to next!  Watching the football was a priority and Alicia's father kindly offered for us to watch the matches on his big screen TV on Fox...an offer too good to refuse.  Of course each match was accompanied by many txts between Di (my fellow Carlton supporter) and I on performance, encouragement and general cheering.

I also had an obsession with cooking which began quite soon after arriving and spent much of my time in the kitchen, quite happily making dishes ranging from caramalised onions to sweet brown rice and mushrooms to mediterannean baked vegetables to tuna chilli pasta.  Some of the recipes were from my book "If Buddha came to Dinner" How to Nourish your Body and Awaken your Spirit by Hale Sofia Schwartz.  Its an awesome book and has some great recipes but the principles behind it about how to eat and why we eat the way we do are really interesting.  Unfortunately it also suggests how to do a cleanse which I thought was a good idea to try.  Either I was really "dirty" or it was a bad time as I ended up really sick and ended up going to the doctor and discovered I had some sort of gastro, not because of, but in addition to the cleanse.  I felt really cleansed by the end of it all anyway!!

10. Yamba to Southport - Tues 17 May (90nm)

I went to yoga again this morning, after a somewhat ruckus start.  Up at 5.30am I packed all my things including my water bottle into my backpack as usual.  When I noticed a pool of water on my sleeping bag I suspected something was wrong, top not on the water bottle properly...oops!   So quickly unloaded everything and grabbed the bare essentials to carry.  Threw the backpack into the head and mopped up the spilt water.  Quietly crept off the boat only to realise I had forgotten my phone.  I crept back on the boat and accidently upended my backpack looking for my phone and everything toppled out onto the floor.  So much for sneaking around quietly!!  I walked along the river path and again I wished I had taken my camera as the sun was rising behind some impressive clouds, sail boats bathed in darkness and the planets were visible in the sky.  A beautiful peaceful scene.  I used this as my focus for yoga.  A more challenging class this morning which was good.  I had not realised how stiff I had gotten!  After yoga I walked on the beach, wanting to feel the wet sand beneath my feet again.  The water was warm as I paddled in the shallows watching Southpaw leave from the breakwater.  The sun shone brilliantly over the beach and warmed me as I walked from one end to the other.  Finally I dragged myself away and enjoyed the walk back to the boat along the river.

I had breakfast at the Marina Cafe in the sun again while Mark and Di were off tackling some Di size waves on their boogie boards!  Our last activities here in Yamba before we headed off to Southport.  After some lunch we organised ourselves for our overnight trip and left about 3pm.  The winds were light and swells low.  To make it through the night we ran shifts.  As there were 3 of us we decided on 2 hours on deck for each person, then 4 hours off watch to catch some zzzzs.  It was pretty easy going, Max (the autohelm) kept us on track and keeping a look out was easy, made so by the brilliant full moon which was the highlight of the night.  Er well there was that stray fishing float that seemed to appear a long way off but was actually quite close to the boat, but other than that...:)!  It would have to be the brightest night sailing I have ever done.  I have a thing for moonlight but believe me when I say the moonlight this night was even more beautiful than I had seen before.  Unfortunately the photos didnt work so well but they give you an idea. 

As the moonlight faded and sunrise approached the lights of Southport got brighter and the cityscape of the Gold Coast became more and more visible on the horizon.  It seemed so out of place after the peaceful night we had had at sea!  Originally we were planning on staying at the Southport YC but were not able to get a suitable berth but luckily we were welcomed in at the Marina Mirage which we found out is the home of the super yacht.  Poor Sally, which is actually 44ft long, looked quite small and only really took up a half of the berth we were given.  We wondered what time the sun would shine on us given the height of the decks on the boats around us.  Dont get me wrong we were grateful to have a spot to park!  We were tied up by about 8am so had to fill in some time before "Rooster", the marina manager, was available to give us our keys and book us in.  Rooster is a well known local character apparently and also had a book of his poems available for sale at the marina office.  Christine, the client liaison and concierge for the marina, was very friendly and helpful.  We slowly got familiar with our surroundings....helicopters flying in and out; a floating church; the Palazzo Versace Hotel; restaurants; designer shopping and lots of really big boats for sale!  This would be my last night on the boat so I was looking forward to ending the trip with a green drink (cocktail) or two!