We've had great weather, and had lots of fun kayaking, boogie boarding, collecting shells and taking photos with our weekend visitors...
If we haven't posted for a while it's usually a sign of being busy with work, and not doing anything interesting... in the last few weeks this has only been half true. Dazz has been EXTREMELY busy with work, but also doing very interesting things. I, on the other hand, have not been terribly busy, or doing anything particularly exciting.
We spent a lot of hours on skype, often while he was eating at restaurants. Seafood figured prominently. He tried a couple of different tropical fruits, including the famously stinky durian. Although he had told the other teacher they would definitely not be hiring motorbikes, he ended up on the back of the bike of 
one of his students when they took him sight seeing and shopping! And where do they park all their scooters - in the scooter park, of course...
We had a quick trip over to the coast to get a few things done to the van at the factory. Since we had to be there early (7am) we thought we'd put up with a noisy night at the Landsborough turnoff. What we didn't bank on was a seeming 'park and ride' that started about 4am. By the time we decided we'd leave at 5am we were almost parked in...
Since her brother came to the gem fields for the July school holidays, we had promised Ellie a special three-day weekend away. A pupil free day provided the perfect opportunity. Our first stop was the rest area at Ravensbourne. This giant worm was found in a bit of an explore after breakfast. 
The main destination for the weekend was Somerset Dam. It turned out to be great weather for kayaking, and after being a passenger for a while Ellie decided it was her turn to paddle. We called her Captain Zig Zag, but she did a great job!
We saw a pheasant coucal, invented a new dessert - The Taj Special, had perfect morning tea marshmallows and spent Sunday afternoon at the mountain cousins where we learnt about bee keeping.
The perfect campsite is hard to find, and everyone wishes they could reserve their spot for next time... so we did. Our favourite Brisbane bush block, with power, water and meals (including morning & afternoon tea!!) is officially reserved.
We stayed in Toowoomba long enough to get new tyres, go shopping (it had been a month since the IGA in Coober Pedy!) and do some marking and then we were off again. We took the kids with us and they were super excited (they were picked up the next day, but we're here for a week). Last time we were at Coolmunda there was so little 
water that we were kayaking in the old creek on the eastern side of the dam. Now it's almost full and absolutely beautiful. Great waterfront views, kayaking, clean lake water, yellow-belly courtesy of our neighbours (thanks Bob & Toni), great weather (once the wind stopped 
on Monday), internet, TV... this just about has to be the perfect camp spot.
From Lake Bindegolly we did a lot of driving to get home. The only photo worth putting on the blog was the sunset through the trees at Westmar.
The Camps book only showed a day-use area at Lake Bindegolly, east of Thargomindah, so we decided we'd stop there for lunch on our way to Yowah (opal fossicking!). When we picked up a brochure at the Visitor Information, however, it mentioned bush camping on the southern side of the road. We didn't get our hopes up,
thinking it might have been a parking area on the side of the road... but it wasn't! Our one night stay has turned into four. The kayaking is great and we've seen some interesting water birds (Great Crested Grebes, Pink-eared Ducks, Baillon's Crake & Black-fronted Dotterel photos are below) and other wild-life.
