Thursday, January 31, 2013

Celebs, cruising and cyclones

Its been an exciting 2 weeks in the NINKER house.  After finding those guns on the beach Blog on Gun Find, we were for a few days inundated by media - radio interviews, news interviews , news papers couldn't seem to get enough, then generally people calling to chat about this unusual detecting find from all over Australia and even some relatives OS saw it , which seemed a little strange to us - obviously no news that week. Here is one of the many articles on the find . The GC Bullies Article   It was all very exciting although it would have been better if we had found a gold nugget.  That filled in though a few exhausting days of being celebs.
 
I was also asked to be a guest blogger on Open Forum Bloggers which added a little more excitement to the week here is the feature for all those who missed it Guest Blog.
 
After all that excitement we decided now that the fridge in the boat was fixed, it was time to head out and get away from it all, especially given the main school holiday period was finished and the waterways were a little quieter.  We headed out on the Saturday and returned on Thursday as we began to feel the weather changing as Cyclone Oswald started to make it move down the coast of Queensland.  We had a great week out, the weather was peeeeeeeeeeeerfect -water was peeeeeeeeeeeerfect and I was able to sit and watch the tennis while sitting on the back of the boat so with wine in hand, sea at my feet, tennis on the TV and Derek off finding riches ($6) life was pretty good. When the weather is great one of the things I particularly love are the sunsets but of course being able to jump off the back of the boat and swim in cool clean waters is one of the best things about the boating life.
 
It was just as well we headed back on Thursday because by Friday morning our seaways and coast had begun to change as Cyclone Oswald got closer and while they were no longer calling it a cyclone, it was a close to it as you could get.  Of course our heart goes out to all those people who where so badly affected by this event, it was once again heart breaking to see what the weather was serving up.  For the full weeks photos click here
 
While we were not overly affected, living on the water always makes you nervous especially high winds, combined with high tides and then 600mls of rain on the mountain above you is a combination for some heart in mouth syndrome.  We were extremely lucky though and other than getting more water frontage than we normally have, somehow the Gold Coast got off lightly once again.
 
 
Yesterday Derek was desperate to get to the beaches after such wild weather as his is apparently the best time to find things on the beach.  Our beaches certainly took a battering and that foam and bubbles where still in abundance.  The humidity was 100% over the last few days causing the GC to have a blanket of fog that looked like it was raining and cold, but in fact was soooooo hot.  It was sad to see the beaches in such a state, only a few weeks ago I took some photos of a perfect GC beach and now they look far from that.  The surf was still big and looking quite dangerous.
 
Here are a few comparisons in a few week
 
A few weeks ago

Yesterday 
Booked a trip to Tasmania yesterday for next week (2 weeks in Tassie and Melbourne) and also finally booked our flights to the UK from May to August - looking forward to that trip just over 2 full months of driving around the UK will be heaps of fun.
 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Rifling through the sand dunes

Wow what a day today.  As you all know we have taken up doing metal detecting since D1 gave Derek one for Christmas.  While so far we will not be rich with our few small finds of $10 here and $10 there, but today showed us what other things you can find on our beaches.



With the boat is still out of action we did decide for the last few days to take a picnic, go to the beach and at least try our luck.

Yesterday we went to the Tweed and had quite good luck there, but today we decided to stay a little closer to home.  The day was perfect for the beach so we headed to Runaway Bay area - Shearwater Park - its a nice little beach area where Derek could detect until his heart was content and I could help until I got bored and then I could swim, sun bake and read.

Not long into our journey this morning and the detector started going ballistic, and Derek started digging.  Soon it look like he was digging his way to China but the detector kept going off and over quite a large area so carefully he dug around the area.

All of a sudden, there was something in sight and not all too pretty - a blanket with a rifle barrel sticking out, we carefully continued the journey to pull the blanket out of the dunes and found not 1 but 2 rifles.  What to do??? 

Call the police and report it, which is obviously what we did - and soon they were there and unraveling the  rifles from their blanky. They also asked him to use the detector around the area to see if there was antyhing else around.

Exciting stuff - certainly added some adventure to our day, and while this obviously doesn't provide us with any wealth it was exciting and shows just what is buried under the sand you walk on. 

After all our fun, and the police leaving with the finds, next minute the Gold Coast Bulletin arrives so the day was full of adventure. 

Check out all our photos Photos of our rifle find

Check out the Videos Video 1 of our findVideo 2

Remember riches come not from gold, but from the moments of your life that bring you pleasure

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot

As the mercury continues to rise around Australia hitting the high 30's and into the 40's we are all feeling perhaps a little more lethargic than normal.  It seems its difficult to really go anywhere to escape from the heat unless you are in air conditioning.  Even the beach is too hot on days like this!  Earlier in the week however the beach was perfect.  As I looked around this week it seemed everything was so clear - water, skies, glass etc and everywhere I went you could see reflections of the world in these things.  

Me well I love this weather and it seems like too many years since we have had a summer of hot days, full of  unlimited sunshine, blue skies and somewhat predicable weather (no storms brewing, no consistent rain falling) to me this is the summer I grew up with - of course we didn't have air conditioned homes and cars back then and most didn't even have a pool, we made do with hoses, sprinklers and cold showers in those days.

We have felt like we haven't done all that much this week, until yesterday when someone said - so what have you 2 been up to and then we started to prattle off the various things we have done - although most were either day or half day adventures we did seem to do a lot including some nice Nanna Naps in the air con as the heat zaps away your energy.

We had our last visit from our new found relatives from Texas and we all went out on the boat - which was a lot of fun, the boys (8 and 10) especially enjoyed being Captains for a while, but it was a nice day out and it was sad to see them go.  They were though especially kind and said, hey we have a house in England which isn't used if you want to use that for travelling - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  We have our home listed on Home Exchange and while we have had some fantastic offers they were not at times or places we specially wanted to go to or when we wanted to go, also now the D2 has moved back home it does make the home exchange more difficult, so this is a perfect solution for us ..... we had really wanted to do a driving trip around UK this year and to be able to take our time and explore.  We are now able to do this - YAY!

So with that the next day we were off to the book shop to get some Lonely Planet Guides and travel agents to get brochures  to begin establishing where to go, what to see etc.  I have really enjoyed plotting this journey this week and with the heat dragging you indoors, this is been a good project to focus on.  

We went Antiquing at the Gold Coast Antique Fair at Jupitures which was really fun, it was good to look at all of the stands and their various items and what is valuable and what isn't, so a good indoor activity in the heat.  Amazing the things you remember from your childhood that are now quite valuable.

We couldn't really go out in the boat - a) because the fridge is still being repaired - grrrrr and its not great to go under ice for more than a day and b) have you seen the jelly fish around the Broadwater this week - its like a sea of Jellies, apparently though this is a good sign of a healthy waterway. News on the Jelly Fish Invasion

The finds from Currumbin
One of the finds at Burleigh
One of the Photos I took at Currumbin
A few days were spent on Currumbin and Burleigh beaches earlier in the week when the weather was peeeerfect doing detecting - and this week we actually found some real treasures yes $10 (we will be rich in no time) and some other bits and pieces.  Derek was like the beach Piped Piper as all the kids followed him around.  Of course I helped a bit, but have learnt to take a chair, book , camera and sit on the beach while he goes off for hours.  It was a great week for surfing at the beach and I must admit I spent quite a lot of time on these days walking the beach and going for a swim - very relaxing, very uplifting on these hot days.


The bone needed to be picked up and chewed
A trip to Buderium to visit Dereks Uncle and Aunty who were house sitting up there - Dereks Uncle Derek is a very good cook so we knew a good lunch would be had and we were not disappointed - another great meal Derek Senior thank you.  Derek Senior is in the Australian version of Come Dine with Me which airs this week on the food channel for anyone who has Foxtel. Article on Derek Seniors Come Dine with Me episode this week

My favorite photo of us this week
Another few days having lunch with my Mum and then the girls rounded off a week of family catch up and some new adventures. As well as lots of swimming and sitting in our theater with air condition blasting, wrapped up in donnas filled in the rest of the week.


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

The week after Christmas - HAPPY 2013!

The week after Christmas always seems to go so fast and you tend to look back and wonder what happened to it.The Week After Christmas Album

I suppose after clean up and catch up from Christmas there goes a few days.  We didn't seem to stop though  and I am sure one of these days we will have a lazy day - so far they have been few and far between even though.

Detective Derek
I have now officially been a NINKER for 3 months now and I really can't believe how fast that time has whizzed past ... weeks disappearing is quite usual now for me.  To be honest I can't really remember what we did on what days, but we went to St Tropez Cafe at Sanctuary Cove for lunch one day (can't remember now which day that was which is always good ), we headed down to Main Beach a few mornings for some detecting with Dereks new toy - and the beaches where beautiful, its so good to just walk along the beach on beautiful days (full of negative ions - did you know that? Negative ions are more prominently found at the beach and waterfall areas and they are fantastic for your skin and well being - must be why we feel so good) did we find anything??????  A good question - yes it definitely works and if you count 100 bottle tops  6 tent pegs and some sinkers - well yes we did - so far not the riches we were hoping for lol, but it is a fun past time and good exercise walking, bending down and sifting through sand (the tops of my legs are getting a very good work out).
How beautiful do the beaches look!

We headed out on the boat for 3 days as well, it was pretty choppy and windy the first day but we stuck it out and found a lovely cove to pull into where there were not hordes of people and we had a nice small part of beach to ourselves.  The waters were warm and I got to have my first jump off the back of the boat for the season - very refreshing.

As always the time flies by on the boat as we read, fish, go out on the tender, do a bit of sun baking etc.  We headed to Paradise Point for New Years Eve for the night which was really enjoyable, lying up on the pointy end as I like to call it, sleeping bags, wine and of course Teddy curled up - lots of activities on the waterways, parties over at Sovereign Island and just as the sun was setting a pod of Dolphins even decided to come past to say Happy New Year - they did a few tricks which we all enjoyed - and it seemed quite special.  We saw 2012 in at Paradise Point last year as well but on land and it was raining and we had promised ourselves that this year we would be on a boat - how fast that year went when we looked back on it and started to think of all the things we had done in 2012 - it will definitely go down as a year of change for us.

The 3 C's of life: choices, chances and changes ~ You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change..Happy 2013

Not sure what the woman behind is harping on about