Whale watching in Byron Bay

I can’t believe this day. It was too good! I’m really glad mom got to experience this during her limited time in Australia. We will probably have another good whale watching one day, but it definitely will be hard to top getting mugged by seven whales and seeing countless of breaches. While the sun was out the full time, without scorching us. One of the best days ever I would dare say.

As we had such an amazing time exactly a year ago, there was no question about it, we wanted to go with Blue Bay Whale Watching Byron Bay again. Small boat with only 10 passengers at a time, nice crew, whale spotters from high ground telling where the action is, very mindful of the whales, and they seem to attract good passengers. Highly recommend!

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Tree Planting Tallebudgera

A couple of weeks ago, the three of us did something really good for the environment, we planted some trees in Tallebudgera Creek. The day was really beautiful, there were so many people from the local community who seemed to be doing this quite a lot. The mood was great, people were laughing, we all were efficient and we were surrounded by countless kookaburras. It was a beautiful morning that did the nature and our souls good.

The rest of the day was spent by the beach, mom took a dip in the ocean on this side of the world for the first time. Glorious with winter bath’s (21C in the ocean), isn’t it 😅

Royal Queensland Show (EKKA)

I did hear about the Royal Queensland Show/Brisbane Show Day/Ekka last year, but I had no idea what it was. Honestly, I thought it was just a big farmers market. This year, I learned the truth.

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Purling Brook Falls

I moved to Australia because of the beaches, not gonna lie. But the longer I live here, the more I’ve come to love the hinterlands, the Great Dividing Range, where we’ve so far only discovered a tiny part of all the great trails that exists. Out of the countless national parks, we’ve only visited TWO! We need to change that. But Springbrook is really incredible!

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Currumbin Widlife Sanctuary

A day at Currumbin Wildlife Sancturay can never be anything but amazing. When we brought mom there, that day was not an exception.

There was the rainbow lorikeet feeding, pelican and eel feeding, Wild Skies bird show, the new rescued radiated tortoises, very active tasmanian devils, an injured bat in the hospital which had an unusual story, lots of wild bats and water dragons as well as Boss Hog up and about showing off his massive 5 metres and 800 kgs.

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Coolangatta

While Mikael was busy doing business, mom and I decided to venture down south. The weather was beautiful in Broadbeach, we put on swimmers and went down to Coolangatta, just to get off the bus an hour later where storming winds were raging!

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Candlelight – Tribute to Queen

The string-quartet-in-candlelight-environment idea was just too good to not do again. After Mikael brought me for my birthday to the Rings & Dragons tribute, we decided to take my mom along up to Brisbane to listen to Phoenix Collective play tribute to Queen. We all love Queen, so this was a given!

This concert was by Phenix Collective, a string quartet from Sydney and wow, I am so glad we went to these guys version rather than the same we listened to last time (Paradiso Strings). The lead had such an incredible way of engaging with the audience and his introduction to each song made the experience so much better!

They had very strong opinions on Spotify, so their music is only available in concert format or on CD. I can’t remember the last time I had a computer with a CD reader, so concert format by candlelight was definitely amazing.

At one point, early on in the concert, Mikael leaned over to me and asked if the guy sniveling next to him had a cold or if he was crying. I couldn’t tell, but we later discovered that that guy was a hardcore fan and was crying almost all throughout the concert. It was really good! Goosebumps for some songs, for sure.

Whales in Burleigh Heads

Before mom’s first weekend in Australia was over, she had already ticked off so many animals on her list. The biggest one, and definitely the most anticipated, didn’t come until Sunday afternoon when we went for a walk in beautiful Burleigh Heads National Park.

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Review of “Dawnshard” by Brandon Sanderson

Title: Dawnshard
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: The Stormlight Archive #3.5
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 171
Published: 2020, Tor Books
My Grade: 5 out of 5
Review Summary: If you’ve read Oathbringer and like me, wanted to know more about the mysterious island of Akinah – this one is definitely for you!

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Review of “Oathbringer” by Brandon Sanderson

Title: Oathbringer
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: The Stormlight Archive
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 1248
Published: 2017, Tor Books
My Grade: 5 out of 5
Review Summary: The Sanderlanche is unreal in Oathbringer.

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