Hervey Bay

I was expecting life in Australia to be different and more laid back but what I wasn't prepared for was the hours they keep. The sun comes up at around 5am and once it's up and shining it's pretty much impossible to sleep....especially when I have a seven year old that doesn't much like sleep anyway. The past couple of days has found us awake at 5am and 5.30am which is cool but means I can't stay awake past 8pm!!!!! (I thank God that Santa bought Chick a Nintendo DS for Christmas 'cos it means that I at least can nap on and off for an hour whilst she is entertained!!)

On the days when it's raining, we aren't woken up by the sun but by a cacophony of animal sounds. We have frogs that live in the hanging baskets right outside our window and man they are noisy especially considering how small they are. The other thing that starts making noise at the butt crack of dawn is the birds. Again it's like having my own personal avairy outside the window to keep me entertained.

I should probably mention at this point that I really dislike animals of every kind. I don't even like cats/dogs/cute bunny rabbits although I can suffer them if I have to but what I hate with a passion is snakes,frogs and birds....imagine if you can my joy at being surrounded by them at 5am!!!!! Everywhere you walk you see some kind of wildlife which for the first day freaked me out and then I decided that I can't spend the whole of the next month get scared every two seconds, so I'm gonna have to be brave and just suck it up!

It's working so far as last night I sat out with JoJo and let the frogs jump around us (it was horrible....uuurrrggghhh!!!) but I didn't freak out (too much!!). Watch this space though as I'm sure the second I see a snake or a huge bird I'll be back to quivering in my flip flops!!!

We have quite a chilled out day planned today and are off to explore the Hervey Bay Esplanade and maybe swim in the sea again. The rain has stopped and the sun is trying very hard to come out thankfully, so maybe today we won't get soaked to the skin!!!!