Labour Day Long Weekend

The first Monday in May is Labour Day in Queensland. This public holiday used to fall around my birthday in March in Victoria, so I am sad that I don't get a long weekend for my birthday anymore! But hey, once May rolls around, it's nice to have this little break early in Term 2. The long weekend came after two weeks of the school term, and we had not quite recovered from our busy Easter holiday with my family, so the extra day off was been a good opportunity to catch up on some housework/life admin, while also having a few fun activities every day.

I actually had a pretty social weekend - rare for me since moving to Queensland - where I've had to build a new social network from scratch! (Not especially easy in your 40s.) I have been lucky that the group of friends Ella developed through school has a great group of mum friends that I have started seeing outside of 'kid activities' a bit more this year. 

The weekend kicked off on Saturday morning with our regular kids sports of netball for Ella and soccer for Ollie. We split up in our usual fashion: me with Ella and Andy with Ollie. Both games were early, so we were all out of the house by about 7:30am. Ella ended up playing two games, as one of the other netball teams who played after us was short players, so it was a long 2.5 hours at the netball courts for me! Luckily there are some nice parents that I enjoy catching up with. One of the netball mums is an avid runner and is trying to convince me to do the Gold Coast half-marathon in July... I've not committed yet, but I'm slowly trying to build up my longer runs on the weekend just in case!

After netball I had a birthday event for one of the mum-friends at noon - we did a pottery class at Crock'd in Currumbin. This was really fun! It was so nice to do something creative for a birthday, rather than the usual dinner/drinks etc. We made mugs, but there were a lot of classes on offer and I could see taking Ella to do something like this - I think she'd really like it! Our mugs have to dry out for at least two weeks, and then we take them back to fire in the kiln and paint.

I always think that Currumbin is so far away, as it's right at the south end of the Gold Coast, nearly in New South Wales. But it took just under half an hour to drive there, and we need to make the effort to venture down that way more often as a family; it's so beautiful and we have yet to check out the Currumbin Rock Pools, a highlight of the Gold Coast.

That evening I took Ella to our school musical. We met up with a few of her friends and their families for dinner first and then headed over to the school for a night of theatre. The musical this year was Crazy for You, and as I have come to expect since working in an independent school, it was extremely well done.

Sunday morning we were up early again, and met up with Craig's family at Uki Mountain Bike Park in the Tweed Valley, in New South Wales. It was about an hour and 15 minutes away for us, but really nice to see a different part of the region. There are mountain ranges here and the scenery is totally different to the coast. The Mountain bike park is free to enter, and was great for beginners. There are 8 trails, and 4 of them were considered 'easy', though I must say I find them a challenge! Ollie is still really hesitant on his bike when we do mountain biking, so he and I did a few easy loops, shortening even the easy trails. Ella does really well mountain biking, and was able to do some complete laps on her own.

Unfortunately there was a rain shower about an hour after we got there, making the trails slippery, so we called it a day and headed over to the Tyalgun Hotel for some lunch. This was a great place to take the kids - think picnic benches outside, a playground, and even a pool the kids could have used had we brought swimmers! On Sundays they have a BBQ smoker and there was also a face painter, so lots to keep the kids amused while we caught up with Craig and Mel. It's always so nice to see them, all in all it was a great morning/afternoon.

On the way back we drove through Springbrook National Park. We have done some hikes through the park and waterfalls in another area, but had not visited the side we were driving through. We saw signs for Natural Bridge and decided to have a quick stop, and I'm so glad we did! 

This is a super easy 1km circuit through the lush Gonwana Rainforest, that is mostly along a boardwalk.

For the first half the kids were very moan-y about having to go on a walk, which obviously annoyed Andy and me big time! But once we got to the waterfall flowing through the cave - which contained microbats that you could just about see flitting about - all their complains were forgotten and they had a fun time on the remainder of the walk. 

Their favourite part was having a stick throwing competition off the bridge, seeing which stick went the furthest through the rapids below. 

The stop was a good way to break up the drive home and we are hoping to return soon, as there are glow worms in the cave that you can see at night.

Once we got home we had some work to do, cleaning the mud off the bikes (Andy) and getting groceries and making dinner (me), with some random chores like putting away laundry and emptying the dishwasher for the kids. We also had to battle an ant problem in the granny flat kitchen (ew), but at least it was not in our actual kitchen! We had a relatively early night, and I slept well, looking forward to an extra day off for the long weekend.

Monday I woke up refreshed and had a pretty productive morning starting with an upper body workout on the deck, followed by a 20 minute easy run. I got back and made some banana bread, did some laundry, and spent some time writing blog posts. The late morning and early afternoon was a family effort to clean up the house and sort out some of the kids toys and clothes that they've grown out of. It's always a good feeling to get rid of stuff!

Later afternoon I met up with some mum-friends to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2. We sat in Gold Class, had cocktails, and then stayed after for a bottle of wine. It was so much fun and such a nice way to spend the night before the work week began!

All in all this was a really great long weekend - making it easy to face the four day workweek ahead!