Well, we are nearing the end of Spring here in Yeppoon so I thought it was time for us to share a little about what we’ve been up to. Spring in Yeppoon is gorgeous with stunning sunrises, cool nights and warm days.
We’ve had a rainier spring than normal but we’ve still been able to spend our days enjoying the outdoors and we’ve even been gifted with a few fabulous rainbows!
We started spring with a weekend getaway to the city. When we lived in Canada, we made trips up to Toronto fairly often for concerts and shows and fancy dinners, but that’s a bit harder to do here since the closest big city (Brisbane) is a 7-hour drive from us. So I was pretty excited when Rob gave me tickets for the Vance Joy concert in Brisbane for Christmas last year. Sadly, Vance Joy changed the date a month or two before the concert. Rob will now forever call him Vance Mangan since our last disappointing concert experience was a Dan Mangan concert. But all was not lost. We decided we would still head to the city and enjoy some time away.
However, the curse of Vance Mangan wasn’t done yet. On the morning we were leaving for Brisbane, about 30 minutes before we had to leave for the airport, we received a call from our hotel cancelling our reservation…on the Friday of a long weekend. It felt a little like a practical joke and not exactly a nice way to start a holiday. Rob jumped on line to try to see what was still available. Space was limited and anything available was a crazy amount of money. Fortunately, we had booked through Expedia who encouraged us to get on the plane and they would have us a room by the time we landed in Brisbane, at no cost to us. It was a bit of a strange feeling to board a plane to a city you had nowhere to stay, but we figured worse case scenario, we’d have lunch in Brisbane and just board another plane back. Lucky for us, Expedia was true to their word and secured us a place in a great part of town. Rob was even happier to discover the hotel was next to an Irish pub!
After enjoying a Guinness, we wandered down to Southbank to enjoy the Friday evening markets. It’s such a beautiful area of Brisbane! We really should have taken more pictures of the area!
After an amazing Italian dinner (good Italian food is a tough find after growing up in Niagara!!), we headed over to Queensland’s Performing Arts Centre for ‘Your Song’. It was a fun tribute to Elton John that weaved his music through stories collected across Australia.
The rest of the weekend was spent doing lots of walking and enjoying great food, fabulous wine and discovering a few cool bars. Rob was pretty happy about finding this pancake place which was an old church. It was a pretty cool spot but the Vance Mangan curse struck again…poor Rob was served pancakes so burnt he couldn’t eat them. I have to admit I struggled not to laugh, at least not in the moment.
Our walks took us along the river and past a Hare Krishna parade as well as a number of protests.
We absolutely love our little town of Yeppoon but definitely miss having access to a variety of different restaurants. On the Saturday, we found this amazing steakhouse with incredible table service. I think it will be tough to get Rob to try somewhere different when we go back to Brisbane next. We were enjoying the evening so much neither of us thought to take a picture of ourselves or even our meal, but we did get a few of the restaurant sign and of course the wine.
At dinner, the waiter recommended we stop at a Speak Easy style bar on our walk back to the hotel called The Dr. Gimlette. We were so glad we did. What a place!! The staff there turned making cocktails into an art!
The weekend was over way too quickly but coming home always means returning to our little piece of paradise. And we were pleasantly surprised to discover a new restaurant here in Yeppoon. It’s actually been here the whole time we’ve lived here but we always thought it was a hotel. A friend of ours, who’s only lived here a few months, came across it so we headed out with him for an afternoon of wine and charcuterie next to the sea. It was perfect!
Spring here also means that the trees start fruiting. Nothing beats limes straight off the gin and tonic tree!
And soon we’ll have mangoes too!
And now that I’m sharing a little of our local nature, I also can’t resist sharing a picture of this tawny frogmouth that was sitting on the railing outside my office one day. Aren’t they just the most fascinating creatures? Normally they sit still in trees and blend into the bark so it’s rare to actually catch sight of them. I was pretty excited to get so close to this one!
Spring in Yeppoon also includes Thanksgiving. Rob used the last of our stash of Caesar Pleaser mix so we could cheers all the Schoonings camping in the cold. He also smoked some turkey and I used up the last of the pureed pumpkin we had in the freezer to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We of course also shared some hellos and virtual cheers and hugs with family.
And of course, Spring in Yeppoon would not be complete without Halloween. Pumpkins are only available here for a few days each year so Rob always makes sure to pick one up as soon as they hit the grocery. This year’s was a bit smaller than usual but still did the job. Rob and Chloe had a bit of pumpkin-off and managed to carve identical pumpkins. Hmmm….I wonder who was the copy cat culprit on this one?!
October also means the end of another teaching year. This year, a number of the allied health team celebrated with a game of barefoot bowls (a little like bocce ball but not quite) and a night of laughs at the pub. I am so fortunate to work with such a fabulous group of people!
Well, I think that pretty much covers the spring highlights from us. Only a few more weeks until the heat and humidity pick up and we can officially call it summer. Til next time everyone! xo