The Most Eastern Point of Mainland Australia....

10 June 2007, Sunday - Crossing the border....

Setting off bright and early in the morning (7.30am!!!), Heng Onn picked Haw and Yan from the city and drove to our place in Runcorn, before all 5 of us packed into our little green car and David and Yenki went with Kelvin in his car.

Gold Coast skyline from Burleigh Heads.. You can see the tallest building -Q1 from here. You got to pay $16 bucks to get to it's viewing floor at the top of the building....

First stop, Burleigh Heads - The Burleigh Beach House - for breakfast (recommended by Heng Onn). Esmond and I have passed by this small white building countless times before but never occurred to us to stop by for breakfast....

After a hearty breakfast, we proceeded to Point Danger.

But to reach Point Danger is a feat on its own. The GPS had guided us into a traffic nightmare. The traffic was litterally crawling... then we saw a helicopter making its landing and we thought "Oh oh... there must be some really, really terrible accident that requires immediate evacuation of the victims and was the cause of the traffic jam. When we got closer, we found....










What the?! The copters were joy rides!

After crawling for about an hour, we finally arrived at Point Danger.

At Point Danger, there is a Captain Cook Memorial and Lighthouse that is centrally located ON the border line between the states of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD). Built to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Cook's discovery of the east coast of Australia, the columns are orientated on the points of the compass. He sighted and named Point Danger on the morning of 17th May 1770.

We had fun "going across" the state borders. It would have been more intriguing during summer months when NSW adopts daylight savings while QLD doesn't. So depending on where your foot is, you might be an hour ahead / behind!

We also found that the QLD portion of it is much more well maintained than that of NSW. NSW's side has a rougher surfaced road and isn't much pleasant to drive on.

Once we've got enough of the border lines, we proceeded to the most eastern point of mainland Australia - Byron Bay. Fortunately, traffic to Byron Bay was smooth. The only problem is parking. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait long.

So we proceeded our upward climb towards the lighthouse. We had brought bootload of jackets, windbreakers, scarves etc in preparation for the cold blustery gusts of winter wind. But much to our dismay and disappointment (and a little relief), it was warm and a nice day to climb flights of stairs without breaking into sweat.













On our way to the lighthouse, we came upon the "half way" point and saw people gazing out to sea. After some eavesdropping, we found out that there were whales frolicking in the waters beyond Cape Byron. They were making their annual migration northwards towards warmer waters. We strained our necks and eyes and finally we were rewarded with a few water spouts and belly splash... Though they were some distance away, you couldn't mistake the white belly turned upside down to face the sky and the graceful creature making hell of a big splash with its back when it went back into the cold sea water.

We also saw a pod of dolphins, riding the waves ...

We hiked up the hills and the countless steps to arrive at the lighthouse, took loads of photos before proceeding down to the hill to the "real" most eastern point.












The waves were truly lashing out at the shore.


It's as if we were high up in the mountains, way above the clouds. But the white froth you see in this picture is actually the choppy waves pounding at the shore.








We took more shots, even some pretty "silly" ones but all in good fun.

“无间道”？“风云？”？

Some joker decided to roll down the hill instead of taking the steps.... Talk about being lazy...







When we've had enough of the waves, wind and sun, we left for our car and proceeded towards Broken Head Nature Reserve.

The GPS had a little difficulty locating the exact point of Broken Head Nature Reserve. Our map do not cover NSW either, so we relied on our gut feel and when we got there, it was nothing more than a reserve. Lots of trees and "lalangs"....

So we headed for Gold Coast - our favourite Japanese Restaurant - Yamasakura - for dinner.

After gorging ourselves to the brim, we headed back to Brisbane, ending our long awaited trip to Byron Bay.

Happy Birthday Baby Sis!!!




After the BBQ at Kangaroo Point, we drove up north to surprise my baby sis with a birthday cake...

See how happy she is? (even though her present is a pair of winter socks! haha.. no lah, just joking... but she did get a pair of winter socks... that's to keep her skinny toes warm in the cold months of winter...)

BBQ in the cold....

9 June 2007 - stiff fingers, frozen sausages and shivering bodies.....

The night before, a few of us met up for dinner and subsequently to 3 Monkeys Cafe for a catch up. The cafe, as usual, was packed! But lucky we managed to get a table big enough for us. As time goes by, the temperature dropped and it turned cold. Hot drinks and a plate of piping hot nachos was most welcomed!

The next day, we met up with Heng Onn, Pei, David, Yenki to have a bbq session at Kangaroo Point. We thought having a 'barbie' in winter would be most appropriate because we would not be hot and sticky (compared to having a bbq in SG / MY where it's humid! BBQ would be a nightmare and you've got to feed the mosquitoes when you are BBQ-ing as well!)

We didn't get hot and sticky alright. We were freezing cold!!! Our coats could hardly keep us from shivering! And the sausages that we've brought out of the freezer since early in the morning didn't even thaw!

Then two car loads of wedding parties arrived. One by one the bridesmaids embarked from their cosy car. We really pity them. They were in their strapless open shoulder satin gowns, with no coats! We were freezing in our coats much less them!

When we've had enough food, we packed up and took a walk around Kangaroo Point. It was a good walk, and we came to an old whaft where it's now converted into an activity centre, coordinating various activities like kayaking, rock climbing, canoing etc. At the side of the building, they had marked the water level of the Great 1974 flood. In 2 decades, Brisbane had gone from too much water to no water....

Housemate's latest craze....



Su - Do - Ku!!!!




Our two housemates had their heads constantly buried in papers, figuring out the puzzle, jostling for pen and paper, fighting over the mobile phone (the puzzles were given by a game software in the mobile), competing with each other - even when they are having their meals....


They challenged Esmond to it. Esmond gamely took on their challenge and emerged completing the puzzle in the fastest time - beating them in his first attempt. So clever!!!!

Under cover...


30 May 2007, Wednesday - What the?!


As usual, we woke and prepared to leave for work at around half past seven when we encountered with the following scene.









There was no warning / forecast that mentioned that we'd be having heavy fog on the last day of autumn.

We thought that it was just descending in the suburbs until.....

You can hardly see Mater Hospital









And when we drove onto the Riverside Express....











Where's the CBD?!?!?!










Where's South Bank? You can hardly see past the Goodwill Bridge!










The fog lasted for more than half a day before dispersing. It was a signal from the one above.


WINTER'S COMING.....

Back in Brissie....

After nearly 5 weeks back in the tropics, we were so relieved to fly back down under to the late autumn's cool, cool weather.

All packed up and ready to go....







We didn't have a direct flight from SG to BNE. We had to transit in SYD for about 2 hours before taking a domestic flight back to BNE.

After transiting for 2 hours in Sydney and taking a 1.5 hour flight back to Brisbane, and another half an hour waiting for David to pick us up, plus another half an hour drive back home, we finally are back home in Runcorn.



On a domestic flight back from Brisbane to Sydney. No individual entertainment system....








We were on one of the few last domestic flight of the day to arrive at Brisbane airport.






The house is still there. Thanks to our two housemates who took care of the house in our absence. It was too late to unpack (past midnight) and after changing the sheets of our bed and having a warm bath, we hit the sack and drooled....

Though it had not been a relaxing trip back to SG / MY, we had thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to do it again soon.

Thanks again to all who made this trip possible and memorable.

The Longest Break - 7 - Playing Catch Ups!!!

One of our main motives of returning is to catch up with family, friends and relatives as we've been gone "physically" for 10 months.

Though thanks to technology the world is a smaller place, it still cannot be compared to meeting up face to face.

During our five weeks back in Singapore and Malaysia, we have managed to catch up with:

Family:

Going around Singapore visiting relatives and shopping with mom, bro and Tian.....











Going out for makan with in-laws....







Friends:


Catching up with good friends from work.....










Catching up with mates from Polytechnic days....

(of which Deon gave us a real shock. The last meeting - at Kenny's wedding, he announced that he's married. This round, when all have arrived, he whipped out his phone and showed us his daughter - Celestine Lee En Ling!)







Catching up with my "old, old" friend from primary school days! We've know each other since 7 years old!!! That's more than two decades!!!









Esmond caught up with his primary school friends as well!








Relatives:


We celebrated Mother's Day at Esmond's Yi Ma's place...











with lots of home cooked food!







Ex-colleagues:

Esmond had dinner with his ex-colleagues at the Singapore Swimming Club after a badminton session. He learnt that Tang had trained with Perak's state representative when he was younger! Indeed, Esmond wasn't his match at all (and Tang hasn't even smashed!)







New faces at the old office!








There are a lot more whom we've forgotten to take photos with. There are also some which we didn't have time to meet up (and we sincerely apologise for that... we'll meet up again when we are next back... hopefully next year!)

Thank you all, for taking time off to meet up with us. It has been great fun catching up with you all. Take care and see you next year!