Maggie and the start of the packing

Spent a good weekend with Freyja and Steve from Sydney who came up to visit us this weekend. Met them at the airport around 3:30 on Friday and after having a coffee on The Strand overlooking Magnetic Island whilst accompanied by much talking about how good it was to see the Sun, headed back over to our place to find Em waiting on the doorstep (she'd cycled in and had left her keys at home). Had a relatively quiet night catching up and having some food down at the local pub, and enjoying more than our fair share of laughs as the University Frisbee Team was beginning a night on the town dressed as TV/movie characters. Lots of Wolverines, an Iron Man, Mad Hatter and many, many others. Queue a fair bit of reminiscing about uni!

Em headed to the hospital with Steve on Sat morning - grit in the eye a few days earlier. Note to self: don't use a grinder on mortar when only wearing a pair of sunnies. After initially thinking they'd only be an hour or so, headed to grab a drink at the cafe after a couple of hours then walked around the river with Freyja until about 11:30 when we heard they were heading home with drop versions of the cream Em had in the house. Had a bite to eat and then headed off to Magnetic Island for the afternoon.

Steve hired a car and then we drove to Horseshoe Bay at the top of the island (about a 5 minute drive) and then decided to find Arthur Bay which the guidebooks said was good for Snorkelling.

Freyja and Steve Snorkelled, I took some piccies (trying to get back into the photography so spent a lot of the afternoon playing with settings and making lots of mistakes, but got a few nice shots) and Em sunned herself on a big rock by the water.

Arthur Bay, MAgnetic IslandMarlin Bar, Horseshoe Bay

Went back to Horseshoe Bay after driving around a bit first and had some food and a beer. Headed back home around 7 and then finished off by watching the All Blacks vs the Wallabies Rugby match. Australia managed to hold on for the win after a big NZ come back.

Went to the markets in the morning and had some brunch then went up Castle Hill to take in the view (unfortunately a tad cloudy so weren't able to see as far as normal) and then a final drink on The Strand before dropping them at the airport.

Em has now got into total holiday mode - we are both pretty much packed and just need to put in a few toiletries on Friday. Realised that I need to figure out how to put the hot water system on standby and a hoping that the Letting Agents get onto fixing the sprinkler system in the garden otherwise we may have a completely brown (rather than mostly brown) lawn when we get home!

Just spent a while crawling around chasing a Gecko (poor thing was terrified!) so I could put it outside. I don't fancy getting home to find Gecko poo all over the new sofa!