Final Assembly

Today we attended our final school assembly. The end of an era for our family! Even though Sarah has 9 days left, the non TEE students finished. All year 12's started the day with breakfast at the Lighthouse Beach Resort. We all shed a tear as the speeches were made, music played and the traditional release of balloons over the ocean by every year 12...

The most emotional speech came from their year coordinator who has been with the group for 5 years - the lovely Mrs M...After the assembly they all spent the day in groups on the annual scavenger hunt around town, followed by a celebration party long into the night. We still have the Presentation Evening in November. Sarah had her artwork chosen to be displayed in the Art Gallery as part of the Iluka Visions display for artwork from high schools all throughout the southwest . Her piece is titled "Venetian" and is drwan from a photo she took of her friend Megan wearing Sarah's mask she bought in Venice...

As it was chosen to be displayed the art gallery also had it framed.

Spain

Even though Nicole is now settled back into home life we are still sorting out photos from her trip. From Mykonos they flew to Madrid in Spain...

Then caught the bus to Granada...Then onto Saville...

And Barcelona...

And a visit to the famous Basilica Sagrada Familia. Construction was started in 1882 and is ecpected to be finished in 2028!...Nicole enjoyed exploring Spain but had a bad day when she was pick pocketed and had her camera stolen - luckily nothing else.

Hayman Island

After our 2 nights in Sydney it was time to join a few more people at the airport and fly up to Hamilton Island. It was a good flight and nice views of all the Islands as we were coming in to land.. After arriving in Hamilton Island we hopped straight onto this luxury boat and were served champagne and afternoon tea as we did the 1 hour ride to Hayman Island... Peter and I went for a walk around the lovely gardens that had just been redone after Cyclone Yasi destroyed a lot of it earlier in the year and had a look down the beach. The tide was out so there were tiny shell everywhere. We sat and had a glass of wine to celebrate his birthday and then watched a pretty sunset..Next morning the tide was back in so everything looked nicer - views from our balcony ( we overlooked the lagoon with the other half of the resort overlooking a huge pool area)...Peter had to join all the Bankwest staff for the morning and lunch. He was put into a team wearing a green bandana and they rotated playing beach games..I had time to myself and went for a walk through the gardens then sat down the beach for a while...I met up with 2 other people and enjoyed lunch at one of the poolside restaurants... I then joined Peter and we went to a talk given by Nicole Livingston - an Olympian who was a member of the Australian Swimming team for 12 years and champion backstroker. She was quite interesting. We then ventured into the "heated" pool for a swim but it was still cold and freezing when we got out. We finished of the day with a very nice Oriental meal and met some more nice people. If there was one thing that was not enjoyable about Hayman Island it would have to be the constant wind - it didn't stop the whole time we were there but we still decided to have breakfast outside one day and at 7am it was already very breezy...

It was then time for the days big activity which for us was a trip on this boat out to the Great Barrier Reef...It was a pretty choppy trip out (95 kms) but Peter and I stayed up on the top deck and occupied ourselves spotting whales. After nearly 2 hours we pulled up next to the pontoon (definately not what we expected)....And a tiny place for the helicopter to land on..We were offered a range of activities (all costing a fortune of course!). We decided to have some lunch first and then went on the glass bottom boat over a part of the reef. It certainly wasn't as colourful as all the brochures advertise but was interesting...Then we went down to the underwater observatory on the pontoon...Next we put on these fabulous (and not very flattering) looking wetsuits and went snorkelling - was choppy and cold for me but at least I had a bit of a look, Peter went out further on the reef...The pontoon was a great setup with all the equipment for diving and a bit of relaxation (but it was still rocking around for the poor seasick people!)...The trip back into Hayman Island was even rougher than going out. A lot of people were very sick and a few of the crew tossed around. All in all a good day out and experience but would like to try the whole trip again on a nicer day. That night we had a lovely dinner with a live band and thats when the boat trip affected me as I was still going up and down all night!

Next morning we had one more walk around the resort...

Then it was time for our long day of travel to start back to Bunbury - first up a 1 hour boat rip back to Hamilton Island...Sit in that airport for a while then a 3 hour flight to Sydney, sit around there for a while then nearly 6 hour flight to Perth and then 2 hour drive to Bunbury. It was a long 16 hours of travelling just in Australia!