Wednesday (4 November) the wind continued to howl through the Boatworks. So we got busy giving Morphie some love….so washed and waxed the topsides and finished off the stainless steel cleaning. Pretty tired after that so we had a quiet night onboard.

Thursday we worked hard again, this time washing and waxing the hull (including by dinghy on the port side). Phew….but she is certainly looking lovely!

In the afternoon I took myself off to the shopping mall for some beauty salon pampering which was a real treat. We also checked out where Calagorm had been relocated to so we could send David and Hella a picture of her in storage. We then had a nice afternoon and evening sitting in the cockpit before being chased below by the wind chill.

Friday morning and it was another cloudy and windy day. But we remained focussed and this time it was the cockpit that got some washing and waxing love. Felt great to have got Morphie all clean and tidy again. This was followed up by another quiet night on board.

Saturday morning after a leisurely start we drove up the M1 towards Brisbane. First stop of the day was the Yatala Pie Shop. This famous place is pretty historic and has been absolutely rammed whenever we have driven past. So we decided it really was time to try it out. It was so busy with both in-house diners and drive-through cars that although we managed to get parked up we had to eat our goodies in the car. Never mind, it was pretty nice, and definitely a big treat for Richard who has been actively avoiding pies now for over six months! Guess one a year won’t hurt….

Then we continued north to the Daisy Hill nature reserve and park. We enjoyed checking out the beautiful area which, as is common with most public spaces in Australia, had cloakrooms and BBQ areas dotted around the vast acreage. We particularly loved seeing the kookaburra up close foraging for food, was not so keen on the ant nests or the over-sized spiders hanging between ferns.

After our walk we headed to the koala sanctuary and enjoyed watching these little critters sleeping safe and sound in their enclosures. These are all rescue animals and many of them are infertile due to complications with chlamydia (which is a common problem amongst the wild population) so will not be released back into the wild. But they have a gorgeous spot with huge windows looking out over a wild eucalyptus forest so I’m sure they are pretty happy with their lot! No cuddling this time sadly….

Leaving Daisy Hill behind we headed back down the motorway towards Oxenford and to Richard’s favourite shop, Bunnings. A weekend with a car would not be complete without at least one visit LOL.

Anyway, this time we were on a mission. We wanted some cheap beach chairs and a new insulated soft cooler for taking ashore to the beach with us. Mission accomplished we turned around to return to the Boatworks and popped into the Gold Coast City Marina for a drink at their over-the-water bar.

But there was no-one around, it remained cloudy and chilly, so we quickly moved on and returned to Morpheus for another quiet night on board.

Sunday morning we put our clothes into the washers and then headed back to the Galley. It was pretty busy – Sunday is always their busiest day of the week it would appear – and so we were pleased that we’d reserved a table.

We had a really nice breakfast before returning to the cruisers’ lounge so that we could multi-task with downloading more Netflix productions to watch off line once we leave the marina again. Plus I was on the search for more insurance products – this time it was house insurance under the spotlight…

All done we returned to Morpheus and Richard stayed behind to clean down below whilst I headed out to the shops for some last minute shopping. I returned to a lovely clean boat and, when everything was stowed away, we had a quiet evening down below.

Monday morning we were up early, returned the courtesy car to the office, and headed down the river away from the Boatworks again.

First stop was Tipplers and, by the time we arrived, the cloudy day had turned into a rainy one and I got pretty wet deploying the anchor from the bow. Luckily we got a good set pretty quickly and we spent the rest of the afternoon in the cockpit. It was pretty chilly so we had to dig out those fleeces again… Thankfully we had a very peaceful night on anchor.

This morning, Tuesday, and I’m blogging whilst Richard is relaxing and checking out the anchorage. What a difference a day makes eh?!? The plan is to stay here another night and providing the sun stays out and it warms up later we’ll be heading to the beach. Really looking forward to it…..

Tomorrow is the 11th November so we’ll be taking a few minutes to commemorate all those that gave their lives so that we can live ours in freedom.

As the wind is turning north tomorrow we will probably make the 25 mile or so run up to Peel Island for a few days. The weekend forecast, however, is for more thunderstorms so we’ll have to watch that closely and run for cover again if necessary. But that’s a decision for another day.

Blanket lockdown restrictions have been imposed at home in the UK again, so we really hope everyone is coping. We do worry about you all. Bye for now.

Jan