What a break :)

I had a great time on holiday! I often find holidays quite stressful by day 2 – I am definitely a person of routine and sometimes I struggle to adjust to different things when away. I would usually still enjoy myself overall but it would make things hard nonetheless. This time, there were still moments when I was out of my comfort zone, but overall it was a really fun trip.

It was also a bit of a bonus as the weather in Queensland, where we went, was shocking in the lead up to us going! Flooding, serious rain and wind, areas being declared a ‘natural disaster zone’… The beaches were really rough when we were there and there was definitely rain about, but as we weren’t planning a beach holiday it didn’t really affect us too much. We had enough sunshine to do the outdoor things we wanted, which was the main thing, and were happy to focus on shopping when it was raining

Our hotel was also amazing – we stayed at the Sheraton Mirage as part of a package deal and I have no idea how we got the rates we got! It was super impressive:

View from the lobby across the outdoor water area/pool to the beach

Our room

View from our room

On day 1 I checked out the hotel gym first thing and did a speedy holiday workout (30mins cardio) before we headed to the buffet breakfast included with our room. This was also amazing! Luckily I wasn’t by myself or I’d have dealt with the “how much should I have?… Should I get my money’s worth?… But I really don’t need it” thoughts – which usually end with me being so overwhelmed I eat hardly anything, or going all out and feeling super guilty for the rest of the day. I find being with another person (whoever it is) can be helpful for reminding me of sensible and ‘normal’ eating. The choices at the buffet were:

• Amazing fruit. Lots of fresh fruit (watermelon, honey dew melon, kiwi fruit, grapefruit, orange, berries, pineapple, paw-paw), plus stewed fruit (pear, apricots, peach, mandarin) and some dried fruit toppings.
• A cereal bar. Little boxes of all the main cereals, plus muesli and a make-your-own kind of thing with various toppings (nuts, dried fruit again, some different grains/flakes)
• Different sorts of toast and English muffins
• Eggs and other cooked things (I didn’t really pay much attention to that side)
• Danish pastries, muffins, etc
• Icecream (??!!)
• Assorted savoury Japanese-style food (??!!)

I could live off the first three dot points above and kind of wished we could have the breakfast buffet for dinner too! The first day I just had lots of fruit, the second I had cereal and fruit, the third I had toast (I think it was pumpkin bread; nice) and fruit, the fourth I had a super fruit plate again. The fruit really was brilliant! We’re kind of out of summer fruit season here but somehow they had it all anyway.

I didn’t get a picture of the buffet (my sister was horrified at the idea), but took an angled shot from the stairwell leading down:

Given that the first day was sunny, we also decided to do dreamworld that day (one of 5 theme parks in the stretch of Queensland between Brisbane and the Gold Coast). This was my sister’s activity choice but it turned out to be a really fun day! I had warned her ahead of time that I wouldn’t go on the super scary rides – like this one, where you drop from over 100m high in about 2 seconds flat:

'Tower of terror' - so called for a reason

She did get me on a rollercoast that loops-the-loop twice though, and I have to say that I actually found it quite fun (once the initial panic stage had passed) And we went on most of the rides rated as ‘moderate thrill’, which were all good.

'Moderate thrill' rollercoaster

We also checked out some of the animal exhibits:

Tiger show

Seriously fat wombat!

Sleeping wallaby

We also got lots of incidental exercise in…we walked pretty much all day between rides. I find that is often the case on holiday actually, unless it’s a travelling day, where there’s usually no exercise.

After we’d finished at dreamworld we went back to the hotel for a bit, went out to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner (I had a chicken salad) and then picked up some dessert snacks to watch a movie with back at the hotel (I got a small packet of chocolate coated fruit and nut mix)…we watched He’s Just Not That Into You which worked well as a end-of-the-day sister chick flick

Updates on days 2 through 4 to come later!

xx Kari

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