New Caledonia and "Down Under"...

From Fiji we headed to New Caledonia.

As we are coming back here next year, we only stayed a couple of weeks.  

We went to an amazing art and cultural centre - The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre

   

There was an exhibition on from a New Zealand Sculptor which was extraordinary.

His "Bottled Ocean" exhibition all made from plastic!

Fay and Phil (Jigsaw) told us about The Down Under Rally,

(www.downunderrally.com)

so we decided to join this to pave the way into Australia.

John and Leanne organised for Customs, Immigration and Bio Security 

to clear us all in at Bundaberg Marina, 

we then had a week of fun and seminars about cruising the Australian coast.

It was worth every cent, very professionally run and a really informative and fun week.

It was Melbourne Cup day, John and Leanne organised for us to go to the races

Leanne and Me

Catherine and Me

You know you're in Australia when you see these 

They had a aboriginal from the local tribe play for us at our Welcome Dinner

At one of the seminars, Geoff from Bundaberg Marina had a tray of vegemite sandwiches for the people to try - the look on some of the faces was very amusing!

Now this is what we call a good sized chilly bin (or esky as they say in Oz)

We had an auction for crabs, then had crab races (the money going to Volunteer Marine Rescue)

Geoff and the team at Bundaberg Marina were fantastic.

We highly recommend Leanne and John from Down Under Rally... it made arriving in Australia very easy and the information we received was only what you could get with local knowledge.

Danny from Rockstar doing some kite surfing while we all waited to head across the bar at Wide Bay

We made our way down the coast, stopping at this gorgeous spot 

and walking the sand hills with Carola and Jim (Koza)

Jim and Richard

Coming into the waterways at the Gold Coast there are some pretty amazing houses

You know you're in the Gold Coast when...

So, then it was time to hauled out again for antifoul touch up, cut and seal, sail drive work etc etc, all the usual preventative maintenance.  Our Rose is really a very pampered girl!

The Boat Works is by far the best yard we have even been hauled.

The contractors here have also been absolutely awesome.

Our neighbour was the "New" Pirates of the Caribbean boat (movie not yet released)

Our Rose about to go back to the water where she belongs...

(stack pack yet to be reinstalled from being resewn)

We were lucky enough to be invited to The Boat Works Christmas party.  

The theme was to dress us as someone using the first initial of your name - this lady was dressed up as Medusa (yes the python was very alive and real!).

Some of the amazing team from The Boat Works

This was some christmas party!.. beer, wine, rum shooters, pizza ovens with fresh pizzas, and toys to play with - motorised skate boards, bikes and trikes

Richard working out one of the boards

this guy is amazing

 www.captainjackmagic.com

The Boat Works have 2 utes and a car you can use for "free"

Driving around over the weekend, the colors are gorgeous

Yesterday a barge turned up and on it was a vehicle that looked like it was from "Mad Max".

Had to go over and find out what it was about.  

A guy called The Candy Man was having his Christmas party.  

The theme of the party was "7 deadly sins".

He had organised 80 bikini clad ladies, 

there were 5 helicopters flying around for his arrival, jetskis, waterskiers, fireworks.  

Held just around the corner from here at his home - The Candy Mansion.  1000 guests!

These are some of the photos of the girls (and the man himself) arriving onto to barge...

Some of the fireworks from his party