Peter, Anne & Geoff at Hervey Bay

It is now fifteen months since we left Melbourne to commence our travels
around Australia. During that time we have met many people who are also
travelling this huge country however it is always good to catch up with
people we know. We have had friends from NZ join us in Broome for a couple
of weeks, met up with friends from Melbourne in Derby and returned to
Melbourne and NZ for some short periods. This week we have met up with
relatives - firstly my cousin in Bundaberg and then with a "sort of" cousin
of Peter's who lives in Hervey Bay with her husband and children.

Anne and Geoff and their children have lived in Hervey Bay for five years
now. They tell us that there was no particular reason why they chose Hervey
Bay - they just wanted to live in a regional town, for the weather to be
warm and mild in the winter, and to be by the beach. They couldn't have
chosen a nicer place and they are now very settled in Hervey Bay. We can
understand why.

We parked the caravan on their front lawn, and enjoyed staying overnight
with them which gave us plenty of opportunity to catch up and also see
Brendan and Aaron who were at school and work during the day.

Hervey Bay is a grey nomad magnet in the winter and Geoff told us that the
caravan parks are full over the winter months for months on end. At the
moment there are a lot of visitors in town keen to take the whale tours -
apparently the migration of whales is just great this year with many
thousands migrating north. We contemplated going on one of the trips but
there was a lot of wind causing rough seas and as soon as I see white caps I
must prefer to stay on solid ground. Perhaps we will get another
opportunity another time.

We went down to the Boat Club and saw the marina where Jordan had been
moored with the yacht just the day before - we are following him down the
coast. He had left mid-afternoon to continue towards Mooloolaba so we
missed seeing him. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch at the boat club before
spending a leisurely hour wandering around the boats moored there.

It was certainly great to see Anne and Geoff again and we really enjoyed
catching up on the years since we last saw them.