End of the Year Happenings

   Well, it's been a busy time here at our winter home. Barb has been kept hopping with preparing for, then pulling off the holiday parties at Bella Terra. Big this year was the Christmas dinner and the New Years Eve Casino night. There was also a golf cart parade through the park. 

   For the Christmas Party, we participated in a thing called "Dirty Santa". That is where you (along with the other participants) bring a gift and put it under the tree. Then you are called up randomly to pick a gift. The catch is that you can choose an unwrapped gift or you can "steal" a previously selected gift. A gift can be stolen up to three times! Turned out to be great fun and several gifts made the rounds their maximum three times. 

   Here the folks are sampling the many treats that were brought by our guests. You can see many of the presents under the tree waiting to be handed out later. 

   Above is the aforementioned golf cart parade. As you can see, Santa rides in style!

   On New Years Eve they pulled out all the stops. Professional gaming tables and dealers were brought in and everyone was given $500 of fake money with which to purchase chips. Then they played the games for several hours while enjoying a great catered meal. At the end of the evening, around 10:00, the folks exchanged their winnings for tickets that went into a big fish bowl. Then the tickets were drawn for a wide variety of prizes that had been graciously donated by local merchants (i.e. Barb and Phyllis--the other resort host this winter--begged, borrowed or charmed merchants for the prizes).  At the conclusion of the proceedings, the maintenance staff presented the guests with a high dollar fireworks show. I never saw them as I was too busy running from staging area to launch area, but I was told that it was very impressive. Not a bad way to ring in the New Year, firing off a whole bunch of high dollar pyrotechnics!!

   So, here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year from Barb, Brad, and Misty the wonder dog!

Bella Terra RV Resort

     Well, after returning from Australia we had two days to do laundry, re-pack the motorhome, and get ready to leave Kansas. Then we pulled out and drove three days and a little over 1,100 miles to arrive at our winter home on December 1st. The days were a little longer than I usually like to do, but we were in a time crunch and it all worked out OK. Bella Terra is a beautiful upscale Luxury RV resort that offers the RVer the opportunity to buy your site. 

     Once purchased, you can add improvements like an outdoor kitchen, gazebo, or small carriage house. All of the sites are on oversized lots with concrete pads and built in patios. All of the utilities are provided and the entire resort is tropically landscaped and maintained. 

     The centerpiece to the resort is the huge clubhouse (6,000 square feet!) that looks out over the 9 acre lake. The clubhouse offers a fitness center with weight machines, treadmills, and sauna. There is a game room and open area for dances and group get-togethers. There is also a small private movie theater with surround sound system. And that's just the facility. 

     There are several spots of interest within the resort. There is a very nice fenced in dog park where Misty and her canine buddies can run and play. 

  

    For the big kids, there is a croquet field and, recently completed, a practice putting green. 

Croquet field with the Putting Green behind it.

The Putting Green.

     Then, there is the heated swimming pool and hot tub just outside the clubhouse. There is also a gas fire pit and grilling station set up for entertaining or just hanging about. 

    We are less than 10 miles from the Emerald Coast white sand beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. There are long stretches of sugar fine white sand just begging to be walked on. The weather is mild for the winter and, so far, has been very nice. When we first got here, it was a little unseasonably cool and the overnight temps dropped a little below freezing. But after a week, things have warmed up and the daytime temps are in the low to mid 60's. 

Sunset View from our Coach

     Our duties here have Barb working with the other Resort Host, Phyllis, planning and executing a wide variety of functions and activities for the guests and residents. Things like Trivia contests, weekly Movie Night, Spaghetti feeds, and the ever popular Bingo are just some of the events. One of the first things she worked on was the decorating of the clubhouse for Christmas. 

     I work on maintenance and special projects. Keeping everything in good working order and making improvements to the facilities takes up most of my time. We have a rotational schedule for opening and closing the clubhouse daily and cleaning the Bath houses/Laundry facilities weekly. 

The rest of the time is ours to enjoy the resort and all that the area has to offer. Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL are less than an hour away and New Orleans is only a little over three hours drive! 

    All in all, this should be a fine winter and we look forward to relaxing and enjoying the sights. 

Our Australian Adventure- Brisbane

     Our last port of call was the city of Brisbane (pronounced Brisbin by the locals). This major metropolitan city is located along the shores of the Brisbane River. The river is navigable and is served by a variety of water taxis and tour boats. We disembarked the cruise ship and rode a bus to downtown, near the civic center, where we walked to the river and boarded a boat that would sail up the river to our destination. Along the way we saw Brisbane from the river's viewpoint. 

     Our destination today was the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This zoo is the world's first and largest koala sanctuary, with over 130 koalas. You can cuddle a koala, handfeed kangaroos and encounter a large variety of Aussie wildlife, all in beautiful, natural settings. Our goal was to get up close and personal with the Koalas. We made the mistake of saying Koala Bears once and were told that they are NOT a bear but a marsupial. Thus, they are referred to as a Koala. Doesn't matter--either way they are too cute. They live in the trees and eat solely eucalyptus leaves. This leaf provides the Koala with its nutrition and its water. The leaf is not very nutritious and they have to consume a large quantity just to stay alive. This explains their rather slow methodical movements and the fact that they just kind of sit around for 20 hours a day. Lone Pine is one of the few places in the world that you can legally hold a Koala. They have a bunch of Koalas and they are available for holding by the public only 30 minutes a day each. They "work" for three days then they are not handled for four days. So we each purchased our tickets to hold one and got into the line. When it was our turn, we were instructed to make a "basket" with our hands. This provided the Koala with a place to sit that simulated the crook of a tree. The handler placed the koala in your simulated crook and then he placed the Koalas arms on your shoulders. The park took the requisite photo for sale, but they allowed your party to take as many photos as they wanted to. 

     I was surprised at a couple of things. First of all, their claws. Since they are master tree climbers, the claws are wicked sharp and long. When the handler wanted to take them away for the next person, if they didn't want to go, they could really hold on! Secondly, the fur is not as soft as you might think. It is more akin to the wool of a sheep. They are cuddly though and really liked to snuggle in to you. 

    With our main goal satisfied, we wandered around and found the kangaroo enclosure. We were amazed that you could just walk right in and come up to the 'roos. They were friendly and enjoyed a good scratch between the ears. Again, it surprised me that the fur of the kangaroo was softer than that of the Koala. Especially the red kangaroo. It was almost velveteen to the touch. We saw a wide variety of other Australian wildlife and sat in on a Birds of Prey show. Here, several of the largest predatory birds in Australia were shown in flight and up close. Below is a very handsome Sea Eagle. 

     But all too soon it was time to get back on the boat for the return sail to downtown Brisbane. We hung around and shopped in the stores a while then back on the bus to return to the cruise ship. 

     So far we had experienced fantastic weather and sea conditions. As we left Brisbane and headed south towards Sydney, the weather began to turn foul. It was drizzly, windy, and the seas started to toss the ship around a bit. In fact, the last night's entertainment was a juggler who tried to juggle very sharp axes while balancing on a board that was placed over a pipe. Needless to say, he scrapped the board idea but managed to juggle just fine... only he used up most of the stage to keep everything in the air! 

     We arrived back in Sydney to clouds, drizzle, and much cooler temperatures. We had planned to stay a couple of days after the cruise, so we hopped off the ship and went to our Bed & Breakfast. From there we tried to tour  between the raindrops. 

     Above is as far as I could get inside the Sydney Opera House without taking the tour. The next day wasn't much better, but we boarded the train anyway and went a couple of hours inland to Katoomba. Here, on a good day, is a magnificent view of the canyons and surrounding mountains. The "Three Sisters" is a famous rock outcropping. Here is what it usually looks like:

     Here is what it looked like on the day we visited...

    Oh well.... the train ride was fun. 

    So the following day we got up, loaded up a taxi, and headed to the airport. The drizzle had stopped but the clouds were still low. As we sat and waited for our plane, surprise! The sun came out. Oh well. We loaded up and after the return flight that seemed twice as long as the flight out, we arrived back in Kansas City where the wind was blowing and the temps dropping. It was a great trip and we enjoyed it immensely. All I can say is, G'day mate!!

Our Australian Adventure- Airlie Beach

   After another full day at sea we arrived at our next port of call, Airlie Beach. Here the harbor is too small for our cruise ship so we have to do what is called "tendering" to shore. You exit the anchored cruise ship and board a smaller "tender" ship and you are shuttled to shore. Once ashore, we met up with our excursion for a breathtaking ride out through the Whitsunday Islands. We boarded a semi-rigid inflatable boat with two 350 HP outboard motors (which gave us an indication as to how fast we were going to travel!) and were off. There are 70 islands that make up the Whitsunday chain and only 7 of them are inhabited. 

    For the day, we rode to two snorkeling sites and then capped it off with a short hike in the Whitsunday Island National Park. At the end of the hike, we had a picnic lunch on the beach. But not just any beach. This beach was chosen as the third most beautiful beach in the world by National Geographic!!! I'd have to agree. See below and in the photo album and tell me what you think...

One of the smaller tropical fish on the reef

Yes! He is that big!!!

Staghorn coral

    Then some shots of the beach...

     We then motored back to the pick up point, but talked our skipper into taking us on around to the dock where we could board the tender to the cruise ship. He very graciously agreed to and we roared over to the harbor using all 700 of the horses in the motor. It was a wild ride, but fun. We then boarded the tender and got a good view of our ship as we circled it in order to disembark. 

     Another day at sea then we arrived at the next port of call... Brisbane.