By popular demand here are some social photographs of my sister’s time with us.

Louise joined us in the Whitsundays for five weeks; school broke up on the 18th July and she was on a plane leaving Heathrow on the 20th.

 

 

Lu last joined us on the west coast of Scotland in 2010 just before we left the UK. We still say it is one of the best sailing areas we have been to but perhaps not the best for weather. Louise left the glorious sunshine of Yorkshire for some very mixed weather in the Whitsundays, which made for some very interesting sailing. She did extremely well; we have had much more experienced sailors on board who would have been quite ill in similar conditions. A lot of time was spent on deck whale spotting, it was the season for Humpbacks passing through the area, they come here to calf in the shallow warmer waters, ( I wont go into any more detail other wise I will begin to sound like yours truly.)

 

 

Lu also took to the water like a fish, I hadn’t realized she had never been snorkelling before ( no sister of mine.) The Great Barrier Reef wasn’t a bad place to start, it can only go down hill from here for her. Richard even took her for a few introductory dives.

 

 

Australia has a bad reputation for sharks for some reason, we have seen less sharks here than in the rest of the Pacific, but their fixation is catching and one is always on the alert whilst trying to have a relaxing swim.

 

 

There was always time every day for afternoon tea and and a bit of contemplation.

 

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The last two weeks of her trip we hired a camper van from Cairn’s and headed north to Tropical Queensland.

As you can see it made Vulcan Spirit seem very luxurious and large but we had a great time. Poor Lu slept in the penthouse while the back seats turned into a double bed for us. Luckily the weather was great and we did all our living outside and it was a great  excuse to eat out in the evenings. The only drawback was the expedition every night (especially for Lu) to the campsite toilets, dodging the snakes. Richard confronted one, one evening at this very site. There were no more evening cups of tea for Lu and me after that sighting.

 

 

Lu very much took to the Australian lifestyle, so very different from the Yorkshire Dales. She eventually had to leave us to go back and face  the dangers of the classroom, give me sharks and snakes any day. We very much enjoyed her company and help in running VS.