Australia Day 5-8

On day five we flew out of Sydney and up the coast to Port Douglas, Queensland. We had seen record rainfall in Sydney, so we were very anxious get to Port Douglas where we were promised warm, dry, lazy days on the beach.

We arrived and found this waiting for us. The Sea Temple was a stunning place to stay. The pool went around the whole resort and right up to the door of the rooms. So if you wanted to go swimming all you had to do was step out your back door. Fabulous!

We rested for a bit and then prepared for our next big adventure! We were transported to dinner at a working cattle station.

 We saw lots of REAL cowboys and beautiful horses.

 They fed us some delicious steak.

 Carter Found his way to this big guy pretty quickly. There was only one other guy that stayed on longer than he did. I was proud of my cowboy!

 Somehow I was talked into giving it a go. In my mind I looked like this.

 In reality, I looked like this. Cute.

During dinner they had this cowboy  hat station where we were all fitted for our very own, very nice cowboy hats. AWESOME.

Here are the ladies, showing off the new hats.

There was a little show in the arena with a demonstration of how a muster would go.

There was some dessert with these fine folks.

There was some swinging with this handsome cowboy.

And there was same awkward dancing with this cowboy. ROUGHEST hands I have ever felt in my entire life. What a fun night we had!

The rest of our time in Port Douglas was spent exploring this quaint little beach town.

We did a lot of this.

 We spent a lot of time walking on the beach, where we found plenty of jellyfish.

We did some more of this.

With these guys......

And these gals.

Before long, it was our last night. We were invited to a reception before dinner for all of the first time qualifiers. Jensen sported his new cowboy hat and it seemed to work wonders with the ladies.

Carter chatted it up with some of the big wigs.

And we all posed for a large group photo. End of awkwardness.

For our farewell dinner, our tables were set up beautifully.

And we ate with this lovely view.  We went to bed late and were back in the lobby a few hours later to head home to the good old US of A. Oh Port Douglas you were good to us. You forced us to relax and you gave us some very nice tan lines.

In a nutshell Australia was the most amazing place we have visited so far. Carter had to work and work some more to earn us this once in a lifetime trip and I will be forever grateful to him. What was the very best part of the trip you ask?  Eight days of no kids, and no responsibilities. Eight days to enjoy my favorite person ever.