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“Keep smiling” is how a local real estate agent signs off and it’s so easy to do that here! Some things that have kept us smiling this past week:

Funny signs! Many of you know that I plan on making my millions by creating a coffee table book of fun signs I’ve seen in my travels. Here are some we’ve seen in Yeppoon:

This one cracked me up because we’re in one of the sunniest places on the planet, but someone here thought it made sense to call their company Canadian Solar:

This one would never fly in Canada! We have definitely noticed here that the rule is pedestrians beware – you don’t see anyone staring at their phone while near a street, that’s for sure!

Not a sign but a clever way to easily deal with a dent!

This week I joined a local Facebook group so I could hear about what’s happening in the area and also ask questions. We met Pat through this group – she has a good size property on the outskirts of Yeppoon and posted that her lime trees were full so she was selling fresh limes for $0.25 each. We bought some limes from her but while we were there, she showed us around her property and all her fruit trees and gardens – amazing! I’m not sure how old she is, but I’m guessing around 70 and she’s done all the work herself over the last 15 years, including creating terraced gardens in the hill behind her home (and further up from there is her workshop – she’s also a woodworker and has invited Hugh back to see her workshop!). She gave us a couple different types of avocados as well as some passion fruits, picked straight from the trees just like the limes! Hugh of course put the limes to immediate good use:

The G&T glasses were bought from Vinnie’s in town – that’s short for the St. Vincent de Paul Society, so a charitable gift shop like Goodwill or the Thrift Store. They’re everywhere and have a good selection of stuff! We also bought wine glasses there and a gardening book.

Hugh got another new toy this week, so he’s practicing his barista skills every day now!

We went out for fish and chips during the week and ate them up at Wreck Point overlooking the town of Yeppoon:

And this sunset photo was taken from behind our Airbnb:

Pickleball is definitely going to be a big part of our life! Hugh played a few times this week and I finally got out on Friday for pickleball & pizza night! The courts are in amazing condition and the club members are so friendly – and they’re good players too! They even have a large number of teenage members – we played a couple of them on Friday and boy, they’re good! We met Geoff and Sharyn and played a few games with them too and had a blast – we’re really loving the Aussie sense of humour, laced with sarcasm just like ours!

Two of the club’s organizers, Sharyn and Tracy, were telling us about all the upcoming plans they have – stay tuned, there is A LOT happening in the next couple months! Everything about the courts is fully managed by volunteers – they apply for grants to help build the courts, they manage all the scheduled league times, the pizza nights, the online booking system, you name it. On Friday night, a couple of the club’s members made a really nice announcement for Sharyn and Tracy and got them some fun pickleball visors to say thank you on behalf of the club. When playing with Geoff and Sharyn, Hugh’s shots seemed very attracted to the pineapple sign on the net, so we had our photo taken with it 🙂

On Saturday, we brought our friends Rob and Barb out to try their hand at pickleball and we are pleased to report they are now hooked too! We went back to their place for dinner afterward and in recognition of their fabulous new sport, Rob made hamburgers and put dill pickles on top :).

Speaking of food, I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know we’ve finally found some decent potato chips!

And still speaking of food, we continue to enjoy the local seafood. These prawns have a funny name:

In addition to the fish market at Rosslyn Bay, there is a mobile unit called Sea 2 You that goes to different spots along the greater Capricorn Coast area – we picked up fresh prawns and red emperor fish from them this morning:

We took a drive out to the lawn bowling club this week and then watched some national-level games on TV to get a feel for the rules:

It really does have a lot of similarities to curling so methinks we’ll be taking this game up too!

Today we decided to take a drive through the country to see if we could get to where the Fitzroy River empties into the ocean. The short answer is no, you can’t get there! Lots of driving on dirt roads and not a lot to see. But some mountain views and plenty of floppy-eared cows in the pastures:

We also drove by a camel farm!

The highlight of today though was Emu Park, a little town down the coast from Yeppoon. There was a car show on in their main park – dozens and dozens of cars on display! Along the ocean they also have the most beautiful war memorial I have ever seen. We need to go back to take more photos but I don’t think any of them will do the memorial justice. It is beautiful, serene, and meaningful.

As we were looking for somewhere to grab a bite to eat, we could hear live music coming from somewhere. We tracked it down to FortySeven10 Burger Bar. We had outstanding cheeseburgers and fries (they say fries here, by the way, not chips – chips are potato chips, just like at home) and the band was amazing! We sat there on the patio listening to them play and I got all teary – here we were listening to great live music just like we loved doing back home but now we’re doing so on the other side of the world. How lucky are we! We just keep smiling :).

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