Australia Day

Apparently on Australia Day, you're supposed to dress in yellow and green, drink beer, watch the cricket, eat a feast, get a flag painted on your cheek or attached to your car, and go and watch the fireworks.

Going to the beach is an acceptable alternative and that's what we did. Nicole had the bright idea of going up to Dicky Beach in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, where there's a little lagoon that's good for swimming in.

So that's what we did. Nicole was driving on the way up and the only emergency navigation required was due to congestion up the Bruce, so we detoured through Caboolture and up Steve Irwin Way (yes, really) then across.

And when we got there, Nicole thought wouldn't it be nice to get Eloise a "boogie-board" which is a kind of new-fangled surfing board for small people. So we did that too. And she was delighted with it.

So at the beach we broke out the sandwiches and swam in the lagoon. Tiny swam around with us quite a surprising amount, generally after me. At least someone cares.

Eloise was very confident in the water and though she didn't actually swim as such, she paddled around on her little board and played with the other kiddies and their dogs. Matilda spent the time sniffing around in the forest trying to find unpleasant things to roll in.

We'd thought we'd go and see the fireworks later on, but we were too tired after all that sea air.