Soap Opera Downunder

The movie of Lady Elliot Island is published! Wonderful music from Enya setting the right tone for these glimpses of paradise.

All photos from Pascale, Olivier and Sylviane are now online in theandb galleries.

All the album start with “Soap opera downunder”:

“Sylviane arrival” : Sylviane arrived on december 18th. She was dead sick, coughing like it was her last day, quite scary. I brought her to the doctor on her day 2 . She then slowly recovered. We went down to Jervis bay just before christmas, for 2 days. Quite a cold and wet journey, although we were lucky for the important day. Bjoern and I dived (with the deep6 dive guys) while Cille and mum went on a dolphin watching cruise. Water was freezing (14C at 20 meter depth !) . We saw a nurse shark ! Overall it was a great rehearsal dive. We enjoyed a great little family christmas and a chocolate cake (see moustache girl…).

“Sydney aquarium & NYE” : Pascale & Olivier joined the show on the 29th. New Years Eve with the neighbors was awesome and the 9:30pm fireworks in Manly just let us see the difference between a local NYE fireworks and the great SYDNEY one (in the background). Pascale, Olivier & Sylviane visited the many wonders of Sydney Aquarium and came back with tons o pics and movies ! (they were mesmerized )



“Road trip to Hervey Bay” : our journey with the wicked camper vans to Hervey Bay. Departure on Jan 2nd. 1st night on Shelley beach (Nabucca Head). 2nd night at Lennox Head near to Byron Bay. 3rd night in the beautiful Noosa head region. 4th night at Hervey Bay. Loads of rain but we somehow were lucky and took the most out of the sunny pauses. Byron bay has a beautiful natural reserve on the most eastern point of Australia. Sunshine beach at Noosa let us revived in warm & wavy waters. And despite the ugly landscape of Surfers Paradise, we had good time on the beach !


We made it to Hervey bay. Happy to reach our goal in a timely manner. We even were blessed with a special encounter, while taking a late swim in the bay : dolphins in the background !

“Lady Elliot Island” : an unforgettable journey to a paradise called Lady Elliot island. Packed with natural wonders : turtles laying eggs, snorkling with sharks and manta rays, following the turtles in mid water above the untouched coral reef. Birds nesting all over the place. Diving and snorkling were just amazing. Even Cille, supported by Sylviane, Pascale and Olivier, overcame her fear of waves, and tried to snorkle a little with me, and enjoyed it !




“Brisbane” : the short and wet trip from Hervey Bay to Brisbane (it rained almost all the time !) and our one-day-half-night stay in Brisbane. Farewell to our wicked camper vans (sniff !).

The apartment we rented (from Darlhcourt) was very nice, with swimming pool and all, and well situated… But the sky was not with us. Cille was tired. Olivier, Pascale and Sylviane did their tour (a recommended walk from Lonely Planet), while Bjorn, Cille and I visited the Centenial Swimming pool near by so that Bjoern get some sport and Cille releases her energy a little. We had a great dinner in the chinese district and a very very short night (alarm clock for 4am!!!)


“Sydney, Waratah park, Blue Mountains” : a visit to
Waratah park before mum’s departure. Great experience with the Koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and other jumping aussie mammals . You are in with them, no fence to separate you from their lives. We were the only visitors and the parke was closed when we arrived at 5pm. The rangers let us in while they were feeding the koalas !

Pascale and Olivier went explore Sydney a bit more, Cille and I joined them for a good walk from the opera house, through the botanical garden and in the city. They then went travel on their own for their last 3 days in the Blue Mountains.

Lady Elliott island.
Okay, maybe it doesn’t mean anything for you but it can be a concept of paradize.

Maybe a picture from the plane will give you a overall idea…

I can really feel now you are more interested on this concept of paradize.

So what do you find in this island ?
You find nesting birds all around the island, you find turtles trying to leave their eggs under the sand, and you got the feeling to be a cast member of Nemo movie
The water is soooo blue. So the activity as you can easily imagine is snorkelling, scubba diving, and resting…

You see ? Blue ocean, turtles nesting. Do you remember Nemo, finding Nemo ? Well we were inside the movie all the time !!!! As Bjoern well explained for our first dive we have been spoiled

Let’s summarize : Ray, turtles, Nemo and all his friends and Sharks ….

It was a trumendous experience I will never forget for sure…

Am I allow to say it was to short ?