Girls' Night In!

Each October I host a Girls Night In at the Hotel GrandChancellor Surfers Paradise.  The hotel is kind enough to donate the use of one of its amazing penthouses, as well as the food and drinks for the night. All money raised at the event in the form of entry price, and raffle ticket sales goes to Cancer CouncilAustralia to support breast cancer research. 

This year the meaning behind holding this kind of event was highlighted by a sad event that has occurred in my own life. My gorgeous cousin Molly has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and though she is the strongest woman and will come through yet stronger it is still a terrible time for her and our family.

This year we were lucky enough to have some really great prizes donated by the very kind shops in the Centro Surfers ParadiseShopping Centre. Kristoffer at Chemcoast donated two hampers that any girl would love! One contained heaps of hair products, and the other was full of mineral makeup! Karen from Boost Juice Bars gave us super smoothie vouchers and Amanda from NV Lifestyle Hair Salon donated an amazing package worth $140! Megan from StarShots donated full makeover & photo shoot vouchers! I can’t thank these generous givers enough!

The night was a great success with $252 dollars raised from our small group of 10 girls. We enjoyed dinner, drinks and an amazing sunset from the penthouse before getting down to the raffle. Each girl who won was really pleased with her prize; they all seemed to be just the thing most wished for. 

I am already looking forward to next year and making the night an even bigger success!

Hot Air Ballooning!

When my alarm woke me at four in the morning I wondered what I had done to deserve it. Then I remembered that today I was going Hot Air Ballooning!That got me jumping out of bed to quickly dress for the 4:20am pickup. As I was the first stop I had to get up earliest, those with more luck got to have a lie in till 5:00am… luxury!Jason, our driver, was great; he let us know that Ballooning had a 100% record for coming back to earth. Whew! The whole drive to the takeoff point was in the dark, with us arriving to the site just as light was colouring the sky. The Balloon looked amazing; it was glowing from the flames heating the air inside.

We boarded by climbing in over the side of the basket and the set up was great with two rows of passengers on each side of the basket meaning everyone got a front row seat, except you don’t sit down. The morning air was sharp, and our pilot, Blake, told us that this was the best time of day for balloon flight as the wind is at its most stable. Good to have stable wind when you have no steering!

The views while aloft were spectacular. As it was early morning all the ponds were covered in mist. The sun rose shortly after we ascended and that gave the landscape many more features. The patchwork of fields spread out below us and gave the feeling of being an explorer off to the land of the Lilliputians.

Taking off in the balloon

                                                              Balloon Views

Panorama View

It was always nice when Blake turned on the flames as we got a nice toasty feeling in the fresh morning air. After a time of twisting and turning up the valley looking at spectacular views, and even spotting a few kangaroos we eventually had to land. Some cows had to be shooed off our landing strip and Blake put us down without a bump! Pretty good flying I would say!

Flame heats air in balloon

Kangaroo Spotted!

                                                Clear the landing strip!

Being good sports we helped the guys pack up the balloon, as it would be a big job for just Blake, Jason, and our ground crew of one, Daren! Plus the faster the balloon gets packed up the faster we got to the champagne breakfast.

Landing the Balloon

We were driven to O’Reillys Vineyard for the breakfast portion of the tour, and the setting was gorgeous!Champagne was served on arrival, and there was a self service continental breakfast… followed by a full cooked breakfast! Needless to say I was stuffed after trying unsuccessfully to eat all that delicious food.

O'Reilly's Vineyard

Continental Breakfast

  Cooked breakfast

After breakfast we had time to walk out in the vines, there was also a beautiful creek and picnic benches to sit and let the food digest. The vineyard produces some great wines, and there was a cellar door for those who wanted to do a wine tasting, five wine tastes were included in the tour.

Creek & Picnic Spot

We reluctantly got back on the coach to return to the hotel. It was apparent that everyone would have enjoyed a whole day at the vineyard. I spent the ride back thinking how cool it was that I had finally been up in a balloon!

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