It is safe to say that I had found myself in a bit of a slump. Nothing was happening on the fertility front and Mia had been getting one illness after another, so I had been devoting my time to her. The wheels on my life machine were getting decidedly slow and squeaky…cue a visit from one of my former pupils to help me get some well needed sparkle back!

Now I know that some people might find a visit from someone you used to teach a bit weird. In fact, I think some of her university friends recoiled in horror when she told them her plans to visit, but my first ever maternal instincts were towards my form group (although for vanity reasons, I’d rather think of it as a big sister role at that point in my life!). My official teaching career began when they started secondary school, so we were all new to the school and kind of muddled our way through it all together. When you see the same group of kids every morning for five years, you are going to develop a bond and I really cared about them. I wanted to know what they’d done on the weekend, about their lives, to help them with problems and quite frankly, preferred talking to them than a lot of the other teachers!

I’m not embarrassed to say, I cried buckets when they left and missed them dreadfully. I was determined that I wouldn’t attach myself to my new form group, as we already had emigration plans in our heads, but that’s the thing with kids, they get to you. Or, at least, they get to me and before I knew it, I was getting sentimental about abandoning my new form group! I was the same with my GCSE French classes. I suppose the thing with teaching a language is you get to see the students in a bit of a vulnerable position. They are completely out of their comfort zone and the former speaking exams were intense – scarier than a driving test for sure! I had a girl who was so petrified that she wet herself and had to hold the hand of another girl the whole way through to try to stop her from crying. It is those situations, and countless others, which make teaching more of a vocation than a job and is part of the reason that I’m not quite ready to go back to it! By the time we had emigrated, I had been teaching for eight years, with the last four also running the department, and with a young daughter demanding my attention, I felt that it had sucked the life out of me. However, the pupils are the part I will always fondly remember. I told them that if they ever came to Australia, to look me up! So when Natalie decided to complete her year abroad from university in Australia and asked if she could come and visit during the school holidays, I was really excited!

I was a bit nervous picking her up from the airport, thinking it might be a bit weird after all and wondering whether having a three year old hanging off me for the majority of every day would bore her to tears!  I wore a jacket I used to wear at school: a) so that she might spot me easily and b) because I don’t really buy new jackets anymore, given the climate and our current financial situation!  She seemed to take forever to get through the gate, but it was easy to spot her big smile and she hadn’t changed too much, apart from turning into a young adult now!  I reminded myself again to try not to talk in a teacher voice, as my husband still accuses me of from time to time!

I had hired a car for our road trip so was a bit sketchy with all the buttons etc and then I took a wrong turn on the way home and ended up driving down a dark country road with kangaroos on both sides, threatening to bounce in front of us at any moment!  What a start to the trip that would have been!  I was also very conscious that Natalie was probably thinking “Miss “Bowden” is actually nuts!  How the hell have I ended up in a car with this imposter of a responsible adult?!”  When we had navigated that part and had a laugh about it though, it had actually served to break the ice and lighten the mood, even if we did end up getting in at 2am, thanks to our massive detour!

It turned out I needn’t have worried about anything  (story of my life to over-worry unnecessarily!) and we had the best week!  Well at least, I did – you’ll have to ask Natalie for her version of events!  Natalie’s University friends were flying up to Cairns and working their way down to Brisbane and her funds couldn’t stretch that far, so she was opting to visit me for a week and then catch up with them in Brisbane.  I automatically felt pressure (unnecessarily again!) to show her the best sights I could around the Brisbane area, so that she wouldn’t be completely jealous when she saw her friends’ pics!  I also had to make sure everything was kid-friendly to entertain Little Miss Mia!  In the end I think we got the perfect balance and we went to some excellent places:

After the sights of Toowoomba, we headed to my friend Bec’s house on the Sunshine Coast.  I met Bec when I was backpacking around Australia over a decade ago and we have remained great mates ever since.  She has many a tale to tell of our antics back then, which I was hoping she wouldn’t repeat, but then thought “Oh well, if we could give Natalie some advice of what not to do when you’re backpacking around Australia, it could be an important life lesson!”

We have both settled down these days; Bec has a man from Alice too (there must be something in the water supply in the desert!) and two lovely little boys now, so we all headed to the family-friendly Australia zoo.  It’s still an awesome place, way bigger than when I had visited previously, but sadly a little less magical without Steve Irwin and his crazy, infectious personality doing the crocodile show.  I feel very grateful that I got to see him doing what he did best back in the day.  It does still focus on his family though: Bindi’s (Steve’s daughter) pony rides were Mia’s favourite attraction for example, which is a nice touch.

Crocodile spotting at Australia zoo!

The next day was devoted to the beautiful beaches of the Sunshine Coast, which I have always loved.  We had fish and chips up at the lighthouse at Point Cartwright which has fantastic views down to Mooloolaba and gave Natalie loads of opportunities for a fab new profile picture and cover photo!

With a promise to descend on her next time I have visitors who I need to show the coast to, we left Bec’s house very early to catch the ferry over to Moreton Island.  This was one of my favourite stops when I was backpacking and it did not disappoint this time around.  Again, a decade has changed a lot of things, the resort is now huge, which brings better facilities, but loses the sleepy laid back vibe somewhat.  However, there is no disguising how picturesque it is – a stunning little sand island with fabulous sunsets and wildlife and the pièce de résistance – the wild dolphins which call Tangalooma their home.  Now I would say the number of people on the beach was at least six times bigger than my first visit, which was a bit annoying and it was pelting it down with rain!  I had to carry Mia around my waist and you have to wade out to around waist height anyway, so we all got soaked and the water was freezing!  But would I do it again?  Every night of the week!  To see wild dolphins up close and personal is magical.  They are choosing to interact with us and aren’t forced to perform.  Obviously they are getting fish out of it, but if they didn’t want to come, they wouldn’t.  I’m glad Natalie and Mia got to share in something so special too.  The weather wasn’t perfect when we were there – we had a huge thunderstorm (which did give us an excuse to drink wine in the bar!), but the sunset afterwards more than made up for the adverse weather and Natalie proved herself to be a sandcastle builder extraordinaire and an excellent  child minder!

Soggily feeding the dolphins at Tangalooma!

From there, we made our way to the Gold Coast as I had managed to book us a whale-watching trip, courtesy of Scoopon (basically Groupon with a rhyming name!).  Although we were worried we weren’t going to get a seat and we got no decent whale photos as they were too darn quick for us, we had a great time.  We saw loads of whales and a few dolphins thrown in for good measure.  We randomly took a bit of a scenic drive into the Hinterland while Mia was napping on the way back to the motel and ended up at a place called Hinze dam, which was actually pretty scenic, although a fly haven!  Our last night on tour had to be in Surfers Paradise and I took Natalie to Longboards restaurant, which I discovered last time I was here.  The setting is really cool, next to a pool (such a poet!) and the food is delicious (calorific, but worth it!) and they also do a mean cocktail.  Mia had a great time putting on a dance show and getting lots of attention from the other customers and we got to have a few drinks! The perfect ending to our trip…

Unfortunately, things never end completely smoothly, do they?!  I had promised Mia we could go for a swim before we went home, so we went to Broadwater Rockpools, which is a great, free, little water park for kids and she had a ball.  However, we got back to the car with a parking fine on the windscreen as we hadn’t seen the meters – doh!  Then we paid over the odds to park in Surfers while I forced Natalie to get a photo next to the Surfers sign – as all good tourists do!  We then spent far too long driving around a one way system in Brisbane looking for Natalie’s backpackers to drop her off; Mia was asleep so couldn’t say bye and we then got stuck in rush-hour traffic leaving the city and were at a standstill, so ended up having to ring the hire car place for an extension!  Arrived home frazzled and with a little girl in floods of tears because Natalie had gone!

The obligatory Surfers sign shot!

Although we were always “pally”, I felt that Natalie and I came out of the trip more as friends than a teacher-student relationship, which I hope would be the same way with all of my ex-students now that they’re grown-ups!  She probably saw another side to me, which isn’t a bad thing – teachers aren’t all robots who switch themselves on at term-time, which I’m certain some kids believe!  Her positive energy also came at just the right time for me and actually encouraged me to get out of my “daily grind” attitude and remind me that I am lucky to be living in such a beautiful country with my effervescent little girl and a husband who is working so very hard to provide a stable new life for us all.  So thank you, Natalie, for opening my eyes again!