Kitchen part 1 - cos it's so big it doesn't all fit in one photo!!
Flowers are the ones from mum and dad and the mining boys can see their framed picture on top of the microwave!

Moranbah

It was a strange feeling when we finally set foot in the infamous 26 Belshore Street, the mysterious address we had quoted to people for the last few weeks, not even knowing whether it really existed.
Michelle, our ‘Township Administrator’ had taken us on a little tour round the sights of Moranbah before she left us at our house. She showed us the main shopping bit, where there are about 30 little shops, a huge Coles supermarket – which is the Tesco of Australia, and a shopping mall with another small selection of shops. To begin with my initial peruse at the shops was with a little disdain, they all look like you are walking down the roughest street in Leeds – however they are amazingly diverse, and very well stocked, there’s not much you couldn’t get here from a computing store to a nail bar. I thought about why upon first glance these stores weren’t desirable to me and I realised it’s because in England we rely so much on chain stores. There are not actually many places I shopped in England that weren’t chains, even the village shop was a Spar. Almost every shop I went to in England, even if I hadn’t been to the city/town before, I knew what to expect and where to look for things. Of course, the places in England where you don’t get chain stores tend to be the back streets, which is what Moranbah’s shopping centre resembles, and after visiting the city of Mackay this week, is also what this is like. Brisbane, on the other hand is much more commercial and is full of chain stores, there’s even a HMV and a Borders bookshop.

There were also all the public amenities such as police station (complete with cells which astounded us when we saw how quiet Moranbah was – the call for prison cells didn’t seem to be necessary, particularly when at our home town of Selby they have abolished theirs… a move equally as absurd for the opposite reasons!), a fire station, ambulance (again, these guys must beg for something to happen, we saw the ambulance just cruising round the other day looking for business) and a hospital – which we particularly made a note of in readiness for my pending knee injury.

The selection of sports facilities is fantastic, there is a pitch for everything you could think of, namely rugby, AFL (Aussie rules), football (soccer – tsk), hockey and I think cricket as well. Moranbah even has its own race course!! Albeit there are only 2 meetings per year, but they are meant to be great days/nights out, there’s one coming up in November and from the stories we’ve heard it sounds like we’ll be in for a good day! There’s also a squash court, a gym (which we get free entry to) and 3 swimming pools (kids, heated and Olympic-sized) – to which we also get free admission. I went swimming the other morning, I got there at 9am, which is actually very late, considering it opens at 5am and closes at 10am for the morning session!! This is for all the shift workers, or people who want a refreshing dip before work. Unlike our English public swimming pools, the ones here are completely outdoors just as though you are on holiday somewhere.