Sunrise, surf beaches and hitting a reputation of seventy for Hive PU Day ☺️😍🥳

Our plan was to run at Main Beach, a lovely beach on the northern end of the Gold Coast, a spread out region here in sunny South East Queensland.

At 4:09 am the light from the (near) full moon woke me and it was clear I wasn't going back to sleep.

In no hurry to get up, we lazed in bed for a while finally rolling out and getting up once the sun was making its presence known.

After drinking some water, and giving up on trying to get a decent shot of the setting white moon, I walked out the front door to capture the yellow sun rising instead.

It occured to me, as I stepped through my morning, getting ever closer to driving south, that today was the 1st of yet another month.

Far out they fly by quickly.

As I stood on the front steps taking one photo per minute to track the changes in the sky as our sun rose, I listened to the sound of different birds already out and about, doing their thing.

Feeling connected with my local environment, I took my bare feet, ears and eyes back inside to get dressed to go for a walk, run and then swim duck under small waves an hour down the road.

We arrived at Main Beach at a similar time to usual but it was completely packed out; we couldn't find a parking spot anywhere. We kept driving south and eventually found a great spot right outside a different surf club, at a different beach than we usually go to.

What was initially annoying turned out to be awesome.

✨ We had a wide concrete path for easy running and walking that was parallel to the ocean ✔️

✨ We had toilets and beach showers right near the car ✔️

✨ And we had a surf-lifesaving patrolled "safe" spot to swim also super close to the car ✔️

At 8 am, we said goodbye. He went south, I went north. He ran 10 km. I walked and tapped (i.e. processed unhelpful, subconscious beliefs that are limiting my life). And... I realised I probably should have put on a smidge more sunscreen!

You know that summer is approaching here when you need sunscreen at 8 am 😝

After 40 minutes of walking and tapping, and wishing for more shade I decided I felt good enough to run, even after pushing it yesterday at parkrun.

2.5 km later I felt happy to keep running but I was also ready to hide from the sun... and Brad was done with his 10 km and was already waiting by our well-parked car.

It was time to guzzle some more water and efficiently dunk ourselves in the wonderful, cold, super-salty ocean.

Bless. It was lovely.

The only thing left to do was write about it, in a Hive Power Up Day post, after UTC time clicked over to the next day (so I would remember to power up!)

So, the power up happened, and if you're reading this, clearly the post happened too!

But before I disappear there are two cool things I wanted to share and celebrate with you:

✨ Since I powered up last month my Hive reputation has finally clicked over to 70!!! 🥳🥳🥳

And...

✨ I also had my 2nd Hive Birthday during this last .month as well! 🤯🤯🤯

The final sunrise photo this morning from this series. Subtle shifts, but shifts nonetheless. That's what's happening for me here on Hive too; seemingly miss-able small events that culminate in something extraordinary when I really take the time to look at it.

All photos taken by me. Which was your favourite?