welcome...

the plan for this blog is to share our three month journey across the top end of OZ later this year, with our family and friends, most of whom live far away from us. However, it will not only be a recording of our travels, it is also a place where I will record some words and pictures of things that make me happy...just day to day "stuff" that may or may not appeal to you but does make me smile...enjoy...

Monday, September 10, 2012

Cairns

Big smoke for us! We stayed at a caravan park that is totally set up for kids with water park, two pools, mini golf, basketball, table tennis, two jumping pillows, movie nights, scooter/bike track and the list goes on...
I did some shopping and loved it.
On Sunday we went on on an old train up into the rain forest...took over an hour, amazing views and the coolest old carriages. To come back down we caught the Cairns skyrail... It was very windy, kids liked it, I managed it...
On to Palm Cove today, warm and rainy. We have been so lucky with the weather on our trip, today was only our second pack up in wet weather.
Xx

Mission beach

We were at mission beach a week ago for corpus relaxing nights. Would be one of my favorite stops so far. Lovely, small coastal town where the day rolls by gently. This is easy camping for me and I feel at home again...back in civilization. We fished, caught a crab, cooked great food, had great coffee from The New Deli, also where we got fresh ciabatta baked each day. We sat on the beach, walked everywhere, the kids played happily on the beach or by the pool and we ate many bananas from the banana farms around us.
The bonus in the last 24 hrs was that we met up with another family, that we knew from school. The kids, ESP Ned loved seeing his friend Connor.
Hopefully you will see from the photos that we were very chilled in this place...and that Sam got a bit crazy with his stickers one night!
Xx

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Back on the coast...Townsville.

Massive week last week. We did some major long days in the car to get from Darwin last Sunday to Townsville on Friday. It was worth it.
We camped 3km from the city centre and were right on the beach at Rowes Bay. There were sea breezes well and truly blowing through our cubby house and not a grain of red dirt in sight...only sand and it was very welcome.
Just off the coast, a short ferry ride away is Magnetic Island. We went there on Saturday for the day. Beautiful place, amazing pristine beaches and clear water. We did a 4pm hike first, quite challenging and the kids did well though there was a fair amount of complaining and whining from the youngest two!
Yesterday being Fathers Day Andrew chose to go to the Barra farm. We fished for an hour, big hit with AC and the kids. In the arvo we went to the Strand where there is a free water park. There we met an old friend of Andrew's , Rod and his family. Been ages since we've seen him and it was great to catch up.
On the road again as I type...heading to Mission Beach for a few nights...easy traveling now, love being back on the Queensland coast and in only four weeks we will be home.
Xx