Thank you.

Before we headed off on this BIG adventure my mum and Dad had arranged for us to have three nights in an apartment at Palm Cove.It seemed so far away when it was booked for us but I knew we would be so grateful for the SPACE and every other big and small luxury that went with it. One of the biggest luxuries for me,( which I would never had guessed before doing this trip) was having a washing machine! And boy did I wash...EVERYTHING!... And some things got washed twice, just because I could!
Thanks mum and Dad (in Turkey as I type!), we loved Palm Cove and we loved the apartment. A generous and thoughtful plan to organize the accommodation and Ned, Auds and
Sam particularly loved the bath!
Enjoy the pics, some are at Port Douglas where we visited twice. You may also notice the men in my life had their haircuts...
Xx

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

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