On our way to Mission Beach

G'day Mates!

It's not even a week and here I am again;

The road from Airlie Beach to Townsville maybe looks boring but when you look around you definitely will see the beauty of the variety trees with a lot of different greens. Funny is to notice the names of the heaps creeks you pass, f.i. “ Goodbye Creek” , “ Breakfast Creek”, “Café Creek”, “ Waistcoat Creek” etc, and although the wet season is not totally over yet, they are all dry.

a little film to give you an idea;

We have been out for dinner last night and a drink afterwards so we all have a bit of a hangover. Picture this; 3 pints of beer; $ 24.00!!  Australia has become outrageous expensive!! That’s really a shame. I recon they will feel it in their pocket one day when the rest of the world is going to ignore Australia as a holiday destination. We do budget; we bring our own drinks and sandwiches when we go somewhere.

Till now, all these cheap/free camp spots from my bible are pretty good! Also this one; Black River Stadium, a little north of Townsville, a nice spot to recover from our hangover;

Normally we would have stayed a few days in Townsville but because  Danny is with us (and doesn't has so much time) and there is so much to see and do in the region of Cairns, we are a bit in a hurry to get there. Maybe we will go back later.

We had to stop a lot because of roadworks, that's not so strange as they had so much, and so long rain the last summer, that will certainly affect the road conditions.

Look at the dark clouds we are facing;

We are now on our way to one of our favourite spots;  Mission Beach, actually Wongaling  Beach, 5 k’s from Mission Beach, but before we get there I was promised a huge brunch because it’s mothers day today
Yeeeeh!!!

Just look at this, I was not allowed to do anything so they spoiled me rotten;
 

After this mouthwatering adventure we did our final k's to Mission Beach;

Hope you enjoyed this episode again, see you next time in;

Mission Beach

Cheers!

 

Hit the road again....

G'day mates,

Just between us; we miss that face peeping through the opening of the caravan door with a big smile on his face, saying; “goeie morrugu” (means good morning)!

Back to the reality;

On 6^th may we left our family, me in tears as usual, and we drove towards Brisbane. On the highway near the Sunshine Coast we stopped for a drink at the Ettamogah Pub.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettamogah_Pub

It was pouring from rain but eventually we ended up in the small town Pomona on a lovely showground. It was as good as a caravan park, unfortunately again I forgot to make some pictures because of the too late arrival and the early leave. But because I think it's worth staying there; here are the details;

http://www.caravancaravan.com.au/entity/pomona-showground-camping-area/qld

On our way I had bought some mandarins at Aldi’s, just a few minutes after that we passed several stalls with local citrus fruit, I can tell you that I was sorry that I bought at Aldi‘s  they were full of seeds.  Good lesson for next time; buy local.

Relaxed....(but still watching the Garmin Lady)

Cruising over the Burnett highway which sneaks through the paddocks a little inland, we’re heading slowly towards Rockhampton. Coming through little places like Kilkivan and Gayndah like the old days, we are enjoying this trip. Now, when you travel on the main highways, you go around places which of course is good when you are in a hurry.

Next stop; 7^th May; Monto; Nice spot, very quiet.

8^th May; Marlborough; due to all the signs, Marlborough (very challenging name for the one, in this case Danny, who’s smoking electric since arrival), seems to be a major town but coming there, it’s just a Motel/Pub, a few houses, a museum and a service station. We found a spot behind the motel for $ 5,- p/p which was ok. We had quite some rain during the night and got up early. We broke our record by leaving 7.30 in the morning because we wanted to come as far as Airlie Beach which is 380 k’s and that’s a lot for us towing a caravan.

On this road (Bruce highway) from Rockhampton to Mackay, there are several funny signs to keep you awake because besides a service station now and then (and Marlborough), there is nothing in between. But overall it’s a very nice road.

We have stopped in Airlie beach for 2 nights which was a welcome rest. We did a lot of walking as these last few days we have been sitting too much.

Airlie Beach has a beautifull boardwalk which you can take in front of the caravan park and walk to the centre;

One of the last storms hit Airlie Beach hard!

You can see that it’s no fun going into the water during several months but they found something to do about it;  a real beautiful artificial beach/swimming pool has been made on the border of the town and the beach.     

 

It’s all for free and you can even have a barbeque or picnic or what ever!!

Nice parks....

.

lovely lunch

We also went out for dinner and had a ball at the Irish bar;

That's it for now folks, see you later!

Cheers.....

 

Sad day

G'day mates!

At this moment, on the 22nd of May, our son is packing his suitcase, breaking down his tent and getting ready to leave us. I have stomach ache when I think about what's going to come on the airport.
But ok, that's life and we'll get over it in a couple of days.

Of course for my blog our adventures together are not over yet, so in a short time I''ll get back to you and continue our story.

Hang on till then!

Cheers

Mudgeeraba / Springbrook

From Thursday the 2^nd of may till Monday the 6^th we have been at family in Mudgeeraba, near the Gold coast. We did a walk through the park in  the town and saw some water-devils;

Had a lot of laughs together and lovely lunches and dinners;

and brekkies......

We also did another spectacular walk through the rainforest in Springbrook. The walk was terrific as you can see on the pictures but my God, the road to come there was terrible scary. Steep, windy and much to narrow. At some stages there was only place for 1 car and not even a crash barrier.
Hey! We survived AGAIN!

With pale faces from the drive we started the walk;
 

I'm getting used to these heights.....

Normally it is a circle walk but due to storms there was a lot of damage of the track......

look at the beautiful Staghorn Ferns (or Elkhorn Ferns)

so when we got down, you normally can walk behind the waterfall, we had to go back the same way......

 here you can learn a bit Aboriginal meanings........(click on the photo to enlarge)

 We did about 300-350 steps down and up again.

A few boys and girls ignored the "danger" sign and climbed over the gate which blocked the track. On the other side where they were walking we could see that underneath them a lot of earth had washed away so they were walking on a few centimeters earth with an enormous gap below.

How brave are they!! Never seen such idiots!!

Please people, don't be so stupid.

Cheers!

Travelling North

G’day Mates!

I hope you all enjoyed the Blue Mountains?? Now it’s time to continue with our travel.

Packing up in Sydney;

on our way.....

 Like I already told you we are on our way to the North and our first stop was in Murrurundi at a lovely little caravan park. I can imagine that you find that a strange name but a lot of places are named to Aborigine language.

We stopped nice and early because last days have been very exhausted. Unfortunately this place is situated on a high plateau and it became 5 degrees at night. Poor Danny, woke up with a frozen nose haha.

Danny had a new friend .

Next day we drove further and Danny exclaimed a few times that the view often looked like France. So there you are, another country on the list of lookalikes

Keeping an eye on the Garmin lady

In Tamworth we stopped for bacon end eggs what was a very welcoming idea.

Well I can tell you that the 5 degrees wasn’t the worst yet, we stopped  between Armidale and Grafton in a place (3 houses and a hotel/motel) called Ebor Falls. This was at a height of 1250 and next morning we had ice all over the car  and Danny’s tent had become a real Igloo. Poor Guy!! But again; “We” specially HE Survived.

New England Highway

 nice warm dinner in the caravan

the next morning

We decided to move as quick as possible to warmer places and ended up in Yamba, ooooh a lovely relaxing spot where we could see and celebrate the Queen/King day in Holland. This time it was extra special because the Queen gave the throne to her son.

                 

Danny had brought “Oranje Bitter” with him which is a traditional liquor for such royal celebrations (but also for World/European Cup soccer). It was a real surprise for us and the bottle didn’t last very long. We also had orange balloons and flags.

We had 3 full lovely days; did a little walk,

a fine swim in the sea,

a lovely meal in a bowling club,

 a decent fall off the rocks, pfff that did hurt and now a few parts of my body became all colours of the rainbow. The good thing is that my camera is still ok, even though it fell together with me and I heard it bounce on the rocks. It even looks like it's better then before haha (joke);

Before the fall;

after the fall;

The boys gave me a beer to comfort me......

If you ever feel stressed, come to relaxed Yamba!

(Fortunately no one took a picture of my dive haha!!)

Till we meet again.

Cheers!