Another shitty day in paradise

Being forced to stay inside because of the bad weather, we have a DVD running of the Celtic Thunder; Irish singers. Then suddenly they sang hallelujah and a feeling of completely happiness came over me (no I'm not religious) and I realized that actually we are quite happy with our life at the moment... Maybe its that mysterious Mission Beach ghost……

I have no intention to make you jealous but just look at this and then you will understand what keeps us here for a while;

Of course we also had bad weather but when it's nice we're doing things like this;

in the mornings I walk along the beach to these tree-roots and back, total approx. 3,5 km.....

in the mean time Fred is fishing with our neighbour Jack.....

First fish, YEHH!!

It was nice but a lot of bones in it......

in the afternoon we just watch the world goes by....

and read a bit.......

In following film you will see some skydivers but this is just a start people! We have some very brave fellow campers who did the jump, you will see that next time!

after high tide see what the beach is up to.....

poor butterfly is stuck in the sand.....

Or we do some little jobs

we have to make some advertisement don't we!...

or we play bowls (no NOT playing with balls) with some fellow campers;

We had to buy a new dishwasher for our house in Holland, here I have to do the dishes by hand every day, even cooking water to get warm dishwater, but I don't care!!

And look at the washing, it was hanging outside already for 2 days and was nearly dry when it started raining again, yeh guys, that's the tropics!

We may live in a caravan but as you can see on my weblog, we never have a dull moment so I just want to give you this saying I've read somewhere;

Happiness isn't what you have,

it's what you make of it!

See you soon!

Mysterious Mission Beach

There is something mysterious about Mission Beach (actually we are in Wongalin Beach but this whole area is called Mission Beach). You won't find someone who stayed the time what was planned. Till now the most extreme I heard was a guy who booked a caravan site for 2 weeks and still is here after 4 years. We came for a week and still are here 4 weeks now and I just booked another week. I said to Steve, the manager of the Sky-diving shop and caravan park, that this is definitely our last week but when I left, he said; " see you next Saturday with your payment for another week" haha! 

No, we won't stay 4 years although its tempting, but you don't want to be here in summer, too humid and very cyclone touchily.

It's really a pity because you can buy some land here very cheap but if you look around nearly every house, holiday unit, apartments etc is for sale and I can remember that that was already a few years ago. 

They also planned new estates but hardly any land has been sold......

you can see just one is sold......

There's been 2 famous cyclones in the past 4 years which destroyed a lot of things and damaged much nature, you can see they are always repairing here in the surroundings. We have been here 2 years ago and nothing has changed, may be a few houses more and there are also houses and even a restaurant gone, just wiped away.

So you can imagine that the insurance is also very high here and that's another reason that no one wants a house here. I heard a couple paying $ 11.000,- a year only insurance, gee that's nearly a thousand a month, who can afford that?

And not much people means no shops, except for Woolies and a few restaurants, a post office and some hear dressers there is not much more. Here in this building were Woolies is situated, were a lot of shops planned, I think two or three started there but there's nothing anymore;

Ah, I can show you much more, can make hundreds of photo's of houses for sale but who cares? The situation won't change and actually; we're in the same situation, not caused by cyclones but by greedy custom-made suits who caused the financial crises!

Anyhow, you wonder what we are doing here then? First of all, I had to catch up with my Weblog of course haha but just relaxing a few weeks is nice to.

But really, Mission Beach is a paradise on earth in winter!! I will show you that next time, so keep looking!

Ravenswood II

G’day mates, back again with the continuing story of Ravenswood;

We biked to the White Blow which is white quartz rock of 300 million years;

went to the lookout to see the open cut mine;

and we went to the cemetery which was situated at a very nice spot;

and all of this with our heads bent down to see if perhaps we would see some gold lying around haha......

Of course we also had some drinks together with Rob and Val and looking at the bush TV.
The last morning was hilarious. I went to the toilet and someone was in one of the showers, I already thought it was Val because her doggie was waiting patiently in front of the amenities. When she was finished I heard her going to the toilet next to me and suddenly there was a lout cry and the person (it was Val) yelled "there's a big Frog in the toilet!!" I said; "that must be Fred's Frog”. “Ooh, is that you Tammy?" she said, and we both laughed. 

Look at Kermit, he has chosen an odd spot to spend his days, wonder what he sees every day haha!

We said goodbye to Rob and Val and took of to Townsville.

It's not only fun what we're having though! On one of the free camping spots we already found out that our fridge is not working ok on gas and you can't have that because warm beer isn't very tasty. 

Anyhow, through our local caravan repairer in Dandenong, we found a bloke in Townsville who could repair fridges with our brand; Electrolux, we made an appointment for the Friday morning at 8 o'clock so we had to leave the caravan park very early. The caravan park was next to the airport so we didn't had a good sleep anyway. 

The pressure seemed to be to low so it was obvious that the gas regulator wasn't good anymore. After $ 380,- it was fixed pfff. We searched for a petrol station who also has LPG and nearly an hour later we found one, lost a lot of time in Townsville and we were so fed up that we drove right away to Mission Beach where we still are!!

Have a lot to show and tell you about Mission Beach, so keep on looking mates!

Cheers!

Ghost Town; Ravenswood

From the Grass Hut Station we go to Ravenswood, just approx. 40 ks down the road and just like Charters Towers a former gold rush city but despite there is still an open cut gold mine, the town itself looks like a ghost town. Actually it's more an open air museum. We knew that we could camp on the show ground and for $ 14,-/night we had a nice spot with water and electricity.

We just had parked the car and caravan when we heard a voice calling : "hi Fred and Tammy, how are you"? And there we saw Val coming from behind their caravan. What a surprise! 

When we had settled down, Fred went to the toilet and came back with the message that you might find a Frog in the toilet. He had been doing what he had to do and when he flushed, a big frog appeared from under the brim and started fighting to survive this waterfall. Frog affair to be continued!

This is what you see when you drive into Ravenswood

We stayed a few days, it was lovely, nice weather and a lot to see.
I’m going to divide this Ravenswood stay in two because there are too many photo’s I want you to see for one time.

First we walked through the ruins of the town;

visited one of the two hotels left;

of course having a beer at the bar....

this is the second Hotel;

and just a stair from a disappeared hotel;

 

we looked at the post office which also has fuel…..

A sentence on the paper says; "I'm a very old Lady, please treat me with respect"  isn't that cute!

And last but no least, a little lovely church;

Have you all noticed the beautiful blue sky??

Coming back to you soon with part two of Ravenswood! See ya.

(It looks like Blogger has some problems or it is our location but the text seem to change all the time in size, I apologise for that and hope the problem will be solved soon)