Quick tracks to Cairns

Poor Maya is ready to go home. This morning she had a little meltdown, declaring her hate for "this tiny motorhome". We told her we were just going to get to Cairns, and after we were done in Cairns we would turn and head back to Sydney. She was happy to hear that, and seems to be willing to enjoy the rest of the time travelling instead of resenting it all, as long as we're heading back soon.

We left Airlie Beach, aiming for Townsville, about 300 kilometres away. On the way, we drove over Burdekin River and I so wish I would have taken a picture of it as I have never seen a river that colour. You know the brown that a river turns when it is flooded? This one was almost orange, like clay. It was huge and bizarre, and for some reason it scared the crap out of me.

Townsville was odd, like a work in progress. It seemed deserted. We had our lunch at The Strand, the centreish area on the water. Water that you can't go in, due to stingers and... wait for it... crocodiles. We're in croc country. There was a netted-off area for stinger-free/ croc-free swimming. We just stayed at the playground.

The kids were happy to keep driving, so we scratched our plan to stay for the night and moved on.

At dinnertime, we stopped in a small town called Cardwell (which Lonely Planet claims has a population of 10,000, but we couldn't for the life of us work out where they were all hiding their houses. There didn't even seem to be a grocery shop). We treated ourselves to grilled fish and chips - local barramundi, sooo delicious - and had a picnic near the crocodile infested water overlooking Hinchinbrook Island. Here is the warning sign:



The warnings seem so mild.

Here was our picnic view:



The kids were, again, happy to keep going, so we decided to push on to Cairns, only about an hour and a half north. Nate had fun snapping pictures in the backseat:





We didn't quite make it and stopped for the night at Innisfail. We left early this morning for the rest of the drive, and it was so beautiful. Very rainy, very dark dramatic clouds obscuring the tops of the very green, jungle covered hills all around. Here's a shot from the moving vehicle:



We are really in the wet tropics now. I'm so looking forward to seeing more of Cairns.

The kids love to swim

We have been doing a lot of swimming! At the place we stayed at Airlie Beach, the pool was incredible, and we went swimming most mornings and late afternoons. How could you resist this?



The kids loved the two waterslides:





Eli is fearless. He jumps in and even swims to the surface. Nick discovered that. I'm not one to wait and see if they make it to the surface on their own. That's what dads are for. I took a few videos of him hopping in, but they disappeared from the camera! Here's the best photo:



Maya and Nick:



So of course Eli wanted a turn:



Nate attempting what appear to be one-handed handstands:



Nick would have packed the pool up to bring with us if he could.

That's how the other half live

We were blessed with wonderful weather for our cruise around the Whitsundays.

Our day started out with a courtesy coach picking us up from our caravan park. Five nights there and we didn't move the motorhome once! On to Abel Marina to hop onto The Voyager.

Now that we're out of the peak tourism season, a lot of things either aren't running or are different to their usual. Our tour was one of them, but it was a good change. The big, new boat was being fixed up, so we went out on the older boat. As one of the crew said, "Same head, different hat." We got the same tour, just on a smaller older boat and at a cheaper price. I'm not complaining.

We "set sail" and stopped first at Daydream Island to pick a few more people up. Off again, and onto Hook Island. We disembarked and marvelled at all of the colourful tropical fish in the clear waters just under the pier. One of the crew threw in some bread for them (and gave some to the kids to do the same) so we could get a really good look. There were even a few Maori wrasse down there, which are very distinctive, big blue fish with huge lips. We got into the Coral Viewer, a semisubmersible, and headed out to look at the fringing reef. There weren't a huge amount of fish on the reef (that we could see anyway) but the different varieties of coral were more interesting and beautiful than I would have thought. Spaghetti coral, stag coral, plate coral, brain coral, elephant ear coral.

Back on shore, we walked to the resort for a bit of snorkelling. Now as I have mentioned before, it is stinger season, so we were all given lycra stinger suits to wear in the ocean. Even little ones for the kids (well you would hope so!). How cute are they? Maya reminds me of Cathy Freeman circa 2000:





We fitted the kids with life vests so they could float around with their snorkelling gear, not having to worry about the swimming part. Most of the group headed out with some of the crew to feed the fish, so Nick went to have a look while I stayed shallow with the kids. Maya looked incredible, floating face down, kicking around - she didn't come up for air for ages! Eli didn't like the sensation too much and wanted me to hold him. After awhile, Maya and Eli were ready to get out (and into the resort pool), so Nick and Nate went out to the fish feeding together. Nick was surprised how nice snorkelling was. He hadn't thought it would be anything special. Nate was so high on the experience afterwards that it was all he could think or talk about. He is very much looking forward to snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.

Once we got back on the boat, we headed for Whitehaven Beach. It was voted (by whom I'm not exactly sure) as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. With all of the hype, it was anticlimactic getting there. Nick wonders how a beach can be in the top 10 when you can't even swim in the water without a special suit on. It did have the necessary components: white sand, tick; turquoise bath water, tick; free from development, tick. It unfortunately also had loads of leaf litter all over that white sand which really took away from the scenery. It was fun to watch all of the little fish in the shallows though, and at one point I could see a dark thing about 10 metres away, moving in our general direction - so I stood up and found myself looking at what looked suspiciously like a small shark. It was pretty cool.

Our next port of call was Daydream Island again, but this time to get off and have a wander around. The kids posed with the mermaid:



We enjoyed a smoothie at the bar, a swim in the lovely resort pool, and a play at the cool playground.

Nate snapped some pictures on the trip back home, including this candid one of Maya and me making funny faces:



It was a good day, especially the snorkelling. It was fun (and shocking) to see the multi-million dollar mansions and $6000 per night resorts on Hamilton Island from our boat. The scenery was beautiful - tropical islands popping up out of the clear blue sea. It was something to do once, to see what all the fuss is about. If I ever go back to the Whitsundays, it will be to stay on Hamilton Island.

Long overdue... PHOTOS!

Waaaay back at the Gold Coast, we lost our camera case which also housed the cord needed to upload photos to the computer. Remember that? I certainly do, because my blog has been seriously short on photos for a long time! I just checked and saw that the last photos I posted were of our Mt Warning climb back on 27 January. Yikes! I am in the process of remedying that situation now, starting with this post.

If you're interested in the pictures, have a look from 3 February onwards. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight! That would make way for the new photos we'll surely be taking tomorrow...

I'm so excited. We have been hanging out at the caravan park, waiting for our camera cord to arrive, before booking anything that we would want to have photos of. (Coincidentally, I have been fairly ill for the last few days with a throat infection, but I'm on the mend now.) Now we have said cord and have booked our Whitsunday Island Adventure! One day on the sea, enjoying the beautiful scenery, with a few stops along the way for snorkeling (stinger suits included!). The kids are so excited, and so are Nick and I! And I'm so glad we'll be able to take photos.

I asked Nate the other day what his favourite thing about travelling has been, and he said Fraser Island. Cooool, I'm so glad I didn't just go by myself!! In particular, Lake Mackenzie - and I discovered that Nick did take a few photos before the camera died! I'll upload those in the appropriate post, post haste. Maya said that her favourite was the Great Barrier Reef. I said, "But we haven't seen it yet" to which she replied, "But I'm going to love it!!"

Nick has the kids in the pool and I'm going to now go make us some vegetable soup for dinner. Just what the doctor ordered.

The Whitsundays

20 February, 2010

Would you believe we're finishing up our eighth week on the road?

Due to our low morale, we have blitzed central Queensland. We stayed for one night in Rockhampton and did the obligatory drive around town, but we really did it no justice. Ditto Mackay, which looked like a really lovely tropical city - all we saw was the dodgy caravan park, a shopping centre, and a motorhome handy man who did some waterproofing on the leaky seals. (They still are leaking, by the way. Nick just checked with a hose. Leak 1, motorhome handy man 0.)

Now we are enjoying some *sun* in Airlie Beach! Nick washed all of the bedding today while the kids and I hung out in the lagoon pool with two waterslides and a shaded kiddie area. It was nice to know it was going to dry, and dry it did. Bummer about that leak though, but there will definitely be someone who can fix it in Townsville... right? The only RV repair shops in Rockhampton and Mackay were all booked out with the weekend coming, so we'll have to call ahead to organise something in Townsville. We neeeeed to get that fixed. There is visible water damage up there.

We don't plan on going anywhere at the moment though. We have booked in for 4 nights (at the price of 3 which works out to a ridiculously low $30 a night! For the Whitsundays! Crazy!) Nick has just gone to the office to talk about booking some kind of day cruise. We really don't know what exactly we should be seeing around here, but we have heard that Whitehaven Beach (I think that's what it's called) is The Best Beach In The World. That sounds pretty special.

So morale is back up. I have to admit, it was a bit higher before Nick just tested the leak and found that it wasn't fixed. The sun is still shining, we are at a resort that Nick has been looking forward to for weeks, and we are on paradise's doorstep. Honestly, the ocean is turquiose. We are surrounded by palm trees. Tomorrow, we may spend the day cruising around the Whitsundays. Nice. This is the life.

I just wish I felt better :o( I'm a bit under the weather. Throat, ears, and a cough. It makes the pool feel not so good. I'm here blogging instead of taking Nate back to the pool. Bummer. I think I need to get off now and help Nate alleviate his boredom.

Sheila

19 February, 2010

We have a lizard! Nick and I noticed her around about a week before the kids spotted her, and when they did they were so excited. She's just a little skink and for awhile hung out under our fridge - quite a feat as there really is no "under". Now she seems to be in the little-used grill, because she pops up from behind it occasionally, typically when we are doing something with the fruit basket which is above the grill. Nate held her for a bit today, and then Maya did (squealing all the while) and then Eli did (also squealing) and then she jumped! She was outta there. Nate is good with her though, quite calm, and she'll happily hang out on his arm for ages. Sometimes days go by without a Sheila spotting. Nate and Maya have drawn portraits of her. It's all very cute.



Okay, so I wanted to write about Hervey Bay.

We stayed at the Scarness Beachfront Holiday Park. It was absolutely beachfront - the steps Duedown to the sand were a few metres from our motorhome. This was the first caravan park we stayed at that was right on the beach, and we were excited about it because getting all of the sand off before getting into the motorhome always sucks a bit - now we would be able to walk straight into the shower! Awesome. And to boot, the area we were staying in has the safest swimming in Hervey Bay. No stingers, very calm waters, very shallow.

On our first night there, we went for a walk on the beach but not a swim. Just a short walk away was a playground, so the kids played there for awhile. And that was the last time we ever went to the beach. True story. The next day it rained all day long, and we stayed in. The day after that we went to Fraser Island. And the next morning, we were off. Funny stuff.

I'm always paranoid about keeping the screen door closed, especially at dusk. On our first night, it was very windy and Nick pointed out that there weren't likely to be any mozzies out in that kind of wind. He was right. We even had dinners at the camp kitchen, after dark, and there were no mosquitoes. It was a nice hiatus. Bonus.

One more thing of note is the bat colony! Wow, there are a lot of bats at Hervey Bay, and they come out at dusk. As we sat at the camp kitchen eating our dinner one night, there appeared in the sky a bit inland of us a huge group of bats, all flying south. The group just didn't stop either - as far as we could see behind them there were bats. Thousands upon thousands of bats, all flying south in a large line. It had to have been at least 10 minutes of solid bats. Some broke free from the group and came to check out the trees above us, but they all continued on. We saw this the next night as well. It was incredible. I Googled and found that this is a normal occurrence.

So that's that.

Jumping ship

Ahhhhhh. We are centimetres away from turning tail and heading back to Sydney.

1) It's the wet season! My plan to speed things up a bit rather than meandering so much doesn't fit with Mother Nature's plans of raining a lot and often.

Why this is a problem: Today we headed from Hervey Bay (which I haven't even written about yet! And if I don't, there was some incredible nightly bat activity that I still want to research a bit. I'm talking thousands upon thousands of bats flocking south every evening at dusk. Anyway...) through Bundaberg and towards Town of 1770. What a name. At least, we intended to go to 1770, but we were thwarted by water on the road. We braved a few floodways, but then we came to one that the ute in front of us wasn't even willing to try and we realised we weren't going to make it. We chatted with said ute driver and he shared his local knowledge with us - there are at least four more parts of the road that would have water over them at least as high as this between where we were and Miriam Vale which was at the Bruce Highway, our outlet. We weren't going to make it to 1770, and we weren't even going to make it through that way to Rockhampton. We had to turn back towards Bundaberg and cover that almost 70 kilometres all over again. Bummer. Annoying. Frustrating. All of that.

Also a problem because: That leak upstairs? It is a leak. Nick took some duct tape (the white kind, classy folk that we are) to the seal on the outside, hoping that this would at least temporarily alleviate the problem. When we stopped for lunch, however, he checked for water upstairs and found it. Plenty. We need to have it seen to by a professional, and we plan to do that tomorrow morning.

And one more wet season issue: Laundry is expensive. We'll pay the $3 to wash a load rather than hand washing - that's worth it to us, especially as we recycle our clothes as much as possible so don't create that much laundry. But the standard fee for drying is $1 for 10 minutes! Robbery! Tonight, for the first time, we are paying to dry our clothes because it has been raining since we left Suzy's house and nothing will dry. My Ergo got soaked through on the Fraser Island tour bus and won't dry. All of the towels we have been using to soak up the leak upstairs (under some plastic to keep the mattress dry) are in need of washing and drying. We are paying $18 for two loads of laundry.

2) F*&^ing mosquitoes. They are getting worse and worse. Maya and I look like we have gnarly skin conditions. It's gross and itchy and annoying and uncomfortable and maddening and frustrating, etc etc etc. And it isn't going to get any better in the direction we're going.

3) The beaches are from here on up are unswimmable, or so we're told. Stinger season, mate, from Rockhampton north. No fun. Oh well, it's raining anyway. Who wants to go to the beach?

4) Long stretches of driving ahead. There was a whole lotta nothing between Bundaberg and Rockhampton, just 340ish kilometres of driving. This is the longest we have gone in one stretch (besides from Sydney to Urunga), made especially long by our backtracking. We could have stopped, there were a few tiny places along the way, but we just weren't interested today - we wanted to get to a place where we could have our leak seen to. That place was Rockhampton, nothing closer. It is equally far to Mackay, then to Townsville, then to Cairns. Cairns is still over 1000 kilometres away! 1000 wet, dreary, wet, humid kilometres. The long distance driving part isn't the most fun in the world, and even less fun for the kids, especially little Eli. I can either be sitting up front with Nick, keeping him company on the lonely roads, or sitting back with the kids trying to keep them entertained. I find that I much prefer sitting up front. I just need to work harder on finding the joy in sitting in the kiddie section.

5) Close quarters. I'm not naming names, but one of my children is really hard to be around this closely for this long. Okay, maybe two of them. It's not doing any favours for our marriage either.

We're not going to give up the dream just yet though. I just don't know how we can keep it up when it is seeming more like hard work than the rewarding adventure we had hoped for. We're going to stick it out to Cairns. We're looking forward to the Whitsundays and the reef, and I'm still holding out hope that some Cape York miracle tour will fall in my lap. I think after that though, we might retreat with our tails between our legs. Maybe we'll say hello to our friends in Sydney and keep heading south. Not sure yet.