Queensland Vacation day 13 Goodbye Camper van, Hello Cairns

We woke up by the side of Bruce Highway and ate a quick breakfast and then got on the road.  We had pulled over in to a random gravel area with no amenities. About 15km further up the road we found the fully kitted out "driver reviver" location we had hoped to sleep in.  No worries, we didn't particularly care about the lack of bathrooms!

The road trip drew to a close today as we put the final 350 km between us and the Gold Coast and coasted in to Cairns. I say "coasted" as we had paid for the privilege of leaving the tank on empty, but you only make money on that option if you leave it below 20%.  Oh trust me, Dave did the math and we coasted in!

We could honestly have been driving in the Caribbean with the sugar cane on one side of the highway and the bananabananas on the other.  All while driving on the left hand side! We drove the van to our air bnb accommodation and unloaded it.

 All too soon for this kid (and 8 days too long for Monkey), it was time for big C to hug his beloved campervan goodbye.

 Once it was returned we got ready to head out and walk to the center of Cairns, the l'Esplanade and the Night Markets.

We ate sushi for the first time since leaving Canada and it was fabulous!!  Monkey grabbed fish n chips like he did a couple of weeks ago with grandma.

Big C loved the parks and is thrilled that we proposed to come back for a day of playing in them.  The reality of that negation was that we knew we would not get him out of there without making an agreement like that!

My phone is dying and I am exhausted. I'll have to discuss the stripper pole on the back porch in a subsequent post.

Queensland Vacation Day 12-Airlie Beach

Our lives will be forever changed as a result of stuff learned on this vacation more so than any other vacation.  It turns out that I like camping. I already knew that I don't care about showering in a communal shower, going to the bathroom outdoors and cooking in weird places.  It turns out that I am happy to put all of this things together and hang out for several days.

We've loved the Australian campgrounds with their outdoor grills.  The last two nights we have been sleeping in a backpackers hostel type caravan park.  What an awesome vibe!!  The vans are parked so tightly that the guys in the van next to ours use our outdoor light to read by whilst laying in bed.

This photo is us with an empty space on either side.  Every night around 9 or 10 a tiny little (in comparison to our monstrosity) van would pull in and we'd all be cosy together for the night (I could tell you if they snore or not cosy).  This was the tightest by a significant margin, of any of the campsites we've slept in.  Yet, it was the most fun!

Today we decided that we would skip our scheduled stop in Townsville and just stay in Airlie Beach.  We were keen to stroll through the town and spend time by the water.

The park we've been staying at let us move the van out of our space, but keep it parked on their property for the day at no cost.  That also meant that would could have an early dinner, showers and fill up on potable water before heading out

This guy loved his day of digging in the sand, cracking open (macadamia?) nuts and making friends down by the public lagoon.

 This guy hung out next to me and did absolutely nothing. It was awesome.

 

He was as happy as a kid in a big sandbox...wait, yeah, that.

He was pretty sad when I reminded him that tonight is the last night in his camper van.  He would be happy to stay here for another week, month, year.

As I type this we have been driving for more than three hours and are just passing Townsville (the town we would have been visiting today).  We're keeping a watchful eye out for kangaroos and will start to look for a place to park and sleep in the next hour or so.

Day 11 - our journey to the Great Barrier Reef

Dave writing here.

Today was the day that I had told my wife, the day that we met, that I was going to go around the world to do. 

Little did I know that 17 years later our family of 4 would be going to see it together. 

Here we are gathered together for our 8 am departure to the Hardy reef. We were able to walk from the super cool hostel / caravan park out to the Airlie Beach port. 

 Saje was able to get a good snuggle in with Monkey up on the top deck while Big C and I kept to the inside where he felt more comfortable.

 He did perk up however when we stopped at Hamilton Island and he got an eye on all of the 'super -yachts' that are anchored here.

 On the advice of one of our many guides we decided to start our day without a line waiting for anything and headed straight for the semi-submersible boat tour. Here we are on the inside:

 We saw some amazing views of the reef from the coral to dozens of species of fish to a sea turtle were truly amazing.

 After our brief trip and our lunch,  we suited up into our stinger suits, snorkels, masks and flippers (plus a boogie board with a viewing window for BigC) to see the reef from above.

It was absolutely breathtaking.

As the fish swam around us in touching distance we could make out so many features of the reef. We could see massive  clams (Monkey's favourite), sea cucumbers that looked about 75cm long on the ocean floor,  countless fish and sea anemone  as well as hundreds of meters of the reef.
All too soon our time enjoying the reef was up and we were headed on our return journey.
As we packed up and got changed our sea turtle friend came back to wave his own goodbye.

Our full day on the water ended with a sunset return to the mainland. 

It us a day that will live in our memories for a lifetime.

Queensland Holiday Day 10

We woke up this morning around 8 and had a great breakfast by the beach.  We ate dinner here last night as well.

This sign cracked us up, to a point.  Because you know, most people survive.  Pause. Most. Shudder.

 If this is camping, sign me up!  A clean grill to cook on that overlooks the beach? Done.

Some people have asked of BigC is having fun or if the novelty is wearing off yet.  In response to that question I asked him to rate this trip on a scale of one to ten, ten being awesome.  He says it is an 11.  So, every long day on the road has been completely worth it!

Today's drive is a nice short one.  We got on the road at 11am and are heading for the beach!!!  We'll play there today, head out to the Great Barrier Reef in the Whitsundays tomorrow and sleep in the same spot tomorrow night.

 

We are still debating where we will sleep Tuesday night. There is a very serious discussion of staying long at the beach then putting a couple hundred km in after dinner and just sleeping on the side of the road.  Those who know me well would be surprised to know that I am the one who initiated that discussion!

Our stay at Airlie Beach has started and promises to be entertaining!  We are staying at a camper an park for backpackers and there is a much younger crowd than we have been staying with elsewhere to say the least.  Gone are the older folks and in their place are 20 somethings playing music and cards.

The rate was quoted as $40 per night for a powered site, but quickly dropped to $30 when I pulled out my Ontario driver's license and the girl checking me in turns out to be from Milton, ON.

We did have other options in the area, but this place is directly across from the beach and a 15 minute walk from where our tour leaves from tomorrow morning at 7:30, so we opted to stay and see how this place goes. To be honest, it has a great vibe.

 Big C could not be enjoying himself any more at this point!  We'll be cooking butter chicken and basmati rice and drinking wine out of plactic bottles mugs (no alcohol permitted on site) in the hostel kitchen tonight.  Should be fun!

It was fun!  Dinner with 30 of our closest friends.  Dave and bring the averase age up by a few years in this room!

Queensland Vacation Day 8-a Driving Day

Last night it was a beautiful temperature for sleeping and we slept well with a couple of night waking.   Tonight no children are permitted to drink any water after 6!!!  I'm not walking ANYONE to the bathroom in the dark tonight!

 Today is a long driving get day so that we can have an entire day on the Great Barrier Reef on Monday.

We woke up and I cooked breakfast.  People around us were asking to join us!  This is a kg of bacon (we didn't eat it all) and French toast with cheese.  Yummy!

 I would like to point out that I did significantly better at parking the camper van next to the slab this time!

We got up and walked along the beautiful beach front.  We would have loved to stay there all day and just relaxed for sure!

The drive today is along a long stretch of really boring highway.  They have heaps of signs reminding drivers to rest and they even have trivia questions and answers along the way.

I suspect this guy wasn't playing the trivia game as keenly as Dave:

 We came up on a controlled burn:

So the camper van,  as previously mentioned, is a Ford.  It is a 6 speed manual transmission.  Anything over 80km/h and you are in 6th gear.  Highway speed up here is 110km. The speedometer goes up to 220!  We've had time to discuss the possibility of this thigh actually attaining that speed.  The consensus is that if we got it going downhill loaded for bear we might stand a fighting chance. I don't want to see it try to corner at the bottom though!!

Queensland Holiday Day 7

Oh Queensland how you let me down overnight! It was cold last night!  We didn't plan for cold temperatures and packed only 3 light blankets.  Not awesome. Luckily we are heading ever northward which means it should be getting warmer.

I awoke to the sick feeling in my stomach that we had forgotten to collect our plates and such from the common dining area last night.  Dave and I took stock and we recognized that all we were missing was 3 plates.  We looked and asked around and our yucky feeling of "someone may have stolen from us" quickly gave way to "hay those awesome people we were  hating with last night grabbed our stuff for us".  Phew, crisis averted.

We had been cautioned that parking, especially for a giant campervan is hard to come by in Noosa if you don't arrive good and early.

We found our plates, showered and pulled out by 8th and grabbed the last parking spot that we would fit in to-score!

 We skipped the recommended shopping trip in town (no thanks!) and did a beautiful bushwalk instead.  

It was stunning.  We walked along the ocean for about 7km. We even saw this wild koala having a nap.

 

The Australian warning signs continue to amuse us:

  The drive today is a long one, by the time we get to Agnes Water we will have done 5.5 hours of driving.  Tomorrow I evervendors longer unfortunately. It is all going to even out though in a couple of days when we get an entire day out on the Great Barrier Reef.

We both had to clench our cheeks together going over this one lane bridge, with no barriers in the campervan.  Australian driving makes me a bit nauseated at times!!This was today's big drive.  To be honest, it is a lot of driving. We enjoyed the morning in Noosa, but would have loved to have far more time.  We drove directly past a couple of places that we would have loved to stop, but we just don't have the time.

As it is it is now dusk, we are 15 minutes from our site for the night and a kangaroo hopped in front of us about 10 minutes ago.

 We need to get off the road for tonight and get some dinner and wine.

 Yummmm. Shrimp on the Barbie.

Queensland Holiday Day 6-CAMPER VAN DAY!!!!

Two of us have loaded photos to this post over various WiFi connections.  The photos are completely out of order.  So, today's post will moonlight as a crosswalking exercise.

We started the day off in our apartment and headed to Skypoint Observation Deck in Surfer's Paradise.

It was very likely one of the single most foolish things Dave has ever done in our lives.

He took me to a place where I love the climate Queensland) and then up a great big building where I could essentially see a whole bunch of tremendous real estate possibilities.

 We checked out of our apartment, hopped in the Micra and headed for Brisbane.   

traded the teeny tiny Micra for the enormous campervan and the journey was ON!

Before leaving we found the "free stuff people have left behind" bin at the campervan place and we grabbed assorted items like salt, ketchup (tomato sauce to the Australians), dishwasher liquid, jasmine rice and assorted oils and vinegars.

It takes much longer to pick up a campervan than it does a car and it was about all Big C could do to wait.  He knew that he was just steps away from his dream becoming a reality.

I've never driven anything larger than a Ford Explorer.  This whole thing was new to me.  Whatever.  I hopped in and we were OFF! 

Some observations:

The campervan is a Ford.  This apparently means that the indicator and windshield wipers are back on the sides where I am accustomed to finding them.  Awesome.  It took me no time at all to take to that like a duck to water.

Checking my blind spot to change lanes is a hopeless endeavor that ends with me looking either at the wall behind my right shoulder or the closed main door of the cabin over my left shoulder. 

Today the van used over a 1/4 tank of diesel fuel to cover 150km. 

While we drive something rattles.  I have no idea what it is.  All I can think if the entire time is that my mother, who has often had bits of tissue tucked in to places in her vehicles, would have been in the back of this thing finding the noise and making it stop.  It bothered me less while I chuckled at the vision of that (I am safe from repercussions of that comment for a day or two as she flies home).

Today we covered 213km of the journey.  Only 1500km or so to go.  Tonight as we sat and chatted with other people in the camp kitchen we were told, for what will not be the last time, that we have not left ourselves enough time to see everything this area (Noosa) has to offer.  We know that, we wish we had more time, but we are working with what we have and seeing what we can as we fly by.

After driving this thing for less than two hours I was responsible to reverse it in to a space next to a concert slab and have it line up pretty closely.  I was to do this with the help of Dave who stood in my blind spot (see comments above) and a reversing camera which allows me to see straight down from the roof as opposed to what is actually to the rear of my vehicle).  Dave made some rude comments but if you look at the first photo of this post I would argue that I did a reasonable job ON MY FIRST TRY, all things considered.

So tonight it would appear that BigCs plan when he booked this thing was that Dave and I would share a double bed (we have a king in Canada) while he and Monkey each get their own.  There are three bunks on this thing.  We'll start with his plan for tonight and see where things lead in the evenings to come.

Queensland Holiday Day 5

18 years ago, on Canada Day in Ottawa, a significantly younger girl met a tall handsome man.  That man introduced himself as "Dave, a teacher who is going to go and teach in Australia."  The rest is history.

Today that same girl met and fell in love with salted caramel Tim Tams. She says that she'd still pick Dave over the Tim Tams, but ideally if Dave would just show up WITH Tim Tams that would save the trouble of having to choose.

The day started off with a long overdue run. While I beat the pavement, my men packed up and got ready to head to the park for the final day.

Happy Canada Day from Dreamworld!!  

There are not many photos today.  We all hit the rides and stashed our phones.  You'll just need to take my word for it that much fun was had.

Tonight we are packing up and preparing for tomorrow's check out.  We have loved our stay at www.Broadwaterviews.Com.   I would strongly recommend it to anyone considering a trip like ours.

Tomorrow's plan?  Check out and pick up the CAMPERVAN.  That's right, it is finally that moment.

We discovered/remembered about 20 minutes ago that our logic 2 months ago was "let's just park the van by the side of the road on the first night".  We'd both forgotten that bit of stupidity. So using my mom's leftover data (thanks mom!) I used my phone and booked us in at the big4 in Noosa.

Stay tuned!  There will be photos if there is still data left on this card (Or wifi).