Calliope River - QLD

24th June - 26th June 2014

This is a nice free camp and a very popular spot.  You are only supposed to stay here for a maximum of 48 hours, but unfortunately lots of people abuse this privilege and stay longer.

You were not permitted to have fires, but it had beautiful lush green grass and hills for the kids to ride and run around on.  A man we met at Woodgate Caravan Park also camped here for one night, so it was nice to have a cuppa and a chat with him.

Another camper was a hairdresser and she was doing cuts for $10.  Stuart and the boys had a well overdue haircut right there on the side of the river!  She did quite a few haircuts that day, not a bad way to earn some money on the road!

On the Calliope River there was a Historical Village, so we went a checked it out.  It was quite interesting finding out about the history of the area.

Our next stop is in a caravan park as we need to have a shower and fill up our water tank!

Our camp

At the historical village

Woodgate - QLD

20th June - 24th June 2014

We arrived in Woodgate and the town didn't disappoint.  It's a lovely secluded little town right on the beach. We stayed at The Woodgate Beach Caravan Park.  Stuart's grandparents frequented this park every year for about 15 years.  The afternoon we arrived there was a singalong in the camp kitchen, all the grey nomads were so welcoming even though we had kids!  Some we have come across were not so!!

As we had been at Fraser Island l had a lot of washing to catch up on and the boys needed to do some school work.  In the afternoon we walked across to the beach and had a fish, didn't catch anything but it was enjoyable anyway!

We met a lovely family at the caravan park, Maree and John have 4 kids so plenty for Josh and Ash to play with!!  I found it very interesting chatting to them as their lifestyle is so extremely different to ours.  They live about 1 hour out of Moree on a property of 28,000 acres!  The  kids had a great time together and we exchanged details to keep in contact.

We had some lovely walks / runs / rides along the Woodgate boardwalk which was very relaxing.  Our next stop is a free camp at Calliope River.

Woodgate Beach Caravan Park

Fraser Island - QLD

16th June - 19th June 2014

Whilst at Fraser Island we stayed at the Eurong Beach Resort.  Fraser Island isn't suitable for caravans, so we stored our caravan at Tin Can Bay for three nights.   The boys were very excited to be in an actual hotel room!  Fraser Island is entirely covered in sand and is heritage listed and can only be access by 4WD vehicles.

There is so much to see on Fraser Island and very dependent on tides etc so trying to fit everything in was quite a challenge!  We arrived on Fraser Island late morning so went and unpacked and had some lunch. The tides were in our favour that day so we took a drive on the beach.  The speed limit on the beach is 80 kms so you can cruise along quite quickly!  Before too long we spotted a dingo roaming the beach, glad we were in the car!  We drove up to the Maheno shipwreck and took a few photo's.  Just back from the shipwreck is Eli Creek.  This is a gorgeous creek that is almost crystal clear.  We had a splash around there and headed back for the day.

The next day we headed inland onto the 4WD tracks.  We followed a track which covered most of the inland lakes.  The drive was spectacular, covering some beautiful forest.  We covered Lake Boomanjin, Lake Benaroon, Lake Birrabeen and the most popular of all Lake McKenzie.  We spent quite a bit of time at Lake Birrabeen enjoying the crystal clear blue water.  After visiting both Lake Birrabeen and Lake McKenzie both Stuart and l preferred Lake Birrabeen!  We stopped at Central Station for lunch then headed for Lake McKenzie.  It was clear we had come at the wrong time of day as there wasn't a lot of sun on the water.

On day three we travelled to Lake Wabby.  We went in via the inland road and plan to come back on the beach as the tide should be right by then.  Lake Wabby itself is quite small but the sand dunes which surround the lake are amazing.  Josh and Ash were loving running up and down the beautiful dunes.  We went back to the hotel via the "beach road" and l had a drive!  First time driving on sand and loved it!  You just have to be aware of other cars, people, dingo's and charter planes!

On our final day we went back to Lake McKenzie and discovered it in a better light!  Ashton was testing his snorkel out and Josh made a fantastic sand castle on the beach.  After that it was time to make our way to Kingerfisher Bay and catch the barge back to the mainland.

Fraser Island is simply amazing and by far the most beautiful place we have visited to date! It should be on everyone's bucket list!

Waiting for the barge, ready to go!

The barge

We have arrived!

Eurong Beach Resort, a tad different from the Caravan!

Our first dingo sighting

Maheno Shipwreck

Eli Creek

Lake Birrabeen

Ashton underwater at Lake Birrabeen

Lake Birrabeen

Lake Birrabeen

Inland 4WD Track

Lake Wabby lookout

The boys on the sand dunes at Lake Wabby

Lake Wabby

 Lake Wabby sand dunes, the boys in the distance

Lake McKenzie

Lake McKenzie

Ashton swimming at Lake McKenzie

Tin Can Bay (QLD)

13th June - 16th June 2014

Tin Can Bay itself is a small town with not a lot to do, but lots of places nearby to see.  We based ourselves here as it was cheaper than Rainbow Beach and they offered us caravan storage while we were on Fraser Island.

Our first full day we spent doing a bit of school work in the morning and then in the afternoon took at drive to Rainbow Beach.  Stu was quite excited to drive on the beach, pretty cool!  We took the boys to a spot on the beach called "Coloured Sands".  There are supposed to be 72 different colours of sand on Rainbow Beach, hence it's name!  Stuart had remembered collecting the coloured sand when he was here as a young boy, so we did the same!  We took our jars and the boys collected some coloured sand!  The dunes were amazing to see and the boys had a blast running up and down them.  Josh had so much fun he wanted to come back the next day!!

Tin Can Bay itself is probably best known for its Dolphin feeding.  Every day around 8am a pod of dolphins come into the bay to have a feed.  They are wild dolphins and just do this by habit, so timing is not exact.  So off we went at 7.45am in the drizzling rain to fed the dolphins.   8.30am came, no dolphins, 9.30am still no dolphins!  We stuck it out till 10am and left feeling disappointed.  Apparently they eventually came into feed at 11am!

The next day we were off to Fraser Island for 3 nights, so only had one more chance to feed the dolphins on the day we were to depart Tin Can Bay.  Fingers crossed we get to see them!

We had a fantastic 3 nights at Fraser Island and were absolutely exhausted, but this morning was our last chance to see the famous dolphins of Tin Can Bay!!  We arrived at the beach just when 2 dolphins arrived, great, phew!  The early morning was worth it!!  We were allowed to view the dolphins from the beach whilst they were swimming around and getting ready to be fed.  One was a mum "Ella" she was 35 years old and her baby "Squirt" was 2 years old.  Squirt was still fed by his mother milk, so no fish for him.  The handler explained to me how baby dolphins have "milk whiskers".  The baby rub their milk whiskers under the mum's tummy and it sends a sensation through the mother.  This sensation pops out the mothers nipple for the baby to drink on!  When they are finished drinking, the nipple pops right back in again!  Once the baby looses it's milk whiskers, it's no more milk for them!

After viewing the dolphins people who were wanting to feed them formed a line.  As l was chatting to the handler about milk whiskers, we ended up being last in line to feed.  There was only about 10 more people to feed the dolphin and then Ella swam off taking her baby with her!  The boys were devastated, so close but still didn't get to feed them!  We hung around for a bit longer and suddenly saw another 2 dolphins coming in for their feed, phew!  So it all ended well, the boys got to feed the dolphins twice in the end!

Stu happy to be driving on Rainbow Beach!

Josh & Ash with their sand bottles - Rainbow Beach

Fun on the sand dunes - Rainbow Beach

Crazy boys! - Rainbow Beach

Tin Can Bay Dolphin Feeding

 Ashton feeding the dolphin

Josh feeding the dolphin

Tewantin (Noosa) - QLD

9th June - 13th June 2014

We arrived in sunny Noosa and it was raining, not for long though!  We stayed at the Noosa Caravan Park which was nice but quite tight sites!

Whilst in Noosa we caught up with Mary & Geoff Drake, who are in Noosa on their annual trip up north. We visited them at their caravan park which was right on Noosa river.  Stu and l had a lovely time catching up with Mary and Geoff and the boys had a lovely time playing in sand on the river.

We hired a boat on the Noosa river.  The river was amazing, so many beautiful houses!!  We tried a few different fishing spots, but that didn't go so well!!  I caught a throw back Brim and was the only one that got a fish in the boat!  Stu almost caught a lovely flathead, but he got off!  After a bit of fishing we pulled up on the river bank and had some lunch.  It was a nice day out, but Josh was disappointed he didn't catch a fish!

Next stop is Tin Can Bay!

Visiting Mary & Geoff Drake

Noosa River

 Noosa River

My big catch!

Redland Bay / Victoria Point (Brisbane QLD)

30th May - 9th June 2014

We arrived in Redland Bay and are parking the caravan in my sister Andrea's driveway.  The boys think this is awesome, it's like a free camp but it has a pool!  My mum, Elaine only lives about 10 minutes away so it will be nice to spend some quality time catching up.  As it happens it's going to be a bit of a family re-union, my sister Cheryl and brother in law Gary, are also visiting from New Zealand.

Our time here is spent catching up with family, enjoying lots of lunches, dinners and rowdy times together! It's not very often we all catch up so we made the most of it.  The boys also loved visiting their big cousins Sarah and Mitchell.  We also caught up on some of the more mundane tasks, washing, cleaning the van and school work!

My cousin Kim and her husband Wayne came from Noosa to visit.  We had a yummy lunch and had a great catch up.  It was lovely to see them both, it had been quite a while!

Mum treated myself, Cheryl and Gary to a visit to the Salt Sanctuary.   None of us had ever experienced this before.  It was very relaxing sitting in a room filled with salt, and quite amusing seeing Gary wearing a hair net!  The salt is meant to be great for all sort of ailments.

Andrea and Bruce took us on a day trip on their boat to a little beach called Jumping Pin.  It's just opposite South Stradbroke Island.  My newphew Mitchell and his mate Mitch were camping there for the long weekend.  On our way in the boat we were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins.  We arrived at the beach, cooked up some lunch, had a fish and chilled out.  A great time was had by all.

Unfortunately we must leave the comfort of my sisters house and continue our journey!  Our next stop is Noosa.

Family picture

Mum, Ray, Josh and Ash

Josh fishing at Jumping Pin

Gold Coast - QLD

22nd May - 30th May 2014

Well we've finally crossed the border and made it to Queensland!  We stayed at the Big 4 on the Gold Coast which is right near the theme parks.  Only downside it's right on the Pacific Highway and very noisy! A definite plus was the amazing toilet amenities!  The best l have seen so far!  The park also put on free pancakes on a Sunday morning and a sausage sizzle on Tuesday night!  We stayed here for about a week to make the most of our 21 day theme park pass.

Most of our time was spent at Dreamworld and Whitewater World.  We all loved the theme parks but were very exhausted!  We'll be glad to have a break at our next stop!  Our tickets included a visit to the Q1 Observation Deck, we got some lovely photos of the Gold Coast from here.

We also caught up with David and Lisa Wilson, friends from Melbourne who were holidaying in the Gold Coast.  It was lovely to see some familiar faces!

Next stop is Redland Bay (Brisbane) to catch up with some of my family.

Dreamworld

 Dreamworld

View of Gold Coast from Q1