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Published: October 25th 2009
For those of you who are faithful blog readers you have probably been wondering where on earth we have got to. For the others, you are probably grateful that we have gone silent.
The reason there has been no word from us is that we have been travelling a route that we travelled on our last trip and it would have been repeating myself. But a quick overview ....
Like last time, we spent a couple of weeks in Gracemere, just outside Rockhampton where we enjoyed the company of John's family. He has two daughters, one son and two grandchildren living in the area and we spent some great times with them. The heat was unbearable and we found a wonderful escape from it at Emu Park, right on the beach. There is a shady park there right near a great bakery and ice-cream shop and we spent two entire days there, just chatting, eating and walking the dogs on the beach while the children played in the water. There is a nice caravan park there but unfortunately it does not allow dogs to stay there so was out of the question for us but the place itself is well worth
the drive from Rockhampton. We sadly said goodbye to them and made our way down to Nambour on the Sunshine Coast, staying at the most amazing free camping area just north of Gin Gin on route. Two toilet blocks, plenty of fresh water and huge flat camping area.
In Nambour we stayed at the Woombye Tourist Park and were given spacious areas for our caravans. Trevor has a branch of the Bennett family living here resulting from his Dad's Uncle emigrating back in the early 1900's and in fact there are more Bennett's in this area than back in WA. Everyone made us so welcome and while there we visited a family member who has a 120 acre property where they breed race horses, having about 40 at last count. We all enjoyed a huge afternoon tea with them and then Millie and I had a guided tour around the property, stables etc., and saw the three new day old foals with their Mums. We had the biggest downpour of rain, I swear if you were out in it it would have drowned you. Everyone was thrilled as they are in desperate need of rain having had a very dry
winter, and for us it washed the dust off the cars and caravans, unfortunately the bat poo is harder to shift.
The caravan park was set in acres of cleared rainforest with the actual rainforest fringing the property. Huge water dragon lizards up to one metre long sat around our carvan all the time waiting for us to feed them scraps. One evening a man who actually lives in the residential part of the park called to ask if we would like to see a visitor he had under his verandah - an 8ft python !!! Pat and I stayed where we were while Trevor and John went to investigate. Yuk. I for one have had enough of reptiles to last me a long time.
From here we moved on down to the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, and stayed at the same park we stayed in the last time we were in the area, at Helensvale. We put our dogs into the kennels for a few days while we did a few non-doggy things. We drove up on to Mt Tambourine and found the most enchanting village with views down over the Gold Coast to die for. A trip
to Jupiter's Casino would not normally have been on our agenda as we are not gamblers but felt it would be interesting. We allowed ourselves $20 (again unheard of) and came away with a profit of $45. This we pocketed and ran.
Next on our agenda was Coffs Harbour, a real favorite with us all. This time we chose Moonee Beach Caravan Park, a beautiful bay with a river tributary. There are the most lovely walks around the bay and onto the headland where you can see right up and down the coast, with the lovely fresh air blowing through your hair, a nice change from the heat of the previous few months. Pat and John have lovely friends living in Coffs, Brigita and Axle and we enjoyed some good times with them, being made very welcome into their home. Old friends of ours from our days in Sorrento also live in nearby Bellingen and it was so good to catch up with Diane, Ted and Kate, again we were made so welcome. One thing that sticks in my mind is when Diane related to a time recently when she found a huge python trying to strangle Kate's pet guinea
pig in their back garden. Apparently Diane beat off the python with a stick and managed to get the little pet away from it but sadly it did not survive. I wonder what our friends and family living in the UK would have made of that.
A very talented country singer that Michelle and Jeremy introduced us to (Craig Stuart) is appearing tonight at the Kempsey Heights Bowling Club (Kempsey being the birthdplace of Slim Dusty) so here we are at the Tourist park, the boys are watching the V8 Supercars racing on the Gold Coast on TV, Pat is trying to repair her computer and I am happy to be talking to you again whilst cooking sausage rolls for John as they are his all time favorite. They give me lots of brownie points !!!
Now back in the saddle I will be relating our travels to you again until we reach home. We have decided to be home for Christmas as we all are missing home and our families but we still have about 6 weeks of travelling to do, making our trip almost 7 months. Sydney and Melbourne both to conquer yet ....
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El & Nic
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See you soon!
Hi guys - good to read another great blog. Just wanted to thank Marilyn for the lovely throw we just received - you are clever, and the colour is perfect - talk to you on the weekend! lots of love El, Nic and CJ xxx