Townsville & Mission Beach QLD (May - 2 & 3 days)

Townsville was a bit of a mixed bag in all. We stayed in a very average caravan park as the ‘recommended’ one was booked out until September! We ended up alongside a series of permanent residents at the ‘shady’ end of the park. One grumpy old man came and told us to pipe it down at 6.30pm as he was trying to sleep! The children were being fantastic at the time and Annabelle was simply having a not-so-loud tap on the bongos.

The highlights of Townsville did include a great water playground for the kids, the amazing ‘Castle Hill’ (massive rock formation) that boasts spectacular views of the town and a visit to Reef HQ – national education centre for the Great Barrier Reef. This is a specialist aquarium really, but is was great to see and learn more about the reef and the kids really enjoyed it.

Our unplanned lunch stop on route to Mission Beach found us at a beautiful spot (Jourama Falls) where the children fed turtles in the water and Tim trekked in to an impressive boulder-lined creek and waterfall. This experience reminded us that this is what this trip is all about – experiencing these delights of nature as a family and discovering these magical spots along the way. It is so thrilling to be enjoying these wonders on an almost daily basis. Places that we may not otherwise ever visit. This trip truly is a once in a lifetime!

Mission Beach was quite beautiful and quiet. It was unfortunately rather wet, but this turned out to be quite good for walking through spectacular rainforest areas. We went on some lovely rainforest walks in search of the elusive Cassowary, a large flightless bird native to north-east Queensland. (Mission Beach happens to host a fair number of them). We searched by foot and car, sure that we would see one with ease, as signs to take care of Cassowaries on the roads were posted every kilometre or so! The closest we came was a pile of Cassowary poo! It turns out that they really are a protected species and there is only approx 50 adults dwelling in the Mission Beach area. After reasonable efforts hunting for a glimpse of one we felt quite cheesed when the grey nomads across from us (who had barely set foot off their annex pad), reported sighting one from the comfort of their RV, on the side of the road as they arrived in town!

We certainly noticed the change from the dry tropics of Townville to the arrival of the wet tropics in Mission Beach. Its quite lush up here, more humid and the rainforests are much denser and truly tropical in feel.

Kate has been doing remarkably well on the bug front, coping exceptionally with leeches in the rainforest, flying insects in the van, frogs in the shower etc. Tim has developed quite a fetish for maps of every kind and he now loves visiting the Tourist Information Centres to stock up! Georgie is talking a little more and looks slightly closer towards taking her first steps. Hannah keeps asking "When are we going around Australia?" Harrison recently bought some binnoculars that remain glued to his head wanting to look at everything up close. Annabelle continues to be very helpful with Georgia and is capturing many special moments with her interest in photography. The kids continue to soak up the experience and are getting on very well.

Heading north tomorrow. Destination still undecided! (How unplanned, lovely and free!)

Bowen QLD (May - 3 days)

Bowen has been beautiful and we are thrilled we decided to stop off here! It certainly is a gem on the tropical Queensland coastline. The water conditions haven’t been the best for snorkelling, but the natural beauty of the place has more than made up for that. It has been nice to have a reprieve from the mangroves and mudflats as the beaches here are sandy and framed by a gorgeous landscape of spectacular boulders.

It has been a treat for all having a great site right on the waters edge, looking out to islands on the Pacific. The kids have had a great big play area in front of the van and have been able to run around and down onto the beach. We’ve had some lovely walks and plays at the beach with our wonderful travelling friends. The kids are having such a ball together and it’s going to be hard to say goodbye in a few days time.

We’re off to Townsville tomorrow.

Airlie Beach QLD (May - 7 days)

We have really enjoyed our time at Airlie Beach. We will be here another two or three days, (7-8 days in total). We are staying alongside our travelling friends from Melbourne and are striking up quite a friendship with them. The children are having a ball together. It is going to be quite sad to farewell them at Townsville where they turn around.

The colour of the water here is quite beautiful and there is a great public foreshore area in town. Although the ocean is unswimmable, due to the dreaded marine stingers, we have not missed our ocean dips too much because of the magnificent public lagoon on the foreshore. The council here have very tastefully built an amazing lagoon (several Olympic swimming pools worth in total) with beach areas, beautifully landscaped surrounds and depths to suit everyone. Photos just can’t do it justice, but it has been a fabulous place to swim with the kids while looking out to the Whitsunday islands.

We ventured out to the islands yesterday on a cruise to get a small taste of the Whitsundays. Kate, Annabelle and Harrison snorkelled off Hook Island donned in ‘stinger suits’ (lots of good laughs for all!). Although the snorkelling was all too brief, we did see some gorgeous fish and coral, especially when the fish were being fed - they were close enough to touch. It certainly gave the kids a taste for snorkelling and we are looking forward to more as we head up the reef. We also went on an underwater viewing boat and saw some amazing coral (it was good to see that there are still colourful parts of the reef left). We then went to pristine Whitehaven Beach and enjoyed some swimming and playing (the kids were keen to run around after being on the boat). The cruise ended with a short stop at Daydream Island which was definitely the low point of the trip. A great day in all, lots of laughs and lovely just cruising by the various islands.

Moving on to Bowen (for more snorkelling) in a few days time, then to Townsville.

Mackay to Airlie Beach QLD (May - 6 days)

Our highlight of Mackay was a gorgeous day trip to Eungella and Finch Hatton Gorge on Mother’s Day. This area is approximately one hour west of Mackay. Eungella set high in the ranges reminded us very much of Comboyne (inland from Port Macq). The gorgeous view from the top of the range showed a beautiful array of sugar cane fields. We also went in search of platypus in their natural habitat in ‘Broken River’, but were outside their best viewing times. We did however spot many little turtles swimming happily about. At Finch Hatton Gorge (at the base of this range), we walked in through lush rainforest to a magical gorge and swimming hole. The water was freezing, but as we had the place all to ourselves and had built up a sweat walking in, all but Georgie braved a dip. Harrison adored climbing over the smooth boulders.



Today we arrived in Airlie Beach. The water off the coast is beautiful and we look forward to exploring the area a little more this week. We are hoping to meet up with our first travelling companions (a young family with two girls 4 and 6, also travelling – from Melbourne). We have so far crossed paths at Byron, Mackay and now probably here in Airlie.

Everyone is well and happy. We are getting used to our little space. Our travelling companions even remarked how quiet our four were as they had not heard much from them. This amazed Tim and myself who often have ringing ears from the din!

As a side note, we feel we are becoming more seasoned aussie travellers as we have adopted the 'RV (recreational vehicle) wave'. First noticed around Byron Bay we now laugh and reciprocate the wave with each passing caravan.

Tannum Sands, Kinka Beach (Yeppoon) & Mackay QLD (May - 4 days)

We were a little sad to leave our lovely camping spot at Hervey Bay. This was actually at Point Vernon in a caravan park which was nothing super dooper, but neat and tidy with only 20 metres between us and the playground and pool (with very few other campers around at all). The morning we left Hervey Bay we still were unsure about which route we wanted to take as we headed off, which was quite an exciting feeling to think ‘where do we want to head to today’?

The actual journey north has been quite picturesque with gorgeous landscapes and amazing colours. Our travels led us to Tannum Sands on the coast. Much to my horror after booking in for 2 nights we learnt that it was actually sandfly city! The kids enjoyed a wonderful playground on the foreshore there and beautiful pool but I felt like the sandfly (midge) monitor, constantly reminding the family to zip up the annex, close the van door etc. Despite our best efforts and various repellents etc. we all left with quite a few bites, with Harrison and myself proving to be the most tasty. (I would certainly prefer a mozzie bite to one from a sandfly any day). ‘Midges’ leave you itching for weeks with blisters and sometimes sores! The problem is that you can barely see the little critters and worst of all we have learnt that they fly through the regular mesh of your van screens and are attracted by your lights on at night!...So even living indoors is no protection. We have discussed replacing our screens with ‘midge mesh’ which has been recommended for travelling.

Visiting the local Community Church in Tannum Sands was great in the sense of seeing others worship our great God, but it made Tim, the children and I really pine for ‘The Point Community Church’ and our wonderful church family there.

We then moved on to Kinka Beach, just south of Yeppoon. Here (as with much of this coast) the low tidal sand flats and mangroves that meet the sea predominate. The beach looked lovely at high tide but at low tide was not terribly appealing. The sea is very flat (quite different compared to beautiful Lighthouse!). We did however look out over the Keppel Islands and Great Keppel which looked quite beautiful. The sandfly factor made us press on again after only one night.

We are now at Mackay after a long drive yesterday and are planning to stay for a week. The highlight of this long trip was retriving and opening coconuts from the palms at Clarview Beach that delighted the children!

Here at Mackay we have our own ensuite bathroom, which is such a treat and makes washing everybody much easier! This park is quite popular as it is apparently sandfly free, but the Smeads have already disproved this! We have spent some time researching midge protection/avoidance etc. We made up a home remedy to repell sandflies that we read about on the net. We are not yet sure how effective it is, but we will be well moisturised and our sores won’t get infected! (with 30% dettol). The itching is starting to drive me mad and sitting here now I am being bitten. Mackay is much of the same coastline – mud flats, mangroves etc. I am really hoping that we will emerge from this type of midge prone coastline as we head further north.

The van is working extremely well. Early on in the trip our dining table base broke which was quite fortuitous as we have turned this area in to our ‘lounge room’ complete with little rug. We just move our camp table in and out as we need for dinner. Tim’s handiness has been invaluable as he has made several van improvements to make our life more comfortable, including fitting a water filtration system to our main water supply (so we can drink and wash in safety around the country), upgrading the kitchen tap to a mixer, installing a flat screen TV/DVD/CD unit. The kids are generally going off to sleep well at night, but by about 3am we usually have Hannah or Georgia between us.

All in all we are still loving the experience and I am sure the challenges that we are facing will only bring us closer and make us stronger, more resourceful and resilient. We are trying to soak up each and every experience and not to rush things (after all we do have 8 months!).

Fraser Island QLD (April / May - 2 days)

We have just returned from two magical days on Fraser Island. We have all experienced some magnificent natural wonders such as the pristine freshwater lakes and creeks as well as the ‘champagne pools’ (large coastal sand-based rock pools) on the north end of the island.

We feel very fortunate not to have become bogged at any point, despite some very soft and deep sandy tracks that many other cars became stuck in. Well done to Tim who managed 240 kms without incident! We did however have a near miss with a light aircraft which was more than a little hair raising! We all became very skilled at hanging on during our inland trecks as the tracks were often extremely rough. Even Georgie had a firm grip on her car seat at these times. Annabelle, Harrsion and Hannah loved the four-wheel driving and shrieked and giggled in the back for much of the journey. We stayed the night at ‘Happy Valley’ on the east coast where we had dinner at the one restaurant there to celebrate Annabelle’s birthday.


After warnings and signs at every turn to beware of the dingoes, we all cheered as we finally saw two dingoes from the safety of the car during our last hour on the beach.


It is lovely also to be back home again (in the van!) and to finally rid the sand from our feet! (The island is quite unique in that there is only sand underfoot everywhere you go (no tar or footpaths, only the occasional boardwalk).

Definitely a spot we’d like to return to one day!