The next place keeps getting better!

After leaving the BIG4 Holiday park with all the screaming kids, Bowen Tropical park was the perfect place. This was a quiet park and there were only 2 other trailers besides us. We were 4 feet from the ocean and next to the picnic area with tables and BBQ. We enjoyed this spot! We seemed to be getting out of the busy area's.

Have a look at this short video

 

Very relaxing place
 

Our next stop was Townsville. It wasn't an exciting place we relaxed after a walk down the beach. All the towns we stop in have great beaches and waterfront parks.

 

 

 

Our next stop is Mission Beach. We were told this would be a good stop. It's a great little town and our Caravan park was great. We went for a walk on the beach and the a swim in the pool.

 

We saw these patterns on the beach. You can see it's some little critter that cleans out his hole and spits out the sand to make these patterns. 





 Looks like a flower!

 

We found the swimming area on the beach but we decided to pass. I don't trust those nets!

 

 You can see the nets in the water to stop stinging jelly fish, sharks, crocks!

 

Back to the pool for a swim!

 

 

Next to our camp site was this strange tree. I have seen these on TV before. These things have seeds inside and when they fall they smash open and the inside seeds are let out and it smells really bad. I think the smell is to keep animals and birds from eating the seeds. Some of them are as big as a pumpkin.

 

This is what it looks like driving around the Cairns area. Narrow roads and high sugar cane.

 

Today we are in Cairns and we won't be getting many pictures here. A little bit of rain will keep us inside.

 

Tannum Sands

 

Tannum Sands was a great spot with a great pool. Most of the caravan parks have everything you need.

 Beach

 We are getting further north so that means we have to be carful where we go swimming. No swimming near the river in Tannum Sands.

Yep Crocks here!

 

Australia is great!

Here are some of the pictures of the park area in Tannum Sands. Every town is the same. The have beautiful parks with sheltered picnic areas with free BBQ's and washrooms, all very clean and well kept.  That's every town every where. It's great and it's free!

 

Next stop Bundaberg and we stayed at a caravan site in town but didn't take pictures. Not the best place in town but it was close to the rum factory. Up early on Monday then to the Bundaberg rum factory. We didn't go on the tour. I was more interested in the end product!

 

Our next stop was a small place called Clarview. nice spot on the ocean but again NO SWIMMING sharks and crocks. 

 No one swimming on this beach

Laurie resting

 Great view of the ocean and some islands in the Whitsundays

We had such a great tropical breeze we left the back door open all night



 



Today we are in Arlie Beach at the BIG4 Holiday Park. This park is for the kids! Laurie loves it here!

 Our site for the night.

 

 

Tomorrow we have a short day, next stop Bowen.

 

Moving North and it's getting hotter!

Our next stop was Mudjimba Caravan Park. Before leaving Beachmere park we took a video of the bats "Flying Foxes". These bats are about as big as a Red Tail Hawk and the feed on fruit and nectar. These bats are having a rough time right now. In Sydney they reported that 400 Flying Foxes have died from the heat. Australia is having record breaking temperatures, the highest in 80 years.

Our next stop Mudjimba was a family caravan park with lots to do for the kids. We went to the beach for a while then stayed by the pool until the day cooled off.

 Here they are setting up a movie screen for kids movies.

 Here is the pizza man. Every thing is on the trailer. He comes in once a week and they line up for great pizza

We only stayed 1 night in Mudjimba then we moved on to Rainbow Beach. This is a nice little town and we had a great spot just across the road from the park and beach. That means a cool breeze and no mosquitoes. This beach was very nice BUT the wind was blowing in some algae so we stayed around the pool area. This beach was also used to drive on if you had a 4 wheeler.

 It was a beautiful beach

 We could watch the people come down with parachutes.

Also watch the people kite flying

Yesterday we had a few visitors over for snacks!

 





Here's a video of our visit.

 

 

Tomorrow were head up some where near Bundaberg.

 

It's getting hot here!

Summer is settling in and the days are very hot. Most days finish with a thunder storm and then the night cools off for sleeping. We have still been going to the beach most days and we will go to the beach where we can take "Blue" Mark and Cherie's dog. The beaches here are great for the dogs.

This is Laurie and Blue

 

Lots of people bring there dogs but as you can see some bring there horse!

 

 

 

We finally picked up our camper van on Monday and it's a great little van. We picked it up in Brisbane and that was close to Ken and Sharon's house so we stopped in there to borrow a few more things like chairs, table, and sun shade and Sharon was kind enough to gather some things we will need. Thank you Sharon for being so thoughtful. So after we left Ken and Sharon's house our first stop is Beachmere about an hour and a half north of Brisbane. It was a nice camp spot but the beach was not so great. It doesn't matter right now about the beach because we have to settle our things in the van. We will stay here for 2 days then move on.

 

It looks like a pretty good set up!



 

As we were driving to our first camp spot we saw the mileage sign " Cairns 1695 Kilometers" We plane to go a little past Cairns to Port Douglas. Lots more driving to do!

 

 

Happy New Year

 

Today January 5 2018 I have been thinking about 2017. The year started off in Nassau Bahamas and we were having a great adventure sailing into the unknown. We had learned a lot sailing from Oakville to Florida but now we were going to learn a lot more than we expected. Every day was a new adventure and every day meant more work to do on the boat. We were fixing and cleaning trying to keep the boat in the best condition that was possible. We were always making improvements on board to keep up with the new challenges ahead. We spent New Years Eve with our new friends Jack and Diane and Tom and Louise. As we traveled through the Bahamas together we experienced beautiful beaches, great weather, grocery stores with expensive and very little food and bad weather squalls. We met a lot of wonderful people in the Bahamas and we were sad we had to move on and leave all our new friends behind. But we new we had a great adventure ahead of us. We had a bad time trying to leave the Bahamas with a steering problem but we over came that problem. Arriving in the Turks and Cacaos we met more wonderful people as we waited for another weather window to move on to the Dominican Republic. Sailing through the Dominican and Puerto Rico was more difficult than we thought but we made it and learned a lot more about sailing through the islands. Sailing from Puerto Rico to St Martin was a little easier but still a challenge. The lose of our boat Mauna Kea is still in our minds and we will never forget what happened September 6 2017. There was nothing we could do but to move forward so now we visit family in Australia and heal from our lose. When we arrive home we will look for a place to live and start over again. We know we have had a great lose but we also have to look back at our experiences and be grateful for what we have experienced. We will look forward to 2018 and I know this will be a great year.