Here we are at the beginning of our third and longest caravan tour of Australia. It should be as good as last years and, hopefully, a lot better. We have such a long way to travel, from the east coast, up to the top and across to the west and back down to the south coast, across the Nullabor and back to Melbourne.
We arrived in Brisbane on 10th May and had 9 days with Nicola, Adrian, Brodie & Kaley at their home in North Lakes, north of Brisbane. This is a new satellite city only about half an hour from the centre of Brisbane, depending on the traffic of course! It was great catching up with them all and to find that they have settled in well at their jobs and schools. Even Raz the dog has finally got used to the change of temperatures.
Last Sunday we all went up to Caloundra for a picnic. That was the only day when the sun didn’t come out, but it wasn’t cold (for us anyway). We had a lovely day and Jim & I played soccer on the beach with the rest of the family and the girls hired kayaks. I found out very quickly that kicking a soccer ball with bare feet isn’t the best exercise. My big toe suffered for the next few days but it was all in a good cause, I think!
The photos are showing some of the building growth around North Lakes. This is all within a few blocks of Nicola’s home. We saw 4 new houses being trucked in within half an hour one morning. All the tradesmen start work about 7am and it is all on from there. There are new developments being opened up all the time and all the roading, medical services, shopping malls and parks are put in at the same time so that all services are up and running when the houses are ready. The growth is phenomenal. Mr Key, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, would give anything for this to be happening at home.
The other photo is of me taking Raz for a walk at 7.15am, please note 7.15 AM. My friends and family will be amazed at that as most days at that time I am still in my bed, waiting for my breakfast! It’s beautiful and sunny at that time of the morning here and, with Jim urging me on, I had no choice.
We picked up our 4WD the day after we arrived We had put covers on both the Prado and the caravan but with the heavy rain and wind that Queensland had over the summer, we were advised by the storers that they both tore and blew off. We thought both vehicles would be dirty but they weren’t too bad. We had put all sorts of pest repellents in the van and there were a couple of dead huge cockroaches in the van, so obviously they worked. We gave both vehicles a good clean and tidy and we are all back to normal once again.
We are now in Noosa and parked in a lovely park that we used last year. It is right on the Noosa Rived with lots of passing boats and ferries. There are plenty of walkways along the river. Tomorrow, Sunday, there is a huge bike race, triathalon, and half marathon so the whole of Noosa is almost in lock down from 4am to 2.30 pm. We are due to move on tomorrow to Mundubbera but can’t get out till 2.30pm so it will be a late arrival time.
We are catching up with 3 couples that we met on our first and second trips over the next 10 days so we’re looking forward to that. We will then head to Longreach with a stop at Emerald where we hope to do some fossiking. We may be lucky!
Our next blog will probably come from Longreach.
