REFLECTION

REFLECTION

42,000km's later I can honestly say that Australia is a beautiful country that has absolutely everything to offer. We met lots of awesome people and made some life long friends.

We all get so busy in day to day life, continually chasing the almighty dollar, paying off mortgages, dreading Mondays at work, paying bills and so on that sometimes spending time with family comes second. This trip has made our family unit stronger and we enjoyed and will always cherish the family time we had together this past year, without the monotonous interruptions that so many of us encounter.

As a family we enjoyed the most beautiful sunsets, spectacular sunrises, star filled sky's, flattest land, beautiful oceans and the whitest sand.

So many memories, too many to mention them all but the few that come to mind are;

Ayers Rock and the Olga's were breathtaking no matter how many times you saw it. I wouldn't rave about the change of colours during the sunset but the sheer size of the rock blew us away each and every time we saw it.

Daly Waters Pub - We will be back one day......I promise.

Devils Marbles - amazing experience and awesome night sky.

Loved Darwin. Loved the Mindil Beach Sunset Markets. Lots of bargains, yummy food, great atmosphere and awesome buskers.

Emma Gorge - beautiful....picture postcard perfect.

Broome was unforgettable and will be up in the favourites for us. Cable Beach rocks and we enjoyed the best time with our friends here.

Turquoise Bay in Cape Range had wow factor. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it. The Ningaloo Reef is the best reef I have ever seen. Coral Bay was a close second to Turquoise Bay and very similar but here we swam with a wild sea turtle which was pretty cool.

The Great Ocean Road was a good experience but it was so cold and windy that I want to do it again during warmer weather so I can enjoy it even more.

Esperance was beautiful and the colour of the water is unbelievable here. Its the bluest of blue and the sand, white as snow. Definitely will be back here one day.

Aborigines are an interesting race. Not all but most are their own worst enemy.

Port Hedland is a shit hole. Its like one huge building site.

Karajini was nice but overrated by our standards.

The Dog on the Tuckerbox is pretty small. Not what I expected.

Wolfe Creek was eery.

Bungle Bungles were awesome. The drive back to camp was long, it was dark and we were so hungry.

Gibb River Road was stressful but an achievement in itself. Wish we had given it more of a chance and did it at a slower pace. Really enjoyed the river crossings though.

Kakadu - Kakadont. Lychfield was better and would of been even better if it weren't for the mozzy's. Poor Alicia got attacked with mosquito bites.

Giant tree walk - pftt. Overpriced and boring.

Nullabor was so long but we enjoyed camping in the middle of nowhere.

The Great Australian Bight - Gobsmacked.

Wild emus and wild camels are always cool to see.

Giant Red Kanagaroos - where?????? no where to be seen but I am told they come out at night and we don't usually drive at night, not in the outback anyway (except for the Bungle Bungles and Cape Leveque where we did hit a kanagaroo but it was smallish).

Melbourne - Great food and great shopping.

Staying at free stays are so much fun. We met so many nice people and enjoyed many a drink around a blazing camp fire. The girls enjoyed toasting marshmallows and playing with other kids. Some of our best days or nights were spent at a free stay location.

2010 will be a year this family will never forget. What an experience!!!!!

OUR FINAL WEEKS

Our trip was slowly coming to an end. We felt a bitter sweet feeling, quite surreal actually.

A sweet feeling because we are looking forward to living in a house again and sad because our trip is almost over. It feels weird that we have no house to go home to or no job to return to but it is so exciting that we have choices.

We got to see most of our friends again and the girls got to catch up with some of their mates also. They have missed their friends so much.

Visiting the Browns at their new place.

The Jones's were nice enough to invite us to plonk our van on their driveway and stay with them for a bit. We spent Christmas there and then we joined them in Noosa where we celebrated New Years.

The girls woke up to lots of pressies under our huge Christmas tree.

 

Lilly and Dad on Christmas day enjoying the festivities

Taylah trying out her new art supplies

Alicia getting into the Christmas groove

Taylah and Lilly having a sing-along.

I couldn't get into New Years this year. I think I am over celebrating and I am looking forward to settling down. I did enjoy the long drives up the beach to Rainbow though and the kids enjoyed riding around on the quads and playing with all the other kids.

The Rainbow dunes in the distance and there's a storm coming

Its torture!

Although we are extremely grateful for our friends hospitality...... its time to head back to a caravan park for our last hoorah.

We booked and set up at the local caravan park in Scarborough. Its right on the water near the marina and next to a park. We really enjoyed it here. It was very relaxing and we felt at home. Strange but true.

The girls rode around on their scooters and enjoyed playing with some kids who are also staying here. Its still school holidays so theres quite a few kids about.

During our stay here the house hunting and the job hunting was in full swing and when we weren't doing that, we were taking the girls for walks along the water or to the park.

This is officially our last day of our trip. Tomorrow we will be moving into our rental property in Little Mountain and the furniture removalist is booked and ready to go in the morning.

Woohoo.......we love our life!!!!

As it turns out Scarborough brought us so much luck. During the week and had a job interview and I got the job. Its an awesome job on the Sunshine Coast and we managed to find a nice enough house close to the school in a nice neighbourhood and best of all, I am 10 minutes drive from work. Within weeks Waz also got a pretty good job and he's also 10 minutes drive from home and works close to my work.

The girls love their school and where they live.

First day at their new school

Lilly's first day at daycare

Dicky Beach

The beach is minutes away and that suits us just fine. Couldn't ask for a better start to our next chapter of our lives.

DAY 304 - 17/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

I woke up with sore arms which I am guessing, from yesterdays boogy boarding activities.

After breakfast I enjoyed an early morning walk and a scoot with Taylah and Lilly.

Today we decided to spend our last day on the Broadwater, down past the Spit. We manage to find a great little spot in a little alcove on the sand. We parked the car on the sand, opened all doors and 80's music was blaring from the car radio. The local radio station was having a special 80's music extravaganza.

We had packed lots of fruit and yummy snacks to feast on throughout the day. My goon bag also came along for the day.

The girls enjoy themselves playing in the sand, swimming and snorkeling. We even fished a little but didn't catch anything we could keep.

I really enjoyed just relaxing back on my banana lounge chair eating, drinking, watching the boats sail by while watching the kids play.

We had such a great, exhilarating and fun day today.

We had friends over for a BBQ dinner and the van park had another outdoor movie on tonight. After dinner the kids sat down on the deck chairs and watched the film while the adults sat in the camp kitchen socialising.

DAY 303 - 16/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

The van park puts on pancakes for breakfast this morning. Lots turn up to feast on these very yummy pancakes. Every condoment you can think of is on offer and there are so many pancakes that you can have as many as you want. We leave with our bellys full. Not another pancake can fit in.

After our awesome breakfast we head down to the beach. In contrast to yesterday the beach was very calm and inviting this morning. We spent the rest of the morning swimming in the surf and boogy boarding.

The girls and I started searching and finding pipi's. Alicia wanted me to make pipi sauce which I will make for her tonight.

Back to the van park for the girls craft session in the games room. Today they decorated personalised backpacks. Hours of fun for them and quiet time for us. Bliss.

Grocery shop in the afternoon.

Alicia gets her pipi sauce for dinner then shortly after an early bed for all.

DAY 302 - 15/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

Early wake up followed by an early breakfast then down to the beach for a swim.

Our beach is closed due to dangerous rips but we see there are flags further down and we walk to them. Its still a little rough between the flags so we don't go too far in and remain where we can tread water.

Back to camp for morning tea then off to our business meeting. Looks good, sounds good but we're still not sure. Best to leave this sort of thinking when our trip is over.

Our afternoon is pretty cruzy back at the van park. Taylah is playing cricket with the kids in the next street over and Alicia and Lilly take a dip in the pool. I read my book and Waz surfs the web.

DAY 301 - 14/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

Early morning beach visit and then a dip in the pool.

Alicia and Taylah have a craft class in the rec room today and made some dream catches.

Back in the pool after lunch and then early showers because Waz and I have a business meeting with an old boss of mine whom we bumped into coming out of the surf yesterday. He invited us over to his place which is a huge apartment overlooking Main Beach with million dollar views. So this is how the other half live. Not bad, not bad at all.

We go to todays meeting and we have another scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at his place of work. Not sure if we are too keen on his proposal and not too sure that we fully understand the whole concept behind currency trading which is what its all about but we will decide tomorrow.

Enough of boring business meetings and back to the fun stuff. A quick scoot around the park looking at peoples Christmas decorations. Lilly spots an inflatable Santa just a bit down from us. It lights up and goes up and down the chimney.

Tonight after dinner, we take the girls to the outdoor movie, Toystory 3. The big screen is down the end of our street on the grassy area near the camp kitchen and if you get there early enough you can snag a deck chair....which the girls do.

The park is getting quite full and everyone is in Christmas spirit and many vans are decorated with fairy lights. Some even have these huge Christmas trees. Everyones out in huge gatherings eating, drinking laughing. You can tell some have been coming here a while and they all seem to know one another. I thought our decorations were good but ours are quite simple compared to others.

DAY 300 - 13/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

Day 300, woohoo. I woke up fairly early this morning with a killer sore throat. Dropped some pain killers then back to bed.

Back up at 9.30 and feeling much better.

Today was the hottest day so far on the Gold Coast. And what better way to spend a beautiful Gold Coast day than to spend it at the Centrelink office in Southport. On a positive note the trip to Centrelink turned out pretty good. Not there long and all our personals were sorted out by a very competent gentleman who is definately underpaid for his efforts.

Off to the beach for the rest of this glorious day. Water temps were fantastic and the clearest I've seen it.

Back to camp for the afternoon and Lilly takes a dip in the pool while I laze about on the banana chair reading.

Calamari, prawn skewers and hot chips for dinner. Yumo!

Early night.

DAY 299 - 12/12/2010 - Main Beach, QLD

We wake up to another rainy day and I am feeling a little fuey. I seem to have caught Taylah's coughing bug.

Tonight's carols are on at Burleigh Beach but if this rain continues they may be cancelled.

The rain eases and eventually stops and the carols go ahead as planned. What a line up.......Lots of past Australian Idol singers and Santa is arriving in a helicopter. They really know how to throw a carols here.

We got some takeaway pizza, wine, beers and softdrink for the kids and plonked ourselves on a picnic blanket in amongst the other carollers. Hundreds if not thousands have come out to enjoy this Christmas festivity. Alicia and Taylah love going to Carols and are very happy that it was not cancelled. Our Carni mates met us here and we also managed to bump into some old childhood mates, the Nelson's. They live close by and I had a feeling we would see them here. We haven't seen them in a few years and they have invited us back to their house when the carols are over with.

Shortly before the fireworks were due to go off we moved from the grassed area and made our way onto the beach. It was so much better here. Even the speaker quality was better from here. We should of come here from the beginning.

The fireworks display was quite impressive and the girls had a ball playing tiggy with other kids on the sand.

We lost Lilly for a brief moment. I panicked because there were kids everywhere and it was dark down by the water and I knew thats where she probably would be and sure enough she was.

Went back to the Nelson's house after the carols and had a great catch up with them. Thier kids have grown up so much since we last saw them which we worked out to be at least 4 years ago. Didn't leave their place till 2am with a very drunk husband and 3 very tired children.