Off to Port Douglas

After all of the Christmas festivities, Chris and I started our very quick journey up to Port Douglas to meet our friends Chris and Sara.

We drove a little over 1500kms in two days and boy did we feel it the day after we got there!

Chris and I stopped at a place called Clairview, which was just off the highway, on the way up which was quite nice. The next day we headed up to Port Douglas stopping at Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns before reaching our destination. Out of all of that driving, I only managed to drive twice! Although the first time I drove was my very first time of driving with the caravan attached, so Chris had to remind me to breath every now and then!!! I was a little nervous to say the least, especially when trucks are passing.

Once we were about and hour from Cairns, it started absolutely pouring!!! It was extremely terrifying in some parts and there is no where to pull over. Most of the roads are only one lane with rare overtaking sections. Anyway we got through and I want to thank Dad for organising us to  get light truck tyres for the caravan because i am pretty sure they saved our life ten times over!

Unfortunately we decided to check the caravan to make sure we hadn't sprung any leaks. Yep we had! Doh!!! So we pulled the mattress down, away from the window, bodged it up and vowed to fix it later. At the same point, for some reason, Chris decided to check the battery, it was flat...hence the fridge was not working! Oh crap! Not again!!! (I have now purchased myself a wireless thermometre to keep track of that darn fridge!) So he will need to find out why thats not working properly. Oh well, hopefully the teething issues will die down soon. At least they weren't as dissappointing this time because we were half expecting them. At least our shower works beautifully now...no complaints in that quintesential department!

So we arrived at PD tired and cranky (Sorry Chris and Sara, they were very accomodating) had a great sleep and have been relaxing by the pool ever since. Chris is even reading a book!!! Shock Horror!

The boys have been doing some fishing and saw a crocodile (3ft) in the lake by the house (literally 100m from the front yard!). Chris caught some kind of fish that is normally associated with Barra, so of course the boys went to the BCF in Cairns to go get themselves the right ger to catch them!

Oh funny story too, we were driving to Cairns when we saw this little yellow car driving along with it's hatchback up. There was nothing in the back though. The boys thought he must of been doing it to get extra airflow or something, but i thought no way he musn't know it open. So I got Chris Aldren to yell out to him to tell him it was open and sure enough he pulled over and shut it!!! Yikes!!!

Back on Track

Well for the last couple of days we have been enjoying Christmas with our family. It has been absolutely lovely. We have been able to fix a few things on the caravan but we have been able to relax now because it seems to be under control now!

 

Pudding Flambe

Visiting Friends and Family

From Laurieton we drove onwards to Pete and Caro's place in Brighton,Brisbane. It seemed like a very long drive and we had to stop at a rest stop where i slept solidly for 45 mins. Chris and i couldn't believe it! Anyway we kept heading on and just before Balina, Chris felt like a Banana milkshake. So while he stopped for fuel, i kept driving so i could order us a coffee and a milkshake from the Macadamia Castle just past Balina.

Much to my disgust, Chris called me from the Macadamia castle and asked me where I was. I said "on my way to the Macadamia Castle still, I haven't missed it have I". Chris said, "no you can't miss it". Well it just so happened that while he took the Balina bypass, I acidently missed that sign and went through Balina. To make matters worse, Chris had waited for me to get there so we could order together but in the space of 10 mins they had shut! So I made a coffee in the caravan and we headed on.

We got to Caro and Pete's with no more major glitches and had a wonderful dinner at their friend Heather's. We enjoyed seeing the boys and John and Barbie for the first time in a very long time. We couldn't quite work out how long but it was too long anyway.

So we woke up the next morning to little Ethan (4yo) sticking his head in the window and saying,"I was creeping around your caravan while you were sleeping"! That started the day on a high and we enjoyed playing with the boys, having a swim and eating way too much! Thanks Caro :)

I must say Callum and Ethan gave me a workout playing bombs on the trampoline which consisted of dodgeing the many balls on the trampoline while jumping around! It was great fun!

Unfortunately we discovered a few errors on our parts that day:
1. I learnt that there hare two off switches on the fridge, so while we were driving to Brisbane I had the fridge on off rather than 12volt.

2. Chris did not turn the powerpoint on for the fridge for 240 volts, so for the two nights so far, when the fridge was switched to 240volts we were actually turning it off.

3. It's annoying when all of your food goes off!

4. We can't leave our freezer turned off overnight or even for a few hours, otherwise the temperature drops way too much!

Well I wanted to pack it in at this stage already but we perservered.

The boys bunkered down watching a dvd

Hamish, Ethan, Callum, Caro, Chris and Chantal

Pete, Caro, Chantal & Chris

First night out of town.

Due to our late departure, we only got to Laurieton where we found what looked like quite a rough Caravan park, but where we ended up camping was quite pretty.

We felt that we had done pretty well by this stage and we were happy with the van. The only issues we had were that the tyres were bulging a little under the weight of the caravan. And basically everything that was heavy was on the right hand side of the caravan! Also...we learnt that the caravan gets really hot unless you turn the air conditioning on or open all of the hatches and windows!

Anyway, here a few pics from the morning.

There's those PJ's again!

Finally time to hit the road!

Well after numerous Christmas parties and farewell's it was time for us to hit the road. We had a bit of a sleep in and slowly got ourselves ready. I think I prolonged the process by having a shower around lunch time! We got everything in the caravan nicely and were ready to go. So we said goodbye to Nana.

And then got in our separate cars for the first leg of the journey to Hervey Bay. We are leaving my car at Dad's so I drove that up. It was quite fun because we had the 2 way radios and it felt like a real adventure, plus we didn't have any arguments about how was driving!

But before we left, we went down to the warehouse to say goodbye to everyone and pick up/drop off a few things.

Our fake exit as were going in two cars...makes for a good pic though!

The Lancer departs :(

Well it was a sad day today when Chris had to say goodbye to his long standing project car. He had worked so hard on it, but it was just not possible for us to hold on to it any more. (I promise this wasn't my nagging that forced him into this decision, i think he had just had enough)

Packing the Caravan to go.

Well we got everything into our storage unit with literally an inch to spare! We only had a few boxes that didn't fit which was a lot less then i thought it was going to be. Half way through packing the storage unit I had to throw up a prayer that it would all fit in because it sure did'nt look like it was going to. Thankfully our prayers were heard and answered!!! Thanks to Jimmy, Devit, Chantal (not me), Dad and Mum for helping us with the move :)

All of the stuff waiting to go in even though we have already half filled the unit by this stage!!! PLUS  atill a trailer load and car full to be unpacked! Chris did an extremely good job of packing!!!

Everything had been chucked into the Caravan...we were hoping that it would all fit...

Probably the last time you see the caravan in a reasonable state!
It took an hour just to make the bed :(