Another place with a lovely lagoon in the middle 😘

About 15 minutes out of town we popped down the road from our caravan park to Crystal Cascades. It is a secluded freshwater swimming hole in a tropical rainforest. A series of small waterfalls flow into large pools surrounded by granite boulders. An amazing spot and we can only imagine how much more water there would be in the wet season!

Castle Hill… a whole lot steeper than where I grew up- but the view was worth it!

Every town should have a lagoon, every caravan park should have water slides!

A holiday from our holiday! When we were planning our trip around Oz, one of the first places we booked was the BIG4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort. After a couple of months and 10,000kms, it’s been nice to actually stay in the same place for a whole week- with few plans other than sleeping in, sitting by the pool and reading. The kids enjoyed the water slides from the first night we arrived and the go karts have also been a hit… (but mostly they’ve liked the sleeping in and not having to pack up/set up camp. 😉) Airlie Beach itself has a beautiful free lagoon and a pretty impressive playground… 7 days here won’t be long enough!

Famous for rum and ginger beer 😋 Less well known is the fact that the guys that make the rum are not the same guys that make the ginger beer (and other soft drinks.) So we had 2 stops to make!

At the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, after a good look around we narrowed down our purchase to the coffee and chocolate, banana and toffee or salted caramel- finally deciding that the salted caramel would be the tipple of our choice.

At Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, we got to take a tour, taste test the 18 different flavours they have on offer, (with a preview of the 19th- ginger/lemon coming out next week), and then choose our favourite 6 bottles to take home for the total cost of $12 per adult, $9 for the kids. Great value…costs about $4 to buy one bottle in the shops!

After watching NSW achieve a crushing victory in Origin 👏 we had a sunrise start to enjoy what QLD does do well… blue skies, white beaches and sunshine 🌞

Fraser Island- in no particular order it gave us: fresh water lakes, 4 wheel driving on the beach, shipwrecks, deciding between looking at the dingo on your right or the whale on your left, wading through a crystal clear creek, buffet lunch, gorgeous sunset. Even if you can only do one day here, we highly recommend it!

PS I could have included the nicely posed photo in front of the shipwreck… but enjoyed the shot where Michelle’s hat blew off one second before instead 😜

Rockhampton shenanigans… James decided he wanted to have Emma buzz his hair off. Only took an hour and a half with my beard trimmer! Rockhampton has abundant botanical gardens, a free zoo and a lovely riverfront walk with colourful water features. Check out the last photo- our homage to “The Matrix” 😎

PS The bats were spotted on a bathroom break along the highway 🦇

This was planned as just a stopover for the night… but as luck would have it the Cloncurry show (40 year anniversary 👍) was on this weekend. So our afternoon of school work and night of cards became a day of rides, exhibits and classic show food options, (the local wedge tailed eagles 🦅 hung around as you can see), and an evening of demolition derby and fireworks 🎇

What an incredibly pleasant surprise!

From Alice Springs we visited the Devils Marbles (Karlu Karlu) and then took a right at Three Ways as we head to the Queensland coast. Had our first dip in the pool of the trip and enjoyed an afternoon of fly-less sunshine. Keep ’em coming QLD 👍

PS As we head towards 10,000 km travelled so far I’m going on record as saying the BEST driving snack is the chocolate covered pretzel. The perfect blend of salty and sweet… anyone disagree?

Alice Springs Desert Park in the morning, barbecue for lunch, sunset at Simpsons Gap. Winter’s temp: 30°. How was your day? 😉🌞