We're Rolling!

Well, we are on the road! (Literally; I’m typing this from the front seat of the car heading north on the Pacific Highway) Man I’ve been busy; I’ve been trying to sit down and blog all week but there has been so much to do. But it’s been sooooooo fun packing up our little van; I haven’t been able to wipe the grin off my face all week! 

Firstly, thanks to everyone for the recipe ideas; I now have a freezer full of delicious home cooked food ready to heat up in a flash. Tonight it’s chicken and bacon casserole with rice. 

Secondly, we’ve had a last minute change of destination and decided to scrap the Darwin leg of our trip. It turns out that stepson number two, who normally resides in Darwin, is down in Townsville with step son number one doing some kind of ‘war-game’ thing so we can catch up with both of them at the same time.

We were still going to go to Darwin regardless, but when we sat down and wrote down a rough guide to driving times, we realised that we were going to be really rushed. Darwin is another 2500 kms from Townsville, so that would’ve meant 5 days solid driving, but we’d only have had enough time to stay for 3 days before making the 5 day trip home again. Somehow I can’t imagine the kids being too enthusiastic about that! Also, Craig is an interstate truck driver; he drives AT LEAST 5000 kilometres a week. It wasn’t going to be much of a holiday for him.

All is not lost though ... instead we’re going to head further up the QLD coast and spend a week or so exploring Cairns, head out to the Barrier Reef, and take a trip up to the beautiful rainforests of the Daintree. 

So we left home this morning at about 9.00 am, after a rather tumultuous evening of last minute packing and tidying. Our first stop was Hawks Nest, which is only an hour and a half away from home but the boys needed to have a surf (yes, I do mean needed. If they don’t surf they turn into grumpy trolls hehehe). They’ll probably only have three days to surf because there’s not much swell up north. 

It’s a beautiful beach. The kids and I had a walk, run, did cartwheels and just generally mucked about to expend some energy before we got back in the car. It obviously worked, because they are both asleep in the back of the car right now! We collected some awesome shells too so we can do some cool crafts when we get to Townsville.  

We grabbed some lunch at the local bakery, and now we’re doing a couple hours of solid driving. We’re running a bit later than we’d hoped, but hey, it’s OUR holiday so who cares?  Ha ha ha ha! It just means we’ll be setting the van up in the dark when we get to the campground. 

Well, that’s about it for today. Tomorrow we are going to meet up with my dad in Coolangatta and have lunch in this great little Turkish Pizza place that we’ve been going to for years, and then head up to Noosa. Stay tuned!