Day 34-37 Recovery + 282 kms Townsville to Airlie Beach

After Magnetic island the preferred plan was to push on to Airlie Beach. However, I needed some time to get my back right. So we spent a couple more days in Townsville, lots of back stretches and more physio. We spent the first night back from Magnetic in a hotel watching movies and eating room service. Next day we moved the van out of storage and into a two night stay at a caravan park. I was super proud of the Q team who managed to hitch and un- hitch the van without any muscle provided by dad - just guidance and light duties from me. The team now realise Dad could be redundant.




















Our camp in Townsville was across from this pool (below), one of the best we've been in so far... and we've been in plenty. We counted close to 20 pools so far on this trip.

Check out the inflatable donut Tom is carrying up the stairs. With a smirk on his face, Tom told me it's gluten free and safe to use... Tom scored 5 points for cracking me up with a celiac related Dad joke 😆













Airlie beach is a 3 hour drive from Townsville. So we hitched the brick and spent most of the day travelling and taking plenty of stops to stretch.

Along this stretch of the Bruce highway we  crossed the Burdekin Bridge. I was drawn to the design with these steel beams forming a truss over the highway. I had to google the bridge. Turns out it spans 1.1 kms and is one of Australia's longest multi span bridges in Australia. Its huge 4000 tonne foundations were sunk into the sand after the wet season. There is no natural bedrock to support the foundations and divers were often used to detect issues as crews meticulously attempted to sink the foundations evenly into the sand. Australian engineers were sent to India to research similar bridge constructions. Burdekin took 10 years to construct and began around 1947. This impressive bridge, was recognized in 2010 as a National Engineering Heritage landmark (I'm thinking where's the doco? Surely plenty of tales to tell for this project)

Arriving in Airlie Beach we immediately plunged into the man made lagoon.















Later that night we went out for dinner. Josh challenged me to game of chess, he and his brother had been playing on oversized boards during the trip and on school PCs. I've played a lot of chess in my time but I did not sweep Josh away easily. He surprised me with some clever defensive play and I looking forward to more chess.

We spotted this impressive 3 story climbing park in central Airlie. The kids encouraged me to climb it, I did, and felt very old.












Here's Josh working on his maths homework. Both boys have recently begun regular sessions on Ipads to exercise their math minds.

Here is some camp pics and some short videos.

Too bad I cant include the whole video - this kid is a natural.











After yesterdays night excursion, Tom was super keen to get back to the climbing playground. This time lapse shows us travelling back to the playground and Tom climbing the spider net..

Em just returned from a trip down the street. She returned very excited as she just booked us in a for 2 night Whitsunday cruise on a 100 year old square rigger yacht. We leave tomorrow... cant wait.

Day 29 - 33 Magnetic Island

I tweaked my back on a small boat in Mission Beach and tweaked it even worse here on Magnetic Island. I'm now on an all activities ban and sticking to walking and the exercises my good physio gave me. Sitting to write this is a little challenging at the moment, so I will try to keep it brief.

After arriving in Townsville and parking the van in storage, we spent a rest night night in a hotel (relief). We drove aboard a car ferry the next day for Magnetic Island. I was not sad to see Townsville fading away behind us... not our favorite place.

This time Josh captained the 280 tonne car ferry. Really impressed how open large boat operators are to kids hoping into the big chair with the controls.

On arrival at Maggie (as everyone calls it), we were welcomed by my old school mate Jaimey.  He is ex navy, very vocal, and had loads of stories to keep the kids either shocked, laughing or asking more questions. Jaimey also has a fishing boat and took Em and the kids out. They went snorkeling and the boys got to drive the boat.

Unfortunately as I was out of commission and the the Go pro was flat, we don't have many action shots from the boat trip. The kids saw plenty of fish and enjoyed playing 1st mate.

 Can you pick anything strange in the shot of the pool above... take a look at the background - we asked ourselves just what is going on here? Seems Instagram is sending some people a little over the top in the search for the perfect selfie.

We saw tonnes of wildlife even from the balcony at Jaimey's. This sunbird had found a spot for a nest only centimeters away from us. Sunbirds are very lovable - Think of a tiny tiny sparrow with style. This little lady keep us watching as it silently and industriously flew about fetching food for its young and maintaining its nest. Their courage and air agility amazed us.

We watched so many birds performing all manner of sea bird behavior from the balcony. I particularly loved watching the sea eagles expertly gliding, surveying the waters in highly variable winds. Then taking the odd high speed dive into the sea making it all look easy.

The island is two thirds national park. You get a sense that the wild life here rule and the people are merely guests. I wont forget the sea breeze either. Might be a basic thing... its just wind right. But highly moist wind off the sea was almost the exact same temperature as you. I understand what people mean when they say you can swim in the humidity. Lucky for us the real heat is yet to arrive but you get a sense the place would be hell in summer. Not unusual for people to have 6 or 7 showers a day. Jaimey described the weather as either hot or very hot - you don't get much else. In summer everything including the mains water piped across from Townsville warms on its journey across. Imagine turning on your shower and there's only warm or hot water. People actually go a little mad in summer.

While on the island we were lucky to have Jaimey show us the sights. We snorkeled, we swam in more infinity pools than we've ever seen. We found fun restaurants, we sat on the balcony and watched the marine life go by. We went to the Sunday market where the boys picked up necklaces of shells and shark teeth made by the guy who found them, not some factory. It's a wildly beautiful island full of nature and we feel very lucky to have had our time there. We look forward to returning one day.

Day 26, 27 & 28 Sweet Mission Peach

Oh boy we are all beginning to feel fatigued, so these 3 days were all about staying put and relaxing.

The days here usually begin around 630 with Josh or Tom moving around the van. Its a welcome change from the first half of the trip when it was difficult to get them out of bed early.


One morning, a friendly camper brought over a fresh coconut trimmed down so you could drink out of it. I wish I had a camera handy for the look on Tom's face when he tasted it - not a fan



No wind here in the mornings and the sun is pretty hot even at 9am. We spend most of our time taking a relaxing swim in the warm beach waters or the cool resort pool. The middle of the day is very hot and we retreat from the sun to an air conditioned van, movies, postcards and random van maintenance.

I love the afternoons here. A sea breeze creeps up around noon and by five, it dies off along with the heat.











Our only adventure during these three days began in a tinny with a 20hp engine (couldn't resist!). We set off in search of a turtle and a closer look at Dunk island. In calm, morning waters it's about a 15 min ride to Dunk. This pic is us anchored on the beach after crossing a nearby reef with boulder coral and sea grass

During the run, we cut the motor and quietly drifted, patiently listening out for sounds of a breaching sea turtle... no turtle's came. We did spot fish, birds and a pod of shy dolphins. Several attempts to creep in quietly for a closer look were detected and the pod disappeared. Each time they surfaced five mins later about 50 meters away - hopefully you can make them out in the distance in the video. This encounter was a very unexpected gift - I'm claiming a pod of dolphins trumps a turtle.
 

After dropping Em and tom off, Josh and I took off for one last spin... the wind had picked up and it was pretty choppy.  I'm sorta regretting the final run as it's stirred up my back - but how much does a young boy love driving a boat at full speed.

The holiday resort pool and water slide - not too shabby.

Kids love playing botche - it seems to have filled the hole left by an absent pool table in this resort. We invited a couple of Canadian kids to join in.



About a hour ago, after a peculiar dinner at the local Thai restaurant, Tom and Emma were walking to the resort cafe for desert. Tom suddenly let out a shriek and bolted having stood on a snake. Em spun around to see it "flipping out" before it retreated under a cabin. Although it was dark, Em could make out the snake was at least a meter long. She promptly took off after Tom thinking he'd been bitten. Huuge relief, no bite. The resort staff reaction was fairly mild... "was it a python"? they asked and offered to walk them back to camp. Other campers where moving around the scene without awareness or warnings from staff... I guess it's north QLD, you don't sound alarms for every snake encounter (or can you?!?). I was super proud of Tom who wasn't shaking like a leaf when he got home... I would be.