Camp #47, Days 205 – 223, Coolum Beach, QLD

Ahhhh, it feels like coming home. Strange because it’s not home but these days anywhere we have been more than once and holds a form of familiarity, feels exciting. Apart from that we love the Sunny Coast and Coolum Beach.

There is always something going at the surf club in Coolum Beach.

Goldilocks is ready but we’ve booked and air bnb for a week while we go through the repairs and make sure she is ready to be picked up and move back into. Aside from van stuff we are keen to visit a few of our favorite places again. When here last, Ken was working back in Perth for a week and then working again once back with us so he really didn’t see much.

Other priorities are keeping up and catching up with school, getting some kind of regime for healing Georgia’s gut. There are some great health shops here, a GP to follow up with and plenty of cooking and researching for new recipes to be done.

Ken’s ‘salmon and avo stack’ was a winner.

We revisited the Ginger Factory again, this time with Ken, Betty’s Burgers – Noosa YUM, the gorgeous wee town of Monteville and our favorite German restaurants ‘King Ludwig’. The chef’s speciality soup is to die for and he is Coeliac so we felt safe eating there plus the views of the Glasshouse mountains, spectacular! And the kids were busting to visit Australia Zoo again.

Fun for all the fam at the Ginger Factory
After lunch at ‘King Ludwig’s’

Moving back into Golidlocks was great. We were all keen to get back to our own wee crib and the rhythm of van life. The first setup though was hilarious, trying to remember what to do and we had a new jack on the front to work out how to use. It took about 20 minuets to finally get the legs down on the van and get inside.

It’s not always sun and surf in van life, just most of the time!

Coolum caravan park was fantastic and we met some really fabulous families. So great for the kids to have playmates and Georgie in particular made a special little friend which was so nice because she really misses home and having her bestie to play with. While they were all younger than Charlotte she had them entertained and hanging off her every word.

All the kids playing together in the caravan park #vanlife

Inspired again by Australia Zoo another bake sale was organized, this time for Georgie with her little friend Indi and they smashed it selling out and raising $106.00 for the Tiger protection program run through Australia Zoo.

Boom! $106.00 for Australia Zoo’s Tiger Protection in the GF bake sale

After extending our stay at the CP a couple of times we finally had to move on but not before having and epic beach day on Noosa Northshore. We just love taking a picnic lunch, having a drive on the beach and parking up.

We love the Sunny Coast, fantastic weather, no crocs and so much variance in beautiful natural landscapes.

With the batwing awning providing plenty of shade it’s just awesome sitting back and watching the girls play, swim, dance, build, create and generally have a ball.

An epic way to finish our time on the Sunny Coast, bid farewell to Queensland and make our way south to New South Wales.

1707kms in 3 days. Cape Trib to Coolum, Days 202 – 204.

Well we broke our own rule after only one week. Our attempts to slow the pace down and not be constantly on the move came unstuck as Zone RV pulled a rabbit out of a hat and announced the van was going to be ready the day we were leaving Cow Bay.

Having just had such a wonderful week here in FNQ, I was feeling satisfied with all we managed to see and do in Queensland and we were keen to get back to Goldilocks and get back on with van life.

Had a top lunch at the ‘Grazing Goat Cafe’ in Mackay.

So out with our promise to slow the pace down and we decided to leg-it down the coast as fast as possible. Three long days of travel, overnighting in Townsville and just outside of Rockhampton. We really did just pull up late in the evening, ate, washed and reset for the next day.

Cardwell, QLD, where we listened to the Melbourne Cup on the radio while we ate lunch.

Cardwell was devastated by Cyclone Yasi in Feb 2011, but the community rallied and with lots of rebuilding, it looks fantastic today.

The days were long but I love watching the world go by, Ken enjoys the driving and listening to podcasts and the girls love watching movie after movie on the ipad. Ugh, I judge myself harshly for this and as much as I hate it, the guilty truth is, I have just given in to allowed the ipads to occupy the girls and get us through these long, confined days in the car. I suppose its that old 80/20 rule. At least Elsa keeps singing to me, offering encouragement and support to ……. ‘Let it go, Let it go’.