Turnbull's Gap Year: 30th August to the 3rd of September

30^th of August

We are having a rest day for the kids with no car driving. The kids spend all morning in the park playing nicely while Mum and I relax. Mum and the kids also went for a walk down the beach and collected some shells for the girl’s tressure boxes. We finish our day with a happy hour drink and some dinner, before settling down for another good night free camping.

water melon time

Old mate hung around the kids while we were at this free camp rumour has it he lives down the road and only goes home for a feed

31^st of August

Heading to Townsville which is about 22km away the shortest drive we have ever done and we are set up at a caravan park before 9.30 a personal best. We even were quick enough we left the kids in the car while setting up and went straight into town first for a drive around then up to castle look out for a view of the area. We then went food shopping while Kate and Jessica went shopping for Megan’s birthday. We then spent the afternoon swimming in the pool and relaxing at the caravan park.

1^st of September

Megan’s birthday today, we start it off with some pancakes for breakfast as requested by the birthday girl. After Breakfast the girls play nicely with all the new toys Megan got for her birthday at about 10am with decide to have birthday cake with a bit of happy birthday for morning tea. The girls continued playing nicely until it was nearly lunch time. We head into town to go down and enjoy the strand. We picked up some maccas as requested by the birthday girl to enjoy down on the water front. The kids and I then enjoyed playing in the water park before moving down to the pool area filled with ocean water. We finished off the afternoon with some homemade pizza as requested again.

Megan in her matching barbie and dress

2^nd of September

Father’s day today I had some scramble eggs and some presents before packing up.

We are on the road again heading to Airlie Beach with a drive of around 290km. We picked up a big brolga (a kind of bird) picture on the way out of Townsville to add to our list. We called into the town called Home hill so Kate could feed the baby and I took the kids to the toilets and let them run around. There is a great free camp in Home hill it is in the centre of town and is allowed for 48 hrs. It has showers, a camp kitchen, power to charge your lap tops, big eating area under cover and a coin operated laundry attached to it. We only didn’t stay at home hill as you kind of park on the road not a problem with big kids or retirees and also we didn’t think staying there a night or 2 would add to our trip just delay its finish if I was retired and had nothing better to do 2 nights here wouldn’t be a problem. We are off towards Bowen now where we plan to have lunch. We call in at a road side fruit and veg to get a picture of their big water melon and top up some supplies. At Bowen we enjoyed lunch in the park which was near the wharf that they used in the filming of Australia and pretended it was Darwin. On the other side of the road was the land used for the stock yards and old buildings that were part of the movie. On the way out of Bowen we got a picture of the big Mango. With just another short drive we were in Airlie Beach where we checked into another top tourist park. The kids spent the afternoon playing in the grass and we enjoyed some afternoon tea.

a big snake we found

Bowen lunch stop looking over the wharf that was used in the movie "Australia"

Big Mango

3^rd of September

Up early today and we are going to do an island hopper cruise for $220, we got 2 adult tickets to go anywhere their boats go all day and the kids were free. We headed straight out to Hamilton Island had a look around the marine, when blow me a bus pulls up and it has written on the front “free shuttle bus” I ask the driver so it is free right even for us? Yeah mate. So we go on a ride around the island until we pull up out front of one of those fancy places you know the type where they have a concierge. Well we walk straight into that resort and no one ever asked me anything and we walked straight out the back to the big resort swimming pools where the kids went nuts. I almost had a go on a wind surfer but a combo of no board shorts were packed for me and the gentleman at the beach shop started asking to many questions on room numbers etc.

After a while we decided to head off and go to day Dream Island, so back on the shuttle bus over to the marine to catch the next ferry out. On arrival to day dream island the kids and I enjoyed a buggy ride while mum enjoyed even more so a quiet walk with the pram up to the shops end of day dream island. We enjoyed a pie at the bakery and looked around let the kids have a play in the park before strolling up to the other end of the island for a look at the resort. The kids enjoyed looking at a fish tank which had living coral in it and the outside man made lagoons with sharks, sting-rays and heaps of fish before settling into another swim in a bigger resort swimming pool followed by some hot tub time. We ended up leaving Day dream at 5pm for the ferry ride home and even managed to have the skipper of the ferry chuck on the anchors as there was a whale and its baby swimming in front of the boat and then down the side so we finally got to see a whale. The rest of the afternoon was spent with quick showers followed by a quick dinner then into bed for the kids.