More of Queensland

Well, we spent an idyllic 8 days on Magnetic Island. We spent the days getting up, going to the beach for a breakfast cook-up, then a coffee at a beach side cafe. We then had the problem of figuring out which beach to head to. We all decided that our favourite beach was called Radical. There were some great big rocks for the kids to climb all over, nice sand for their beached whale mom to lie on and warm water with a bit of wave action for all to enjoy. Our neighbours on the island were a lady named Melinda and her two daughters (Samantha and Felicity) whom she home schools - Dad Tim is in the mining business and works away from home so sadly we didn't meet him. I think we cut into their schedule a bit because our kids took a liking to her kids and we spent some afternoons at the beach with them, did a bit of a walk with them to some WW II forts and Adam and Sylvie would invite themselves over for a jump on their trampoline. It was good fun meeting them and if they are reading this, we welcome their visit to Vancouver one day. At the end of the day, we'd head to the store, buy supplies and have another big feed down by the beach. Then, we'd watch the sunset with a bottle of wine while the kids played on the playground.

Our house in Townsville is huge and is situated on a hill which has a lovely view of the harbour and Magnetic Island in the distance. There is an inground pool on the deck with a slide so the kids are happy.

But, time is a ticking so we needed to make tracks and see some of the other stuff on our list so we headed north (about 3 1/2 hours) to Cairns. We were able to hook up with our neighbours from North Van for an evening - The Martins - Brent, Martina, Emily and Jake - who are doing a similar trip to us. They left one month before us and have travelled through New Zealand and up the east coast of Australia. They are now in Perth before heading for Thailand then home for the end of July. It was great to see them and trade stories. Adam was so happy to see another 11 year old boy! We did some touring around the area but a highlight for sure was our snorkle trip to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a very windy day - about 35 mile per hour winds - but we loaded up on the Gravol and set sail. A lot of people were hit with sea sickness but not us sailors (I know you're surprised to hear that one Mom!). In fact, one woman was so sick, she opted to be flown home by helicopter to the tune of $500! Once there, we had a great day. It was a little on the chilly side and Sylvie opted to stay dry but the rest of us did some snorkelling and saw lots of great fish. We even indulged in a short helicopter ride over the reef - a first for Adam and Sylvie. Adam was white knuckling it a bit but I think he enjoyed himself. We all felt very important when they took us by boat to the helicopter pad and felt very "James Bondish" while waiting on the pad to get in.

Now, we are back in Townsville and will be making a few day trips from here before we depart on July 2nd for Brisbane. More to come...


Adam's bit -

Hello everyone,
We are still in Queensland. Yesterday we came back from Cairns. We did a snorkeling tour on the Great Barrier Reef. It was so much fun, but quite a few got sea sick. Me and dad were happy about that because we would get more buffet. Luckily it wasn’t any of the Romanicks thanks to gravol. Sylvie didn’t want to go snorkeling so she stayed in side and watched Mr. Bean. Apparently it played 3 times over but I only saw the end. We did a heli ride that was pretty freaky, but we’re back in Townsville now. We met some girls when we were on Magnetic Island and they were so fun to fool around with even though they always dog piled me (because of my sister). When we were in Cairns we met up with my friend Jake from North Van. He is awesome and nuts (like me).


Sylvie's bit -

Hello everyone, it’s Sylvie -

We’re in Townsville. I don’t much like it here because it’s like downtown and downtown is freaky but I like it on Magnetic Island. We met some girls named Samantha and Felicity on the island. They are very nice. We went to the beach with them 4 days in a row and did The Forts Walk. The beaches that we went to are Radical three times and Florence once.

We left Magnetic Island, stayed one night in Townsville and then left to Cairns. We drove through the tablelands and we stayed in this very nice hotel called The Lakes. We spent 4 nights there and then left. While we were there we met up with our neighbours and we went to Kuranda. It was nice there – there was a big market there and there was so much nice smelling food and we bought two boomerangs and three bracelets. Then we drove to this dairy and we got some ice cream. It was the chocolatiest, chocolate ice cream I ever had. Yum.

Bye for now.

Maggie Island

The last few days in Perth were like the whole time in WA – fun. The boys managed to get some body boarding in although it was a little on the chilly side. We discovered a pizza place close by to where we stayed called Stones. Its claim to fame was some award winning pizza and it sure was good. It turns out that the guy who owned it was from Victoria, BC. He said he was the only guy in the area who knew how to make chicken wings the right way. While we can’t vouch for that, we can say that they were delicious! And, we were invited to the neighbours, who invited some other neighbours, for a wine and appie evening. Everyone was great and it was lots of fun talking about our country vs. their country. And, their chicken wings did give our Victoria boy a run for the money!

After a red-eye flight to Cairns, a short stay there in the airport and an even shorter ride on a Dash-8, we were in Townsville. The kids really enjoyed boarding and unboarding the plane right onto the tarmac and when David took some photos, everyone had a good chuckle at us. Our new home exchange folks picked us up at the airport, we had a whirlwind tour of Townsville, their home and then we went off to the ferry for the 20 minute ride to Magnetic Island.

Our new home base for a bit is located in Horseshoe Bay and it is right at the edge of a jungle. It is somewhat more rustic that our palace in Perth, but we are getting used to it. When we pulled in, there were a bazillion butterflies – everywhere – it was quite the sight. It is super dark here at night and lying in bed, we are treated to a myriad of sounds – crickets, kookaburras, wallabies and possums scavenging around, birds – some pleasant sounding and others darn right annoying, you name it. We’re getting used to the daily sightings of geckos, spiders and bats – big, huge bats – larger than some of our house cats. Real freaky! Anybody read the book “Silverwing”?

This island is also home to koalas that have eluded us so far but there are numerous walking trails we will do so we hope to see some then.

This is a fairly quiet island, although this weekend is a long weekend so there is some action around. There is a large backpacker community here so we are living a bit of that lifestyle. We went to see some live music a few nights ago and thought of our friends in “The Bent Nails” and “The Parloursteps” – they would have enjoyed the venue. We took in a few weekend markets and that’s always fun.

There is toad racing which we will be checking out and we have yet to snorkel – another thing on the list.

Adam and Sylvie are loving the swimming and playing in the sand. And, David and I are enjoying doing nothing. As fun as the road trips are and were, they do get tiring, especially hunting down places to stay, so for the moment, we are enjoying some down time.

Hopefully, we’ll have something to report on for the next blog entry. Or, maybe we’ll just post pictures of us sleeping on the beach in self-timer mode…


Man vs. Grill

Let me first start off by saying, I couldn’t have hand picked a better traveling crew. Everybody plays a role and there’s very little whining. After what I thought was going to be an ugly flight from Perth to Cairns, it turned out not so bad. Everyone was in good spirits. Getting off the plane you could definitely tell we had changed latitudes – the air was thick and moist. After arriving on the island, met a couple of interesting people right off the bat. People would be flagging us down asking us “how’re you going?” Turns out our hosts have told all their friends that we were coming. The place we are staying is bordering on a national park. It’s considered subtropical and the jungle is alive especially at night. Our neighbour to the north, came by for a chat and told us some do’s and don’ts - i.e. not to worry about the tree snakes/pythons but be careful of the “death adder” although the last time he was bitten he got airlifted the island and was treated like “royalty” at the mainland hospital. Can’t wait. Not.

I miss the food stores in WA and sourcing here has become a bit of a challenge because the island is so small. That being said, we’ve added a whole new list of recipes to our repertoire. A typical day for us starts with heading to the beach and making pancakes and eggs on the barbeques. Then we hang out, swim, whatever. Then early to mid afternoon, we head off to the store for supplies (based on what looks good that day) and go back to the grill for a big feed. Stir fries are going over big – the barbeques are especially good for cooking them.


Hi everyone, it’s Sylvie.

We are in Magnetic Island. It’s beautiful. Except for the fact that there are geckos everywhere. Just the other day we went to Radical Bay. The waves were at least 1 ½ meters tall. We saw wallabies, kookaburras, curlers, possums and much more animals. I forgot to tell you about Magnetic Island. Captain Cook had difficulties with this compass.

We are going to probably go to Cairns – it’s pronounced like this – cans. We are also going to stay in Townsville. It’s about a 25-minute fairy ride from Magnetic Island. Get this. When I was drawing, Adam was watching me. I was about to put the crayon back in the box and Adam said, “look at that gecko”. It was climbing out of the box. I screamed. I was so scared.

OK. That’s all I have to say.

Sylvie


Hey everyone

Were not in Perth anymore the last 3-4 days were so much fun we did boogie boarding, the waves were awesome for it. The plane ride to Cairns was horrible it went over night I slept well and was hyper in the morning the ride from Cairns to Townsville was so cool we got to go on a propeller plane it vibrated so much we sounded like robots when we talked. The plane rides were about 4 ½ hours in total than we got a tour of the houses we were able to stay in but we decided on Maggie Island (Magnetic Island) it’s a 25 minute ferry ride from Townsville. The entire island is jungle and bays so far we have swam everyday it is so awesome here. There are tons of geckos and spiders everywhere.

Bye bye,

Adam

The Beautiful SouthWest

Hello everyone Adam here

We have 3 days left to go till we go to Townsville/Magnetic Island. We got back from a trip to the South Western coast and stood at the closest point to Antarctica. It’s near Augusta. On that trip we hit Yallingup, Margaret River, Augusta, Denmark and Albany. We went to the Ngilgi caves. It was awesome. Even though we didn’t get to wear a helmet and head lamps it was still pretty awesome.

Mme, if you are looking for a book for the class to read I suggest "Toad Rage". It’s about a cane toad trying to save his species from being run over by trucks and cars. It is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes things getting run over.

I think we are going fishing today. I can’t wait.

Bye

A


Hi this is Sylvie,
I am having so much fun in Perth but sadly we have 2 more days left to go in Perth.
We went on a road trip. I had so much fun. We went in some caves and thank goodness there were lights on or else… Anyway we went to a whaling museum it was gross and cool at the same time. I liked Margaret River a lot because you could buy fudge, and so much more. We went to a beach to see if we could see some whales. It was called "Conspicuous Cliffs". There was no one there but then the next day, we read in the paper that this guy, I have no clue what his name is, got attacked by a shark when he was surfing at this same spot. Scary, huh?

Ok that is all I have to say

sylvie

Maureen's bit:

The drive down south was a big contrast from the drive up north. For one, it was cooler - much (by Australian standards, anyway)- 13/16/18 degrees rather than mid-20's - hey, we even cooked our food on a campfire twice! But the scenery was something else. Beautiful rolling plains with vineyards as far as the eye can see on one side and beautiful rolling surf as far as the eye can see on the other side. Even though they are far below their rain quota this year, the vegetation still seems lush and one gets the feeling that the food and drink is in endless supply.

We spent the first few nights out of Margaret River in a town called Yallingup. It's right on the coast and we went to sleep watching the surfers out front and woke up watching the surfers. The surf was just a bit too big for us newbies but we are hankering to get something happening in that regard. We checked out a cave - Ngilgi Caves - which was quite the experience. This particular cave was discovered in the late 1800's by a fellow looking for his horse. Once discovered, it became a major tourist attraction - even back then - and had been outfitted with electricity by 1903. Quite the undertaking for that era. They even built a hotel in the area just to deal with the tourists that came from far and wide. It went down 90 meters and was absolutely enormous. The longest anyone stayed in there was 400 days. As nice as it was, 2 hours was plenty for us!

We explored the coast, stopped and checked out wineries. Checked out the spot where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet - next stop Antarctica!

A highlight for David was a 61 meter spiral climb up a tree. Sylvie was keen to go and Adam and I started but it was too high for this chick and the kids - my daredevilling days are behind me now!

We did a tree-top walk where there was a cool platform built that takes you above the treeline. You really feel as though you are walking on the top of the forest. The trees are enormous - some as old as 400+ years. They are called Tingle Trees - a funny name for something so big.

Finally we went to Whale World which was the last working Whaling Station in Australia - Albany. It was a fascinating museum. Could have been my imagination but I swore I could still smell the whale oil in some spots.

We were sad to leave - there is so much to see and do - so much more than was possible for us this time. Lots of roads to drive down and explore. Lots of lonely beaches looking for someone to make a sand castle on or just lie and read a book and of course, lots of water looking for swimmers/surfers. Just means we'll have to come back again. Twist my rubber arm!

So, now we are back in Perth. Tying up some last minute loose ends before we head off to the eastern coast of this continent - Townsville/Magnetic Island to be exact. More on that to come...