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.