Canungra/Tamborine Mountain Oct/Nov 2014

We arrived back at Canungra with the hope that the caretaker might let us stay longer than 2 weeks, but no she wouldn't budge, so Brad worked his charm on Tamborine Mountain and found us a place that doesn't usually allow campers but made an exception for us. We were so lucky and very grateful. Brad started work and Lucy was very keen to go back to school, and thinking we would be here for about 3 months, we enrolled her at the local school. She was so excited to go back to school and had no hesitation even making us drop her off at the gate in her first week. So before we knew it, it was just Chloe and I, who was missing her sister immensely.

Tamborine Mountain is such a beautiful place, there are quite a few small rainforest walks but unfortunately Chloe is totally rainforest walked out and we only managed to convince her to do one of them. 

While we were there the annual scarecrow festival was on. This was incredible, the effort that the locals go to for this festival is amazing.

We also put the kids into Little A's which Chloe just loved and it gave her a bit of interaction with other kids as well. 

Another big hit with the kids were the Tamborine Mountain Markets, it would have to be one of the better markets we have been to. For our little horse lover there were pony rides and also a petting farm where both the kids, but mainly Lucy fell in love with guinea pigs, we came very close to having 2 additions but thankfully common sense prevailed!

Brads job turned out to be a bit of a circus and Lucy wasn't entirely happy at school, she was loving the school aspect but wasn't fitting in as quickly as she thought she would, so when Brad started getting less and less hours we decided to change our minds again and continue on our journey. 

The weekend before we left we discovered a pretty cool fairy shop, that for a small amount of money you could leave your kids for an hour of fairy fun. So for the 1st time in 4 months Brad and I had an hour kid free time!

Lucy was quite keen to get back on the road but in true Lucy style when we picked her up on her last day of school, she was sad to leave because she made a best friend that day!

We treated ourselves to one last day at movie world and wet'n'wild. This was probably the coolest day we have had in a long time but it was still warm enough to swim. We had a great last day here and we finally convinced Chloe to have a go on a couple of the 'bigger' rides in the junior section which she loved, so she agreed to go on 'mammoth falls'. We went on this a few times and every time Chloe squealed as loud as she could all the way down, I think part of it was from fear but a big part was because she discovered she could actually squeal without getting told to stop! It doesn't sound it but this was actually hilarious and she had the rest of us in stitches laughing all the way down!

That briefly sums up our time on Tambourine Mountain, I know I've missed so many things, we were really lucky and had absolutely beautiful weather and the kids spent heaps of time at the local pool, we only had 1 storm and hardly any rainy days. The kids experienced their 1st halloween and went trick or treating with their cousin and her friends, they really surprised me by not hesitating and getting right into it, but I suppose there were lollies and chocolate on offer! Actually I am really proud of both my kids and in the past month or so they have showed me that they have changed in small ways since we have left. The confidence Lucy showed in her first couple of days starting at a new school where she knew nobody floored me and we even took Chloe to a couple of pre-prep mornings and she got really involved here too. Obviously though the best part of being on the mountain was spending time with family that we don't see nearly enough and getting to know our beautiful nieces a bit better.

After the storm

Mullumbimby - Sept/Oct 2014

We left QLD feeling a bit flat and without having any real direction of where we were going in the coming weeks. After seeing how busy Canungra got during the school holidays we were also a bit concerned that a lot of places might be full. We had rung the caretaker at Mullumbimby Showgrounds and he assured us he had plenty of room, so that was our first stop. Mullumbimby itself didn't do too much for us but the show grounds were great. The caretakers were a lovely couple, with a beautiful big dog and they had their grandsons staying with them. There was plenty of space, lots of green grass, it wasn't too busy and with a few other kids to play with, a tree house and a dog our kids were happy so we decided to stay here for the rest of the school holidays.

Catching up on a bit of washing!

I think Lucy and Chloe were pretty worn out after a busy couple of weeks at Canungra, they really didn't want to go anywhere while we were here and were more than happy just playing with the couple of friends they made. However Brad and I don't cope as well sitting around doing nothing while the kids play, so we managed to drag them away on a few occasions to do some exploring. 

We drove into the Nightcap ranges to Minyon Falls and did half of the Minyon Loop (7.5km was a bit far for the kids) the first half of our walk had very recently been burnt off but the 2nd half was beautiful. We spotted our first snake on this walk, which our little scaredy cats handled pretty well and continued the walk without too much hassle. 

Another day we headed into Byron Bay, wow! I'm not sure if Byron is always that busy or just during school holidays but it was crazy, beautiful but busy.

We managed to drag the kids away from Mullumbimby one more time and drove up to Hastings Point, we had been here a few years ago and really liked it. It has a fantastic inlet thats great for kids although the water was still too cold we had a great day. Lucy even got brave enough to walk in the water where we could see little tiny fish!

The kids happily spent the rest of our time in Mullumbimby playing with new friends and riding their bikes around the show ground, while Brad and I started worrying about what was next. We decided it might be time to stop for a bit and get some work. Brad found a job quite easily so we made plans to head back towards the Gold Coast.

The kids made friends with a little girl and a lady camping with her family made these balloon horses. About 4 seconds after this photo part of Chloe's popped and she spent the next hour crying hysterically. 

Macadamia time!