29th April 2014-Golden Beach @ Caloundra

29th April 2014

We have settled into the Golden Beach Caravan Park, it is only a 2.5km walk from the centre of Caloundra.......but more importantly we are only 2km from the local Craft Centre. This is an amazing building that houses all of the local art and craft groups from the area. It has all of the facilities that all of the groups could need including a shed for the pottery kilns (though I am not doing pottery)  I am now a member of the Stitchers Group (you can do any sort of stitching you want including crochet and knitting) and the Lacemaking Group. I am in seventh heaven...the ladies are all so nice and friendly and having such an awesome facility as my fingertips is brilliant. The stitching group has a bus trip organised for later this month where we will go into the city to visit a craft shop, lunch and morning tea is organised, an then there is a tour of a building....I think it is the Brisbane Council Chambers....I will confirm that later.

Les has been to the Brendale R/C racing track to race his remote control cars. They race every second Sunday and I am his pit crew...Sam is the team mascot! The track is surrounded by lots of park area for little Sam to enjoy. And they have a canteen so that everyone is well fed!

LES IN THE PITS AREA (OF THE BRENDALE R/C TRACK) WORKING ON HIS CAR BEFORE THE NEXT RACE

The weather has been gorgeous and we have been bike riding most days, walking some days and swimming lots as well. The beaches here are very good but the caravan park has a pretty pool area which we prefer to use because you don't get sand on your feet....is that being lazy?

ME IN THE POOL.

Note that I am now a brunette. I had a hair appointment booked before we even arrived here thanks to the wonders of the internet. I certainly jagged a great salon. It was fabulously decorated in black, white and crystals and I was totally spoilt.

MY SNACKS AT THE HAIR SALON, I ALSO HAD A LATTE WITH CHOCY BISCUITS....Mmmm

The bike riding is very good here as it is nice and flat, and there are bike paths going everywhere. though we tend to stick to the coastal paths because the view is sooooo good.

ONE OF CALOUNDRAS BEACHES, OUR VIEW WHILST BIKE RIDING

 

SAM COMES BIKE RIDING TOO....So cute!!

Because the evenings are still nice and warm we can go for evening walks along the beach. There are a lot of water sports here - not surprisingly - and it is pleasant to sit and watch everybody. The big news is that soon we will be joining those water sports people as we have just bought a 2 man kayak :) Yes you read that correctly........we will soon be paddling along with the rest of them.....not sure how that will go and suspect that my arms could need to be eased into this new activity. I will keep you updated on our progress.....unless my arms are too cramped to type ha ha !

BABY CRABS RUNNING TO SAFETY

If we time our walks right we come cross these groups of little crabs that are on the move....each group has different sized crabs and when you get too close they quickly bury themselves into the sand. They are only about 4cms big, too small to eat :(

Between the craft groups, r/c racing and all of the outdoor sports we are finding ourselves quite busy. We are loving Caloundra and still have lots of the area to explore.

13th April 2014-The Great Gold Coast

13th April 2014

The Gold Coast was always going to be a stopping point for us, we were here 3 years ago and I wouldn't miss the opportunity to go to the theme parks again.

We stayed in Helensvale, they have a dog friendly caravan park which was far above our expectations. This caravan park went above and beyond the call of duty to make the dogs welcome. They had recently installed an off leash/play area for dogs and it was amazing!!! It was full of activities for dogs to enjoy as well as a drinking area, a shade area and lots of tennis balls and Frisbees. The dog owners had the choice of seating areas and trees have been planted to provide even more shade in the future.

THE HELENSVALE DOG PLAY AREA

Little Sam loved wandering around and checking out all of the new things even though she was too small to use most of them.

The Caravan Park had recently undergone extensive renovations which included a fabulous new swimming pool....it had a water slide that I made good use of when there weren't too may people/witnesses around, it was situated right next to the café/restaurant (which was also dog friendly) and it had plenty of lounge chairs and gazebos for our use. Oh and did I mention that the salt water pool was heated.....it was paradise!!!

Tuesday evening they always have a sausage sizzle and Sunday morning was Pancakes!!! Yep free and plentiful pancakes!!!!!

PANCAKE SUNDAY Yummmmmmmy

But lets not forget the theme parks. We were literally just across the road from Warner Bros Movie World which is our favourite theme park! We went there a few times to make sure we exhausted ourselves (I still have a sore hand from the new shooting ride Justice League 3D....) And we got totally saturated again and again on the Wild West Falls.

MY BRUSH WITH FAME....PORKY PIG. He kissed my hand when I turned to leave....sooooo cute!

And I don't care that I had to stand in a queue full of little kids to get this photo taken...no shame in that and totally worth it!

Twice a day they have a Stunt Drivers show. We made sure our timing was good on one of the days for us to attend.....I'm sometimes doubtful of shows like this...are they going to be worth the time or should we be hitting the rides while everyone else is at the Stunt Show?.....turns out this show was awesome!!!! There was stunt motorbikes, cars and drift utes. It was 30 mins of thrilling stunts and we all totally enjoyed ourselves.

We went on the Scooby Doo roller coaster,  (Translation-Les dragged me on whilst not listening to my protests) and I remembered why I hate that ride...it's very scary flying around in a tiny little roller coaster car...up high...in the dark!!!! I'm too old for that type of stuff!!!

The water parks are great fun and we chose the warmest days to go to them so it was always going to be a blast. I injured myself yet again because I kept wanting to see where I was going on the water slides so would do one big ab crunch the whole way down. By day 2 my stomach muscles really hated me, by day 3 I found it painful to even sit upright....but I soldiered on!!  Les came on lots of rides with me but did suffer a setback on the Mach 5 (Australia's fastest and steepest ride) I had been down it twice when Les decided that it looked simple enough and that he should give it a go. When we got to the top I said "I'll take the middle one"......"No" said Les "I want the middle one, you take an end one" So with no arguments from me, off we went. It was only after we hit the bottom that Les realised he had chosen the steepest slide of the three-tee he he, I did try to give him an easier one!

THE MACH 5-YOU CLIMB FIVE STORIES HIGH AND THEN SLIDE STRAIGHT DOWN..... VERY FAST!

Water slides are a great motivator to climb hundreds of steps over and over again, in fact my legs gave out before my enthusiasm did :(

We have now moved North to Golden Beach in Caloundra....the Sunshine Coast, and will settle here for a while.....it is paradise!!