Golden Shores Holiday Club Labrador

... from their hiding places around the house (and at Steve’s office), ring the insurance company and ‘fess up to the accident. In reality they were completely calm about it, no doubt confirming their prejudiced views of the witless state of most pommies…

The drive, once begun, was largely uneventful We expertly negotiated the way through twisty roads up into the mountains admiring the wide vistas over deep valleys all around. After a while we ...

... haben wir dann in einem Reisebüro mal ganz kurzfristig für Samstag den Wicked Camper für 3 Wochen gebucht. Haha.. Sehr spontan! Aber Abenteuer müssen spontan sein. Und da spontan so schön ist, habe ich kurzerhand beschlossen, nach Hause zu fahren und da Logan schon auf mich wartete, blieben mir 30 Minuten Zeit, meine Sachen zu packen und auszuziehen.

Jetzt ist mein (in?)offizieller Wohnort 118 Thomson Road, Kingsholme, QLD.
Ormeau, Queensland, Australia pacificocean

... spectacular Coomera Falls (the only annoying part was having to cross the creek 8 million times). Oh, and there are leaches that will attach to your shoes and socks from wet leaves. Morgan didn't follow my advice to put deet on his socks and he got bit pretty good on his ankle through his sock! Nothing serious though, just gross, those little buggers really know how to burrow!

... of a hotel while I was making up my mind (I also hate being indebted to people in these situations). Still, this was all happening rather fast for me, and I just found that a potential employer that I turned down had re-offered me a significantly better offer (I immediately turned down, there was too much going on as it was). This all made the next three hours a painful experience, so I decided to have a nap. I got a phone call just after lunch. I was still napping when my ...

... a ball! My fastset time ended up being about 56 seconds, which was only 1 second off the record. Dad then got in one of the really fast go-karts called a 'mean-machine' and tried to beat Sean's time of 48 seconds, and ended up beating it by less than half a second (go dad!) When we had all finished at the track, we headed off to McDonalds for lunch. We sat right oppostie Movie World so I spent all the time I was there looking out ...

... a little more class, more shops, cafes's anmd restaurants. Houses on the riverfront, gorgeous beach, lovely surf and a relaxed feel to the place. We mooched about and then headed back to camp and I got to fish again! The day after which we left for Byron Bay. All in all a quick passing through most of the Gold Coast but we were aware of the size of the Australian East Coast by now and aware of the approach of Christmas and our need to get south to Tasmania by the 20th at the latest.

... Batman Stubby Holder to keep my beer cool. While Lisa is getting her Ice-Cream I watch a bit of the Bonnie & Clyde show, a staged performance outside the bank in the village. It's a weird choice for a kids show and it's unsurprisingly nothing like the Warren Beatty version. Then it's getting late so we head home, back down the highway. Back at the campsite I give the air mattress a quick reinflate then we read for a bit by lamplight before heading to the ...

... some live music. Once the band finished the whole of Hunter Valley's young population descended back to the nightclub at our hotel. The whole place had a very local feel to it, and moments after we arrived some of the locals were scrapping, so we kept out distance and refrained from singing any barmy army songs :-) After all this excitement, the bunderburg rums started to flow. James demonstrated some great hip hop moves and having ...

... and saw me looking at Damien Duff going to Newcastle. He started going on about how Newcastle were going to be a force to be reckoned with next season. The poor kid obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. So far Newcastle have only got Shola Ameobi to play up front and still haven't improved their defence and I know the Geordie lads(especially Lee) will agree with me that Duff could prove to be another **** sigining as he's so injury prone and will probably end up the same as ...

... was a moving tribute to these people who were our age and in Australia for the same reasons we are. We arrived into the retail park that is Hervey Bay that afternoon and early the next morning were introduced to the group of people with whom we would be sharing our self-drive explorations of Fraser Island over the next three days. There is something undeniably intimate about being crammed into a six-seater 4x4 with ten other people, and we quickly got to know ...