Well well well.....we fell in love with Airlie beach! And I mean fell as in literally. It all started whilst I decided a morning run was in order. Enjoying my run and the stunning views that surround Airlie, I lost my footing and FELL down a kerb rolling my ankle! Leaving me out of action for 6wks! During this time Kev found work on Hamilton Island and the girls enrolled into the local Cannonvale state school. Everyone is happy to settle for a while! A while turned into 5 months! 5 very interesting months that involved both my mum and my darling girl joining us. The magical moments of having quality time with my Mum will always be cherished close in my heart. My Mums the best.
We stayed at my lovely friends Teena and Robs caravan park "seabreeze" best location in Airlie. They made us so welcome and we spent many a night in the man cave enjoying it's magic! Drinks n giggles..Camp kitchen Thursday night/naughty night was our favourite all the people who come and go through here are so interesting and great fun, I pulled my scissors out here and gave most people in the park a trim, it was great meeting so many different people from so many different backgrounds all enjoying our fantastic country. Amazing how many people we met that just floated in to Airlie, then ended up staying. It really is a fabulous, chilled, up beat funky little town, with lots to do. We loved the live music scene, family fun days at club croc, cheap eats in town. The lagoon on the water front, the markets, the backpackers, the music being played on the beach alongside the fire jugglers , tightrope walkers practising their acts, family restaurants with both kids game rooms and pokie machines for mum n dad! Kevlar got very lucky indeed and won a whopping $200...
Tours out on the water in and around the whitsundays are a must! We chose to go Ocean rafting and what a brilliant day filled with fun,fun,fun, snorkling a walk up to have a look at the worlds most amazing veiw( in my eyes) of Hill inlet the shifting sands, then lunch on Whitehaven beach.
Hideaway bay is where the locals go, beautiful lunch the beach is stunning it's quite and tranquill. We also enjoyed drinks by the pool at Cape Gloucester, Dingo beach is fabulous also with a great Aussie outdoor style pub, large portions of food. There are so many great places to visit here in Airlie, I loved cedar falls when it was flowing it was gorgeous and great to see so many people enjoying it. Prosopine isn't to far, another quirky little town. Color me crazy is a fantastic shop filled to the brim with all sorts of weird and wonderful items from homewares to jewellery ( I spent a few hours in that baby and spent a bit too!) also in Proserpine is Peter fauster dam where lots of water sports can happen if you have little boat, barramundi can be caught here.
Bowen was another place we loved too, especially the Art Deco old school cinema we went to a couple of times. We lazed by the beaches in Bowen and enjoyed a light lunch overlooking horseshoe bay.
Eungella National park was a 3 hour drive for us, so we packed a picnic and the camera and headed off to see some real live wild playtus. I was so excited. This national park is quite a drive up a winding hill. Our ears popped with the altitude. We took some stunning photos as you will see our Georgous Georgia joined our trip here with us and it felt so amazing all my girls together, extremely blessed. You can tell by our photos that this place is pretty cool. We missed the playtus unfortunately they are most active between 6am-8am then come out again early evening. There is a beautiful place to camp right here on the river so if you organise yourselves you'll be sure to see these curious little mammals. Eungella Dam is a free camp spot here so we went for nosey. The girls thought it was slightly spooky. I managed to snap a few pics of the wild brumbys eating the water Lilly's, such beautiful animals and so many of them around here.
Settling in here was easy the school is fantastic and the local wild ones programme for the girls was equally as brilliant. Our girls really got to enjoy and be involved with lots of activities such as the whitsunday hike only 7kms of it though! and working with marine biologist to learn about saving the Great Barrier Reef. Candeece was fortunate enough to be chosen to go on a leadership skills camp in Rockhampton. Candeece also graduated primary school here, we were so proud of our beautiful girl and happy she celebrated this event. While Christmas was approaching and school holidays. We were deciding to hit the road again after new year, still so many thing to do and see.
Midge point is where we collected drift wood to make our own special Christmas tree! We loved our tree so very much. We enjoyed the small community and it was great to feel part it. Carols by candle light was a very festive event which the children were all a major part of. Between Christmas and new year we indulged ourselves by staying on Daydream Island a beautiful place to stay with a family, it has a great outdoor aquarium with all your favourite characters from Nemo in! We played mini golf, played in the pool, watched Frozen on the big outdoor cinema screen. Slept in real beds for the first time in ages, then filled our faces with the all you can eat breakfast! A shopping trip was on the cards as those of you who know Kevlar! Know he loves to shop. We spent a day in Mackay. After all our shopping we relaxed by the waterfront waterpark which the girls loved it's brilliant.
Sooo plans changed again we have been offered a 2 bedroom apartment to live in on Hamilton Island! We've decided to take it up and see what happens! Looking forwards to where our next adventure will take us.... I hope you've enjoyed this entry! It was really tricky filling this one in as it had been so loooong and sooooo much happenend here, pretty sure I covered most of it.... Except for all of the magnificent people we met the laughs we had with each of them and the ones who felt like family. The funny plover birds, the kerloos, the cheeky kookaburras, the possum, parrots and the wonderful noise they all made early in the mornings! My twin tub, our BBQ, our thermi cocktails, the girls playing endlessly in trees, building cubbies, the new lagoon pool and it's bath like water. The fresh delicious mangoes, the macadamia trees trees. Thanks Airlie and especially seabreeze tourist park, Teena and Rob for making us so feel completely at home.......