Well we finally arrived home from our holiday in Surfers Paradise, QLD. We all had a fantastic time. The beaches were fantastic & our apartment was brilliant, We spent a couple of days at Wet 'n Wild & Movie World, more shopping and just looking around.
We left Thursday 29th Jan, got to the airport early to avoid the heat, (40+ degrees that day) the pilot measured the temp on the tarmac and it was 49 degrees, and we had to walk in that to get on the plane! YUCK!
The night we arrived my foot was so sore, red & swollen, although I had no idea what I could have done to it. The next morning it had started to turn purple / black so we searched and found a doctor, who said I'd either sprained it, or been bitten by something (I was pruning the roses the night before we left) anyway, he wrapped it up, gave me some quick fix medication and off we went to Wet 'n Wild. Fortunately by Friday night it had improved dramatically!
So we spent some time at the beach on Saturday, where my 5 year old son was bitten / stung by Sea lice in the water.... Not fun for him! Scratching awful!
So off we went on Sunday for some shopping at Pacific Fair, fortunately everything went well! Although we needed about 3 days to look around the massive centre!
Our apartment was on Paradise Island, and was so great! We saw bats flying by the balcony at night (Kind of freaky at first!) Gecko's running around everywhere, and on the lookout for Bird Eating Spiders which a friend terrified us by telling us horror stories about!
We were down at the hotel pool by 8am every morning with the kids, and they just loved every minute of it! Here's my daughter attempting handstands in the water - it was hilarious!
So after Movie World on Monday - which was such a good day, it was time to get ready to leave. Friends came for dinner Monday night to say goodbye, and we sat underneath Palm tree's full of bats Lol!Tuesday morning we packed the bags and headed for the airport at 10am, well the bus was half an hour late picking us up, and was so busy we stopped way too many times on the way to the airport.Then horror of horror's, we arrived 5 minutes too late for check in, there was no staff to talk to or help us, so we had to sit in the airport and watch our plane take off without us! Well I admit I cried, my daughter cried, and my husband just had to have 10 minutes to himself lol! The boys were really not fazed!So finally the staff came back, and informed us that all fares were forfeit, very rudely told us she could not get us on a flight home till the following night at 8pm, and wanted to charge us huge amounts! So my husband told her what he thought of that idea (He was stressing so bad about getting us and his Auntie & Uncle home) So he was asked to leave the terminal.... Oh MY!So the only option left was to hire a car and drive all the way from QLD to Victoria...So we got a great Tarago, perfectly fitted the 8 of us, and off we went. Stopped in Byron Bay for a late lunch, I snapped this pic as we were leaving...
This is me and 2 year old Caiden, stopped somewhere in the middle of the bush at a rest stop in NSW - so hot!
The kids were not happy with our progress, but tried to pose for this pic, Connor just wasn't having any of it though!
We drove through the night, at one point chased by a mad truck driver who seemed to think we were going too slow for him! Blinded by his headlights, and nearly crashing into him when he overtook us, then slammed on his brakes! Well we'd quite had enough, so my husband called the police, and let them know the problem and our location - Nowhere Lol! So we finally escaped the Madman!
Then it was off again, and then harassed by some drunk people in Taree when we just stopped for coffee! So we again escaped from that!
Our mobile phones had died - we hadn't charged them fully as we thought we'd be home in a few hours!
So it was then to Sydney, where we drove over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and saw the Opera House at 5am!
We then took the wrong HWY, and had to cross inland to get to the right one. We soon realised we had to drive over 2 mountains, on with a tiny winding road, up in the clouds, so steep, no guard rails, and a massive drop to the left! Well I honestly felt sick by that point! Lucky for us the 2nd mountain had a proper road and guard rails or I think I'd have gotten out and walked with the 4 kids!
After that it was pretty cruisy... just utterly boring! The kids managed to get some sleep, but us 4 adults only had a couple of hours.
We then had to pick up our car from the Melbourne AIRPORT Lol! Drop the hire car back, and drive to Geelong. It was absolute heaven to see our house, jump in the shower one by one and get some sleep in our soooooo comfy beds!
So, after all that, it took us a total of 29+ hours to get home. 29 hours YUCK! We did stop, many times as you need to do with 4 kids - ate so much Macca's and junk we felt sick!
The kids did finally make it to school the next morning after missing 3 days!
Well I think we've finally recovered from our mad trek across half of Australia. We joked that our Scottish family got to see alot more of Australia, and we now have some stories to tell! They definitely don't want to attempt to drive over to WA though LOL!
Well I hope you're all still with me after that long winded story!
Best wishes,
Jenelle - who will never leave home again.......
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