Movie World 5!!!!

Tuesday 27th
Well back to our favourite world for the last time. We really are getting to know the place.

 Kimberly and Bugs and Mannings head!

 Wonder Woman and Super Girl and two people we didn't know dressed up next to us!

 Manning wanted a photo with these camels. Josiah there too.

 Tweety , Kimberly, Baylee and Daffy

 Baylee, Josiah, Ethan and Kimberly ready for take off on the Batman ride, straight up.

 Kimberly got some braids put in.

 Zane , Manning and myself relaxing in the cow hide chairs.

The ride the Green Lantern as we said goodbye to Movie World. A lot of fun has been had by all!!!

Wet'n'Wild 2 and Movie World 4

Monday 26th
It is warming up here which is nice for us. This was our last day at Wet'n'Wild and the kids made the most of it going on their favourite water slides. The day was warm and very enjoyable.
At about 2pm we decided to pop over to Movie World as the coffee is better there! Well, there are more roller coasters too so coffee wasn't the only thing.

Kimberly got her photo with Cat Woman. Cat Woman can also crack a whip which is impressive. What a great job, you get to dress up in super hero outfits and act for the whole day. Our kids would earn a lot of money each day as that takes up a lot of their day, acting out characters. 

Sea World 2 & Movie World 3

Sunday 25th
We are getting the most out of our tickets. We went back to Sea World as we missed a few things the first time. They have big pools of reef fish and sharks and you can go under ground and look at them through glass which was excellent. Tim and I both agree that what you can see on top of the water is only such a small amount of what is really in the water. Just amazing. There was a penguin area with Arctic  penguins in it and just like on Happy Feet the movie the people were looking in at the penguins and the penguins were looking out at the people. Like it was a stare off. It was funny. Great to watch them as they are very playful under water.

 Baylee, Kimberly, Ethan and Josiah did this activity in which you could climb anywhere you wanted with a harness on that would slide along a beam above you. This is Ethan at the pole deciding which way to go. Most of the time you had 4 options. 

 This is Baylee who decided to try the top story and stay up there to see if he would be less afraid the longer he stayed up there. When we asked if it worked he said no! He has made decisions to experience as much as he can no matter what fear he had, in case he never comes back here again!

 Not sure which one this is. There was 4 stories and steps up to each level.

 This is no fear Josiah! Bold as! Walked so freely and things didn't wobble as much as those that were afraid and tight in the muscles.

 This is Kimberly, determined never to let anything beat her.

This is Ethan with muscles that meant he could spiderman up and down these levels if he needed.
After we thought we had done all we could at Sea World it was off to Movie World again for the rest of the afternoon. Movie World is our families favourite. We were in time for the parade which we hadn't seen yet.  

 See Tim pointing at Bugs, well Bugs pointed right back and laughed and there was this hey it's you, I like your shirt, hey that coffees good coffee non verbal conversation that was really funny. They are good actors.

And there was Batman hanging off the side of the car. Tim is going to turn our go kart into the Batmobile.

This is the crazy fast Superman ride which I am yet to go on and that is very popular with it's huge speed. Tim caught a picture of it as it was sling shot out of the shed which it starts in and up the first incline. Crazy but the kids keep going back!

The kids madly ran around to as many rides as possible while Tim finished his coffee.
The weather has been excellent again. Warming up. 

Wet and Wild

Saturday 24th
A great day for Wet and Wild. The weather was warm and there wasn't too many people. They shut down some of their areas in this slow season then I think they open the rest at the start of September when the weather starts to get a little warmer and the tourists hit Surfers. There still was heaps of rides and things to do in Wet and Wild. Some free fall water slides and some crazy ones in rubber tubes. The hot spas were very nice but cold when you got out.

 Everyone took turns at putting their faces in these. Tim and I think it is Josiah here.

Manning in the fun kids area.
I didn't get any photos of the big slides the other kids went on but we intend to go again and get the most out of our tickets. This closed at 3:30pm so the kids were very keen to change and pop over to movie world.

This is us at the entrance. The older kids went on the roller coasters again and Zane and Manning wanted to buy some lollies and sit and watch cartoons on the big screen in the main street. So that's what we did for an hour before it also shut. Just another big day out with huge thrills and adventures.

Movie World

Friday 23rd
We have some roller coaster junky kids! Just the sight of the roller coasters as we rocked up to Movie World got everyone buzzing! A lot of the time Tim took the older ones and I took the younger ones and then we came together to watch the stunt cars or batman or the wild west. They do a good job of making it look very real and there is some great stunt driving and stunt acting. It was a fun packed day with not a lot of rest time. The older kids just loved their huge, fast upside down roller coasters and even Zane's smaller one went quite fast for little kids, but he loved it. Manning preferred the taxi driving cars and at one point over took Zane in a slick manoeuvre! Manning came up to me afterwards and exclaimed " now I can drive real cars!"

All checking out Batman's car.

Watching the stunt car show. There was a lot of rubber being burnt here!

Zane's roller coaster.

 Zane and Manning in Tweety Bird cages

 Zane and Manning in little dodgem cars.

 We found Yosamity Sam. We have some actors in our family too.

 Zane and Manning driving the taxis.

Zane and Manning got to ride in the drivers seat in the train!

 This is just part of the Superman ride that the kids went on. It's the only one I didn't go on. It is super fast and high! About 0 - 100km in 2.4sec    4Gs. Amazing to watch.

 Zane is in the bottom of the picture. In the background in the Green Lantern roller coaster. I went on that!

The plastic super heros on the roof, the real super heros on the ground!!
Another big day, another tired bunch of people. It's like going to the Adelaide show everyday. The weather was excellent but the traffic was terrible on the way home even though it is a motor way!

Sea World

Thursday 22nd
There was a lot of excitement in the Coleman caravan as we packed and got ready to head to Sea World. There wasn't much of a line up to get in and not a lot of people there. The kids didn't have to line up for the rides much at all. We got a seat to see all the attractions. It was a beautiful day. Excellent all round.

 We went on the sky rail first which was a good idea as it gave us a birds eye view of what was around and where it all was. We filled up 2 cars though.

This is the kids coming in at the end of the roller coaster ride. The older 4 and Tim spent most of the day on these.

 Kimberly went with Manning on the merry- go-round.

 Manning and Zane on the aeroplanes.

This was specky. They had a jet ski show and this was a new invention. There is a man in the air just by water pressure. He was able to move himself around and even dive into the water with it then shoot straight back up in the air.

 Josiah, Manning and Zane with the big Walrus.

The sea lion show was excellent. You can't see very well but in the middle was a huge sea lion acting along with these ladies. It was a great show. Of course all the way along the animals are getting a fish for their great acting.

The dolphin show was also excellent. You can only just see a dolphin in the air.
We had a great day and the kids ate a huge tea and in bed and asleep early! Happily exhausted!

Gold Coast

Wednesday 21st
IT WAS A FREEZING NIGHT! We were all zipped up in out sleeping bags with jumpers on. When my alarm went off at 6am for up and at it exercise time it was VERY hard to get out of bed. When I got up I went down to the oval and all the grass was icy! I had to get going quick and when I finished my running I was still numb! AHHH. I saw a hare as I was running. We haven't seen hares or rabbits for a long time. When I got back to the caravan Tim was cooking and had the kettle boiling to get the caravan warm. It took quite a while for everyone to warm up.  He checked the weather and it was 3 over night!
We packed up and said goodbye to our neighbours here who were from Tamworth, and in our warm car we headed for Brisbane.

This is the bridge over the Brisbane river. It's hard to see in this picture but it was quite steep.
We got on the M1 and stayed on that all the way through to the Gold Coast. We got to Palm Beach, which is just south of Surfers Paradise, at lunch time. Got onto our site at Palm Beach caravan park and the kids wanted to try swimming in the swimming pools.

There are 3 pools. The pools were very cold and the kids didn't last very long.

 We then walked to the beach but that was a little cold for swimming. The kids haven't played in sand for ages so they made up for lost time.

You can see Surfers Paradise in the back ground. Nicely graded sand beaches here.

Gympie

Tuesday 20th
We weren't in much of a rush as we weren't going too far, just to Gympie. Tim washed the car and caravan before we hitched on and tried to get rid of the redness! Compared to all the retired couples caravans we looked lived in and WELL used. The red is stained on from our Gibb River Road experience, just a reminder of where we have been.
We got to our camping spot at Gympie by lunch and it was near an oval so the kids and I went and ran around and kicked some balls around. It was a nice spot. Started getting cold quick though and we were looking for our jumpers. 

Hervey Bay

Monday 19th
 Hervey Bay.

 The kids and the statue of a boy and a fish!

Walking down the Hervey Bay jetty.

Hervey Bay

Monday 19th
It is a little cloudy and cool which means our solar doesn't get as much power coming through so it was  probably a good thing that we had found a powered site for a couple of days.
We took a drive to Hervey Bay as Tim remembered being there in 1998.

We took a walk down the jetty but people weren't catching many fish. The tide was out a long way.

On the beach we discovered 1000s of these little blue crabs that walked forwards, sideways, whatever way they wanted but quickly dug themselves into the sand when we walked near them.

On our walk we found this bike fixing place with tools hanging off it. We had lunch there and it actually spat with rain! A little bit cool. But we can now swim in the sea if it gets warn enough! No crocodiles or stingers!
When we got back to Maryborough showgrounds the kids were playing and discovered a cane toad. So we got the shovel down off the car and got rid of it. They are quite big and ugly looking things. Our neighbours here are from Maitland in NSW. I told them I grew up near Maitland  SA and now I have met someone from the other Maitland!

Bundaberg

Sunday 18th
The morning started well for Tim as he opened his window from his bed and beheld a coffee van!!!

It had a big yellow sign. COFFEE. So Tim promptly sprung out of bed and strode straight over to purchase his Sunday morning latte. He was very happy with his purchase.
We then headed into Bundaberg to church. We went to the COC  and got to hear that the floods were as bad as the sign had said at the Gin Gin camp. They have had a big year of helping those that had been affected by the floods.
 During the music I really enjoyed listening to the voices of the two leaders. Beautiful voices.
We then went and had lunch and kept travelling. We had heard we could stay at the showgrounds at Maryborough so we looked for that. Eventually found it and it is the cheapest yet. $16 a night. We have power, hot showers, water. Amazing! They must have heaps of horse events here as there are dressage arenas, cross country, show jumps and cattle yards. Again a nice lot of space for the kids.