THE CAHOONS IN OZ: Up The East Coast

After leaving Ipswich our first stop was - COSTCO! For the last time in a long time.... our Costco cards had actually expired in November, but we just wanted to get the BBQ chicken pizza one last time before possibly never again! Then we continued up to Bundaberg for the night (about 4 1/2 hrs). I can say that buying a second iPad and being able to download Netflix were the best things, not only for the airplane but especially for the ridiculously long drive to Mt. Isa! It kept the kids very entertained (well Elly not quite as much as Charlie) there was very little fussing and whining, which was great!

Our motel was pretty nice in Bundaberg and even included breakfast! So that was nice before heading off for the day. I'm a bit sad we didn't plan things better as we could have gone and seen the turtle hatching if we were more organized the night before, but a part of me thinks that would have been too much to try and add it in to the trip as well.... Oh well, as it was we did stop by the Bundaberg Barrel which is the visitors centre to the factory where Bundaberg Ginger Beer is made, which is Andrews favourite drink! It wasn't that impressive, we paid to do this little tour thing (which was self guided and pretty lame) and then we got to taste all the flavours of their drinks (I think there were about 20!) so it got to be a little much after a while! Charlie and Elly didn't like any of them because they were all "spicy" (aka carbonated!) so Andrew was drinking their shares to get our moneys worth! They've just come out with a new flavour - Tropical Mango - which was amazing and has surpassed passionfruit as my favourite!

After that little stop it was on 7 hours or so up the coast to Mackay, where we stayed at a caravan park with horrible beds but great amenities for the kids! The next morning we swam in the pool (which even had a waterslide which the kids loved!) and played at the splash park and on the giant inflatable pillow - the kids were sad to leave, but it was time to move along! We didn't drive very far, just 4 1/2 hours or so up to Townsville. We decided to stay in a nicer place here that had a pool and an amazing included buffet breakfast - definitely the best one I've ever been to!! Along the waterfront in Townsville was really nice with parks and the funnest free splash park I've ever seen - it had real waterslides! We decided to stay an extra day to take advantage of the breakfast (no joke it was that good!) and to play. I wish it hadn't been school holidays as the splash park was so busy and there were lots of older kids, so Charlie ended up doing a lot of budding ahead in the lines to try and get on the waterslides! It was actually pretty funny to watch.

Friday we headed west towards our new home! It was a pretty barren and empty drive, with a two lane road (which was horribly bumpy in some places) and huge road trains to pass. (A road train is a semi truck pulling 3-4 trailers behind it - super scary to pass as it took so long and they would often swerve - I'm glad Andrew was driving!) We stopped in Julia Creek to try and get some lunch, but we could only find a dodgy little grocery store where we bought a few things and went and ate it at a little park - it was so hot I honestly thought I was going to die....

Beach in Townsville - it was small and all netted off so people don't die from stingers!
The water was SUPER warm!

At the Bundaberg Barrel

Andrew sampling some of the fine drinks...

Elly loves to cuddle things whether its a stuffy or a roll of paper towel...
She just randomly grabbed it as it was sitting beside her - this girl is too funny