Whitsundays - paradise

5-3 2010 (Friday)

After a terrible night sleeping; we heard trains (and trains are huge and long in Australia), many cars (blanking their horns) all night long and it was humid. Sharai had some difficulty falling asleep all night long. And Sharon saw many spiders (as she says: elephants) flying around .
Ruben had to admit it wasn’t such a great success. The place was depressing and very low key. Just imagine…. The playground is situated next to the highway and when Sharon and the kids were playing there, Sharon took notice that at the playground, there was a little house which said dangerous 11.000 Volt. After spending a day in the car, we promised the kids a playground…. So after 10 minutes it was about time to distract them and lead them to the (aggenebbische) pool.

Ruben woke up at 7 am and packed the car with our luggage. Sharon has her system: 2 bags of cloths, one trolley contains DVD/toilet stuff (Shampoo/toothpaste etc) one Turkish bag with all our shoes, one with laundry, one nice bag with the computer and wires and off course our 2 dollar cool bag with food.
The bags are like our closets and the trolley is our important every need day stuff bag. When we go to the Hamilton Islands tomorrow, we will just take our “closets” , the trolley, the wire/computer bag, the cool bag and off course the prams for our kids.
The kids and Sharon woke at about 8:30, we took a shower and about 9 we were all in the car.
Got a coffee to go, banana bread and a muffin and went off for a long day in the car. Rockhampton to Airlie Beach is 489 km.
We drove trough Mackay, which is the sugarcane centre off Australia and went to Mac Donalds Coffee. It’s different than in the Netherlands, cause we were able to get “Tosti’s” good coffee and a regular lunch for Ruben en Sharon. All Mac Donalds have a great playground and this was also one of the reasons we wanted to have lunch and a break here. They played and it was very humid and hot. You really feel the tropical atmosphere coming driving up north.

The kids didn’t sleep at and all we could see was sugarcane, prairie (without cowboys) and sugarcane. Finally we went to a very nice Big 4 caravan park; Adventure Whitsunday resort near Airlie Beach. We have a cottage now, with 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a living and a kitchen. It’s not the most luxuries place on earth, but very fine for us.
We drove trough Airlie and it’s a very nice place. Because it’s Stinger (Box Jelly Fish) season, you’re not able to swim in the sea. So, just like we already have seen in Brisbane, they made a water lagoon with an artificial beach, next to the beach. Very nice. Many young people.
We took a dip in the pool at the campsite, with 2 waterslides. Zeb is doing great and we hardly have to look after him and Sharai wants to take the slide by herself now. Kids love it. We took a shower and went to the city to have dinner.
We ended having dinner in the Whitsunday Sailing club and had the best view. It’s so good to eat outside, at the sea with the sunset. Even though the kids didn’t sleep, they were very sweet. Dinner was good and we got to listen to live music . Afterwards we went back. Kids fell asleep and everything was packed and ready to go for tomorrow. We look forward to take the boot to one of the most beautiful islands of the world….

Hamilton Island
06-03 2010 (Saturday)

Ruben is an early bird, as we call it. He woke up at 7 again and did some groceries and got our every morning skim milk cappuccino with extra trot. Sharon and Sharai woke up at 7:30, cause Hetty (Sharon’s mother) called her. By the time Ruben got back the whole family was up and running.
We were very excited to leave the mainland and hit for Hamilton Island…
We had a little play at the playground and the jumping pillow and up to go.

We lost our photo camera, @#$%%^&^&, luckily most photo’s are already on the computer.

In the harbor we had about 1 hour before the Fantasea boot come to pick us up.
We saw many cruise boats and their passengers. It reminds us on Appie and Beppie, who loved taking a cruise holiday.
The boat trip was amazing; especially on the roof. The view is beautiful, the sun is doing her job and we really enjoy. This part of Australia is called the Whitsundays, it’s a group of 74 island. This is what you imagine when you think of a tropical island.

Once on the island, we had to wait for the apartment to get ready. We got our car; a golf buggy. The boys in front and the girls in the back. This is really unbelievable, as if its surreal; such a beautiful island. We had lunch en the kids had free meals. Most restaurants offer free meals for kids on Hamilton.
Finally we got the apartment and guess what; so nice, so beautiful. Balconies all around, good view and very modern. We love it here.

We went to the pools. The pools are situated on the beach and we’re allowed to swim in all the pools, except for one (kids not allowed).
Sharon checked the beach out and saw another pool with some kids activities. We went there; Zeb got his face schminkeled as Superman and Sharai as the pink Superwoman.
We went back and Sharai did a little nappy.

For dinner we went to the Marina for pizza. The island is like one big resort, everybody is driving his golf buggy and enjoying the relax atmosphere.

7-3-2010 (Sunday)

Relaxed morning in our huge and luxurious apartment. Ruben made pancakes, which we ate at one wing of our balcony ;). We had some kiwi for desert. The fruit tastes great in Australia.

We took a trip along the island with our buggy and then went to the beach/pools. Today is a beautiful day again. At the pool we sat next to an Israeli couple that lives in Melbourne, he works for Amdocs.
From one of the look-out-points we had an amazing view of the Whitsunday Islands.

Interesting is also to read the commentaries in the newspapers about Israel, always much more positive then in Europe. They did not really like the misuse of Australian passports on the assassination of the Hamas guy in Dubai but are convinced about the fact that Israel must be able to defend itself and they see Israel mistreated compared to other countries if concerned condemning Israel of whatever.

We had toasted cheese sandwiches in our apartment and Sharai did her nappy. It was good to eat in this beautiful air-conditioned place, surrounded by parrots and amazing view. By the way she did go to the toilet a couple of times. She looks quite serious and tells us: “I gotto go”…. Very sweet.

In the afternoon we went to the pool that belongs to our apartment, really nice and quit. For drinks we went to a bar that was set-up at a look-out point to see the sunset and have a drink. We met a nice Scottish family. Somebody took Sharon’s new Ray Ban, but we discovered it in time to get it back. The girl said she took it by mistake hmmmmm.

For dinner we went to the steakhouse in the marina, for the kids again an fabulous free buffet and for us a 350g Scottish filet and a Caesar salad.

Again what a perfect day.

8-3-2010 (Monday)

Ruben and Zeb went to the marina to get coffee and we enjoyed our spacious apartment. We went to a swim in the lagoon pool on the beach. The kids can play and we read a book or magazine.
Ruben is reading The Wolf of Wall street by Jordan Belfort, he got the book from Marc and Ilde.

We made cheese sandwiches for lunch. Sharon went to make a tour around the island (shops).

In the afternoon we went to our own pool. For dinner we went to the steakhouse again.

The caravan park in Rockhampton called to tell that they found our camera, they will send it to our next stop in Airlie Beach. They had a lot of hassle tracing us, they did not have our number on record, so they called the police who called the car rental agency and so they finally got our number. We are so grateful to them.

Sharon and Ruben watched the Oscars.