The Ellis Oz Blog: Catching up with Friends and Family

Crossing the Great Dividing Range this time was a little scary. It was a very wet day and the road from Tenterfield heading east was very windy and slippery. A couple of times the caravan pushed us around corners much quicker that Dan would have liked. Dan was great and got us over the mountain and safely down the other side. while managing to ignore my foot stomping on my imaginary brake at every corner! I think I held my breath most of the way.

Ellis & Woods kids - fighting the 'bad guys!'

We were planning on staying at the showgrounds in Mullumbimby. We stayed there last year and really enjoyed it. When we pulled up there was a sign on the gate explaining that they no longer allowed camping. We moved on to the Leagues Club where we were woken up by what sounded like a blow torch outside our window. It was, in fact, a hot air balloon taking off in the field next to us. We all jumped out of bed and watched the very pretty picture of the massive balloon taking off in front of a magical sunrise.

Gold Coast skyline from Coolangatta

We towed the van to Brunswick Heads where we met up with my friend, Karly who I went to high school with. Karly moved up this way from Melbourne a few years ago and we missed out on seeing each other last year. It was lovely to catch up with Karly and to introduce her to my family.

We then crossed the border into Queensland and visited our friends Mark, Amanda and the kids while they are staying in Palm Beach for a few months. While we were there we went to the theme parks, visited the Gold Coast and helped Amanda and Jake celebrate their birthdays

We moved up over the mountain to Canungra and stayed there for a few days while we explored the area.

A day trip up to the top of Mount Tamborine was beautiful, and while Zac was having an afternoon nap, Dan took Sam and Will up to Oreilles to walk in the treetops.

On our way north we called in to visit our friend Dennis. We just managed to fit the caravan on his front lawn and we stayed there for the night. The boys were very excited because Dennis works for an ice cream company and has a freezer full of all sorts of frozen treats! It was like going into a milk bar and not having to worry about the money! As we left Will said that he thinks Dennis has the best job EVER!!

Bypassing Brisbane we drove to Caloundra to see Dan’s sister. Peta and her husband, Ben have recently moved here from Melbourne with their two kids, Emily and Jack. It has been about 4 months since we have seen them so it was a very exciting reunion. They are living in a lovely new estate in Caloundra West and the kids are settling in well to their new school, but Em is really missing her friends back home.

We were planning on staying with Peta and Ben for a couple of weeks, but they had some really heavy rain witch bogged us in their back garden. We could have got out but we would have chewed the grass to bits so we decided to impose on them for a little bit longer.

Our dog, Marvel loved being at Peta and Ben’s house. He finally had a back garden he could run around in. Peta loved having a dog in her back garden again although I don’t think she appreciated Marvel dropping his fur everywhere!!!

We had a lovely time in Caloundra. When it was raining we sat and caught up with Peta and Ben and their new life here. When it wasn’t raining we went exploring. The beaches here are lovely and some have beautiful views of Bribie Island. We had a lovely afternoon in the sun playing on the beach after eating wonderful fish and chips.

Pete and I spent a couple of Sunday mornings at the Bullcock Market, and we all got to see Jack in action on the football field. He was a little super star player back in Melbourne and is dominating the field up here where the AFL clubs are fairly new.

It was Mother’s Day while we were in Caloundra so we took a drive into Brisbane. We had a beautiful day with Mark, Amanda and their kids at Southbank, followed by dinner at the Mount Coot-Tha lookout.

We spent another day in Brisbane visiting Dan’s cousin and her family in Hawthorne. We saw Martin, Sian and the girls a few times last year and had a lovely time. The kids quickly rekindled their friendships and we were all sad to leave at the end of the day. Martin and Sian are planning on buying an off-road camper so hopefully we will see them on the road one day.

We spent one day out 4WDing with Ben and Jack out in the pine plantation just out of town. We had a fun day with lots of mud! Sam and Will told us that they wanted to go in Uncle Ben’s car because he was going through all the big puddles and we were taking the chicken tracks. Then Ben went through a very deep puddle and got bogged. His car was on quite an angle and water started going into the car. Very quickly the boys jumped out and said that they no longer wanted to go in with Uncle Ben because he was crazy!

While Ben was bogged and muddy water was leaking into his car, we discovered that our winch wasn’t working and it was too slippery for us to pull Ben’s Patrol out. So Ben had to winch himself forwards and get out of the mud. It was all great fun but we realised that our breaks weren’t working well afterwards and we were planning on leaving the next day.

So once again we had to stay at Peta and Bens for longer than planned while we got the breaks fixed. It gave Dan a chance to fix the winch while we waited anyway.

On the last weekend we were in Caloundra Dan’s mum Shelley flew up from Melbourne. It was lovely for the kids to see her again and we had a nice night out at the local pub for dinner.