The final leg of our journey....

Dear All

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and hope that 2015 is a fantastic year for you all.

We’ve had a great few weeks, enjoying time catching up with Steve’s sister Jane and family – kids having a ball playing with their cousins!  We spent Christmas in the housesit near Nerang which was really lovely – great swimming pool and wonderful animals that we fell in love with.  2 gorgeous British bulldogs, 4 very friendly cows, ducks and chooks!  Could get used to the country life!  The housesit came to an end earlier than expected as the owners who were camping, got rained out!  That worked out well however, as we were able to catch up with our good friend Raewyn who we’ve not seen for a couple of years so it was a bonus to be able to see her whilst she is doing a housesit just south of Armidale.  We had a lovely day out to Oxley River National Park with some beautiful waterfalls and walks, delicious picnic and wonderful company!

We are now at Muswellbrook, NSW and have been able to catch up with other friends we met on the road, in SA so its been great to have a few days here.  We’ve had a shopping day to prepare for the return to school and both girls are very excited to be going to school soon.  Actually that’s not 100% true….Meggie is very excited to be starting big school but Rosie is just keen to see all her friends again! 

And so we come to the end of our magical year.  When we left, it really felt like the year would last forever and we’ve had a wonderful journey together as a family.  Much laughter, some tears and heaps of wonderful memories!!  We are sad the trip is coming to an end but with such great friends and family in Sydney, we really are excited to be coming home and seeing everyone again.  Just such a shame our family and friends in the UK and America aren’t closer so we could see them too!

So, this will be the last installment of the 2014 McCookie travels!....its not quite over yet…we are really looking forward to catching up with Sal in Tilba and will then head back to Sydney.

Looking forward to seeing you back in Sydney real soon!

Take care

xxx

Christmas at Clagiraba, near Nerang QLD

Christmas day in the pool!

Gals with Brutus and Jazz!

Collecting the chook eggs....yummy!

Feeding the cows

Gals with Toy Boy at Raewyn's place

Oxley River National Park near Waucha, NSW

Shoe shopping time!!

Sunrise at Muswellbrook, this morning!

Beautiful Queensland

Hi All

Hope you are all keeping well.  A few people have commented that we’ve gone a bit quiet recently and I think we are all in denial about our wonderful trip coming to an end!  We are all looking forward to getting back home and seeing everyone again but sad the trip is almost over!

Anyway, travelling down the Queensland coast we really have entered the realms of cheap diesel, delicious mango’s, fresh pineapples and swimming, swimming and more swimming (with lots of tarzan swings!!)

Leaving the Atherton Tablelands we headed south to the Upper Murray Falls where we enjoyed a dip in the refreshing waters and the girls played on tarzan swings!  Our next stop was a little place called Crystal Creek with beautiful swimming holes and rock slides…it was a gorgeous spot which was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity!

We then moved to Airlie Beach and that was our base for a wonderful trip out to the Barrier Reef with some friends.  We went snorkelling off Hook Island and saw some amazing coral (fish we more plentiful and colourful at Exmouth, WA !!).  Then a relaxing afternoon at Whitehaven beach and sailing through some of the Whitsunday Islands on the way back to Airlie….beautiful!  That said, we left Airlie the day before Schoolies started ….we were fairly sure it was about to transform itself from the peaceful haven we found it to be, so it was time to move on!

Then onto lovely Bunderburg where we watched turtles come up onto the beach at night to lay their eggs.  It was amazing!  As the eggs tend to get washed away with the high tides, the Rangers now relocate the 100+ eggs laid by each turtle to a spot higher on the beach and the girls loved carrying the eggs to their new home!  They felt like squishy ping pong balls!

We celebrated Megan’s 5^th birthday at Airlie Beach and Rosies 8th Rosie’s birthday at Australia Zoo – both girls had a ball!  We will now head slowly to Brisbane, where we have a housesit near Nerang over Christmas.  We’re looking forward to catching up with Steve’s sister Jane and family over the Christmas period and will then head back to Newport!  There is still so much to see in NSW but that will have to wait to another time!  

It really has been a truly wonderful year and one we will always treasure.  Now we look forward to settling back home, catching up with you all and starting our next chapter.

Till next time

xxx

Little Crystal Creek

Rock Slides, Crystal Creek

Underwater girls!

Rock Slides

Meggie Moo!

Me and my girls!

Fun at Whitehaven Beach, Whitsundays

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsundays

Megans 5th Birthday at Airlie Beach

Turtle at Bunderburg

Rosie's 8th Birthday at Australia Zoo

Tropical Queensland

What an amazingly diverse country we live in!   A month ago we were in the dry, red, sun scorched desert of Uluru and a hop, skip and a jump (well, over 2000km’s to be precise!), we are in the lush, tropical rainforest of Queensland!

Arriving in Townsville, we started heading up the coast and met up with friends in Innisfail who had also been travelling.  The Dad, who was originally a builder in Avalon has decided on a complete career change and is now a skydive instructor there!  This “time out” seems to do that to people, although I can assure you all, neither Steve or I are going to become skydive instructors! 

From Innisfail, we met up with 2 other families we’ve met on our travels and enjoyed time in Cairns, using it as a base to explore some of the local attractions.  We particularly enjoyed our time at some of the beautiful gorges in the area, great to cool off in as humidity was starting to rise!  We then headed upto Wonga Beach and particularly enjoyed our stay at the Daintree National Park, where the rainforest meets the sea!  The kids had a ball on the beach, albeit due to those pesky crocs couldn’t actually go in the water!!

With the temperatures and humidity rising, we headed to the Atherton Tablelands, to a very pleasant 30 degrees and no humidity!  We are really enjoying our time here.  Initially we spent a week on the banks of Lake Tinaroo, exploring the many beautiful waterfalls including Millaa Millaa and Ellinjaa Falls, some gorgeous lakes, (our favourite being Lake Eacham) and seeing some of the local attractions such as the Curtain and Cathedral Fig Trees. 

We’ve really enjoyed some of the smaller towns here too….Yungaburra was a real favourite and we saw platypus, turtles and tree kangaroos in the wild there, much to the excitement of the girls!!

We are now staying at a small town called Ravenshoe.  We booked into the old railway station park for a night and have now been here a week!  It’s a very quirky place and very relaxing….its good to be in one place for a while and not driving the vast distances we found ourselves driving in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. 

The girls continue to make us laugh (and cry sometimes!!)  In one of our relaxing moments when we were all engrossed in respective books/newspapers, Megan piped up : “I’ll miss you when you die Mummy!”  Which she promptly followed by “but when you are old, I’ll live with you, with ALL my kids so you won’t be lonely”!!   How thoughtful she is!  Not sure where that one came from but it did make me chuckle and it was followed by one of her characteristic Megan super cuddles!!

Rosie, also continues to make us laugh.  Being true to form, Rosie managed to get us a fish last week!  She didn’t catch it, but in her usual “have-a-chat” style, when she saw a man at the campsite at Wonga Beach who had caught some large fish, she started chatting to him, telling him we haven’t caught anything on our trip, and whilst she had salmon the night before, it wasn’t as fresh as the fish he had!!  He must have felt so sorry for her that he gave her the fish!!  That night we had delicious red snapper which fed 6 adults and our 2 girls….yum yum! 

Well, tomorrow we are heading off and will start slowly making our way down the coast.  We will probably stay at Mission Beach for a few nights and then head to Mackay.

Till next time!

Girls at Cairns Lagoon

Kids playing at Cape Tribulation

Another lovely McCookie picnic!  Millaa Millaa Lookout

Millaa Millaa Falls

Ellinjaa Falls

Curtain Fig Tree

Enjoying a dip at Lake Eacham

Beautiful Josephine Falls

Cute platypus at Yungaburra!

Megan and Scarlet enjoying dress up at Yungaburra Markets...cool !

Ahh, tree kangaroo!

Alice Springs, Uluru, Kata Tjuta and the MacDonnell Ranges

Hi All

Ahhh, beautiful  Northern Territory just gets better and better.  We’ve just had a wonderful month around Alice Springs, Uluru and the MacDonnell Ranges.  The girls may well remember it most for getting their short hair cuts.  With the rising temperatures, cute "bob" haircuts were called for!

After a relaxing week in Alice Springs, we took the long drive to Uluru and enjoyed the magnificence of Uluru and Kata Tjuta.  We were there with a lovely family we are travelling with and really enjoyed the beauty of the place and the walks in the area.  Steve and I hired bikes one day and we all cycled around the base of Uluru.  With the help of some sweets as bribery we all made it around the 10km track! 

Rosie was really keen to climb Uluru but Megan took one look at the steep climb, and thought an icy pole at the Cultural Centre might be more fun (quite wise I thought!), so Steve and Rosie went to the top and Megan and I went to the Cultural Centre!  The rock climb had been closed most of the time we were there due to high winds but there was a break in the weather so Rosie’s dream came true!

That afternoon, we took a drive out to Kata Tjuta (formerly the Olgas), equally beautiful and stunning walks.  We all walked along the Walpa Gorge and then Rosie and I walked along the Valley of the Winds Walk to the Karingana Lookout while Megan and Steve took it easy!  Its great walking with the kids as we have some great chats.  On this particular walk, Rosie and I got onto the conversation of how her didgeridoo playing is going (we saw a man making a didgeridoo in Darwin and we bought one) and I commented that I’m not as good as Rosie.  So I said, that maybe she could teach me, to which she replied….”Mum, its not something you can just learn….its in your blood”!!!  Clearly there is some Aboriginal background I’m not aware of !!!

So, after a lovely few days at Uluru, we headed back to Alice Springs in time for a reptile show (and roast dinner at the local tavern!), where Rosie got a kiss from a blue tongue lizard and Megan got to hold a frill-necked lizard!! 

After restocking we headed to the West MacDonnell Ranges where we stayed for a few nights and enjoyed the many waterholes and gorges….Redbank Gorge, Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen and Ellery Creek and then a day trip out to Trephina Gorge.  The scenery, walks and waterholes at the MacDonnell Ranges was absolutely stunning.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Northern Territory and its been an eye opener learning about and observing first hand some of the many issues faced by NT indigenous Australians.  Its not an issue we’ve given much thought to previously, so seeing the social issues first hand has been very confronting. 

So, it was with some sadness that we left the Northern Territory.  We’ve just arrived in Townsville, after the 2000km drive from Alice Springs (stopping on the way at the fascinating Devils Marbles).  We took our time, driving for a few hours and then finding a swimming pool somewhere to cool off as the temps were upto 40 degrees.  Its amazing how many quaint towns and roadhouses there are between Three Ways and Townsville, that have swimming pools!!  Think we found them all.  At Julia Creek, the lifeguard at the swimming pool used to be the ferry master for the Palm Beach ferry!!  Small world!

So, now we embark on our journey through QLD and we are looking forward to exploring this beautiful State.  Until next time…

Take care

Rosie at top of Uluru!

The climb to the top!

Uluru at sunset

Us gals at Uluru!

Walking at Kata Tjuta

Gals at Kata Tjuta

Sunset at Kata Tjuta

The Watsons and McCookies cycling round the Rock!

Mmmm...kiss from a blue tongue lizard!

Megs holding a frill-necked lizard!

Walking back after a swim at Redbank Gorge

Ellery Creek

Devils Marbles, NT

Kadadu National Park

Hi All

Well, we have finally dragged ourselves away from Darwin!  Having initially booked for 4 days, we ended up staying in Darwin for 4 weeks!  It was hard to leave as it was such a beautiful and tranquil place.  However, when the bushfires came upto the boundary, we realised it was time to leave!  Steve diligently, (with cup of tea in hand), did his bit to dampen down the ground in case the wind blew in our direction, however, as we were camped on the edge of a billabong there was no real danger!

So, from Darwin, we headed to the long awaited Kakadu National Park, and as hoped, it has completely lived up to expectation.  It’s over 10 years since Steve and I were last there and I was really keen to share it with the girls.  We had a wonderful week in Kakadu, we all thoroughly enjoyed it, however, I feel the cultural experience may have missed the girls because when, as we were heading south and leaving the park, I asked them both what the highlight of Kakadu had been, Rosie’s reply was “the best thing was I didn’t have to do any schoolwork”!!  and Megan’s was “I got to watch a movie in the Visitor Centre”.  Hmmm, so the fact that it’s the oldest continuing rock art site in the world, a World Heritiage Site, outstanding natural beauty and wildlife, clearly passed them by!!!    Oh well, at least we all had fun, even if it wasn’t for the reasons I’d expected!!

Highlights for Steve and I were definitely the rock art sites, in particular at Ubir Rock and Nanguluwar, watching the crocs roll over the road to catch barramundi at high tide at Cahill’s Crossing and also some fabulous waterholes, favourites being Gunlom Falls, which was just like an infinity pool at the top of the falls (can’t swim at the bottom waterhole due to the pesky crocs!).  Luckily crocs can’t make the very steep climb to the top!  Also we had a wonderful day at Maguk waterhole which I must say, every now and again, when the water was too deep to see the bottom, my mind did play tricks on me about whether there were crocs waiting for the slowest swimmer in the family (that would be me!).

Anyway, Sept seems a really good time to visit Kakadu and for anyone who hasn’t been, I highly recommend it.  Its really quiet in the Park now, and on several walks we had the place to ourselves, which was bliss.  It was a rather sticky 38 degrees most days so we tended to go for our walks early in the morning, have our picnic lunch somewhere then go swimming in the afternoons to cool off.  Perfect!

We’ve now left Kakadu and spent a couple of nights at Mataranka Hot Springs and Bitter Springs by Elsey National Park.  Both springs were glorious with the water being a constant 32 degrees…..”oooh, lovely” as Megan would say!!

We are now on the long drive to Alice Springs, where we are looking forward to visiting Uluru and the McDonnell Ranges.  I’ll keep you posted!

Till next time!

xxx

Our camping haven in Darwin

Bush fire time next door so time to leave Darwin!

Wetlands in Kakadu

Rock art at Nanguluwur, Kakadu

More bushwalks in Kakadu!

Looking out to Arnhem Land from Ubir Rock

Yikes...crocs at Cahill Crossing

Hungry croc at Cahill Crossing, Kakadu

Girls at Gunlom Falls, Kakadu

Maguk Falls, Kakadu

Very posh....new snorkels and masks from Kmart!

Beautiful Bitter Springs...oooh lovely!