18. UNFINISHED - memorable holidays

There are some in our family (and some of our friends!) who think our life is one long holiday. And yes, it is true that we travel a lot; our philosophy has become “do it while we can” as we know too many friends, and family, for whom “holiday” is too hard or impossible and we want to  make the most of the opportunities we have. It appears to us that there is a finite window of opportunity for travel and nobody knows how long that time is. So, for as long as we can, you will find us on the road, or on the water, or in the air…

The first most memorable holiday I had involved a year of travelling around Australia. In 1995, Roger and I bought a Jayco Swan camper trailer and a 4WD. The kids were 8 and 6, so we took them out of school, rented out the house, and headed off on the road. Having never camped before, this was quite an adventurous thing to do, but we felt very excited as we drove along the highway heading for places previously unseen by us. We explored every state and capital in Australia, making an anti-clockwise trail around then heading up the middle, taking a tent when the roads weren’t suitable for the van, visiting every site we could manage in our twelve-month adventure. As a school teacher, I felt confident I could provide my kids with the educational basics and the countryside would teach them more than they would ever learn in a classroom, and this was certainly proved when they returned to school with far more knowledge and understanding about our country than the rest of their classmates! We visited mines in far north Queensland and Western Australia, convict settlements in Tasmania and southern WA, old gold settlements in Victoria, went whale watching in South Australia and marvelled at Aboriginal Art in the Northern Territory. We walked to the tip of Cape York, climbed Uluru, swam with dolphins at Monkey Mia, snorkelled the reefs. It was a year to remember forever.

Twenty two years, a new husband and fresh retirement was the catalyst for my second memorable holiday, this time in a boat! Martin and I had purchased a 38-foot flybridge Clipper in 2011 and enjoyed the next few years cruising around the waterways of south-eastern Victoria. In 2017, we rented out our house, set ourselves up in Lakes Entrance and in April we were ready to move. With fine weather and fair seas we cruised out of the entrance to the Gippsland waterways and turned left, cruising through Bass Strait overnight and around the corner past Gabo Island, coming in to an inlet on the far south coast of NSW. Over the next few months we continued north, into the magnificent Sydney Harbour, along the rugged coastline, pulling in to an inlet each night or if the weather was not to our liking. Nelson Bay, Coffs Harbour and the beautiful Clarence River were some of the fabulous places we visited, plus a night bobbing in the bay under the watchful eye of the lighthouse at Byron Bay before reaching the Gold Coast seaway in early July.  We loved the calm waterways of the Broadwater and explored them all before continuing up to Moreton Bay and beyond. 

By December we had travelled as far north as the Daintree River, with an extended tour of the Whitsundays, then Magnetic Island and the reefs, islands and cays around Cairns on our way. Once we had navigated through the notorious Wide Bay Bar (on a very calm day) and reached the beginning of the Great Barrier Reef, the protected waters heading north made for a perfect trip. The weather was delightful, with little wind and lots of sunny days. We swam at every opportunity, including at Cid Harbour in the days before numerous shark attacks proved that unsafe, and snorkelled at almost every coral reef we could access. We avoided open water in places where crocodiles were known to lurk - we even bought a sprinkler system and hooked it up to the deck wash pump to keep us cool in unsafe waters. We left the boat in a cyclone proof marina near Cairns and flew south for summer, planning to be back in late February - but my major accident on New Years Eve of 2017 put paid to that and Martin and various mates brought the boat back to the Gold Coast in stages so that he and I could enjoy more sedate cruises while I recovered.

In 2020, just before COVID struck, we took off from the Gold Coast again. We got as far as Harvey Bay before travel was banned, and we cooled our heels around the waters west of K’Gari/Fraser Island for a month waiting for restrictions to ease. It was lovely just chilling out on the boat without worrying about crowds, masks, etc and we only went ashore occasionally to restock. Eventually, as travel rules eased, we continued north via Bundaberg and through the Narrows, on to Great Keppel Island and the Great Barrier Reef. We revisited some of our favourite places from our previous adventure and discovered some new delights. And we ventured further north, to Cooktown and Lizard Island, before turning south again, reaching the Gold Coast and leaving the boat there in December.

By then we had also bought a caravan! We rented a marina berth at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast for Manookatoo, while we adventured inland, in “Vanooka”, a small pop top van we purchased from our friends Ian and Jo-Anne. We brought the van north, via the Murray and Darling Rivers, turning north from Burke and traversing south western Queensland on our way to the coast. Since basing ourselves there we have embarked on a few more trips through outback Queensland as far as Longreach, Mt Isa, Lawn Hill and Karumba, and down the east coast from Port Douglas back to the Gold Coast. We loved our little van but we recently upgraded to “Vanookatoo”, which has a small but very convenient bathroom and a larger fridge, improving our camping experiences a little bit more. 

Next year, we are hoping to retrace part of the journey I took in 1995 up to the tip of Cape York. We’ll likely head inland and west to Birdsville on our way as this is somewhere neither of us has been before. And we’ll probably revisit a few old favourites like Karumba on our way to our new journey. Life is one big adventure and we want to make the most of it - for as long as we are able to, anyway! 

“As you grow older, you’ll find the only things you regret are the things you didn’t do.”– Zachary Scott