Tweed Heads Thurs 11 July 2002 emails on longw@acr.net.au (text only, sorry) NOTE: I am having problems getting our mail. Sorry if I have not acknowledged your email.
Well, here we are, still in the warmth of the north, however we ARE in NSW again, after all that time!! It does feel different being here though I am not sure that the Tweed really qualifies as home just yet!!
So much to tell you however we are now at the stage where we have to put some serious kilometres in. The plan is Tenterfield tonight, Coonabarabran approx by tomorrow then Bathurst saturday night. This will see us make Cootamundra by Sunday arvo so we can clean and tidy and drop the girls off. Monday Lib and I will head to Melb with the van to drop it off on Tues.
Monday morning we found that we could not go to a world for half a day, I should have known that! So we re-evaluated our times and decided we could do 2 'worlds' in 2 days and still get back. So we stayed the last 3 nights in Labrador, the Pine Ridge van park, which turned out to be one of the best in the district. That allowed us to do Warner Bros Movie World on Tues then Seaworld yesterday, Wed. Of course we had a wonderful time. Warner Bros prob shaded Seaworld for our interests but we lived it up at both. Highlight was at the big skiiing demonstration yesterday. They were giving promotional Coke (??) hats away to people with Coke products in their hands. Only 1 hat for the hundreds or more there. Sure enough Janaya got the hat!! Then the announcer came out and asked for volunteers to be the 2 judges for the skiing contest. Kelsie leapt up and was chosen for that!! She had to sit in front of everyone and hold up scores. She also got to plant the flags in the sand for the ladies skiing race. She spoke very confidently in front of the crowd as she was introduced. I could hear her say Bombala from way over the side where I was buying hot dogs. I nearly dropped them!! I looked across and there she was!! I really had to run to get back to our seats so I could get the video camera out!! So much more to tell you but time is against us.
We are all still magically healthy without so much as a sneeze in 7 weeks and 11000 plus kilometres, not too mention the 6 states or territories we have entered and crossed.
Hope you are all well, thanks to the Blackmores, the Reas, the Walkers and the Clerets for their emails. Hi to Connie, Craig and family for telling Julie about us, it is great to hear from and about friends and family when away for so long! See you all soon.
Regards, Warwick, Libby, Kelsie, Brittany and Janaya (Thursday 2pm Tweed Heads)

Brisbane, Sun 7 July 2002 contact us on longw@acr.net.au (text only please)
Here we are at my brother, Ian's, and his wife, Deb's, new house in Kenmore, a suburb of Brisbane. We arrived here later than planned as we got caught up in the stream of holiday traffic returning to Brisbane at the end of the Queensland school holidays.
Sorry for the delay but we have been pushing it to get through the big distances between Townsville and Brisbane. The weather has been marvellous and we have had lots of fun.
Left Bowen and travelled into Airlie Beach which is a real mecca for tourists and there were many of them. We had a swim in their new lagoon but the water was a bit cool, esp for me!! Then pushed on to Mackay but not too impressed and stayed 36kms away at Sarina.
Next day, 3rd of July, Wed, travelled to Rockhampton via Clairview, very small place, and marlborough. Kids enjoyed the heated pool in the Rockhampton park. Had a lovely barbecue there.
4 July saw us wander around Rocky and look at the Kershaw gardens on the north side of the bridge. Finally headed off to Gladstone which has a lot of industry and does not rate highly on our scale of nice places to visit. headed south for the van park at Benaraby. And what a nice place this was. They were really upbeat people who showed us to our sight on their pushbikes. Lovely facilities with enormous ferns and staghorn ferns all through the shower/toilet block. Really nicely set up and administered, a real contrast to last night but more about that later!!
5 July saw us head off to Miriam Vale which was quite nice, then GinGin for driver reviver, and I needed it just then!! Pushed on into Bundaberg but the Rum mill was closed just for Friday arvo for staff training...can you believe it??!!! After getting over that shattered feeling we headed off to try to get to Gympie, but just too late in the day. Made it to Maryborough after passing through Childers in the early evening. The countryside around Childers was quite pretty and the town looked nice too. It is a shame that the backpacker fire has grabbed so much attention...they deserve better. Finally into Maryborough in the dark. Watched Men In Black so we were pleased to get good tv reception there as we don't get this often. Janaya had received the MIB comic book in her Mt Isa Showbag and we had read it over and over so it was a real treat to watch the movie...with her feverishly trying to follow the story in her comic!! (and the comic was out of sync which was a little offputting for Naya!!)
6 July saw a really early start, so little impressions of Maryborough, and we had brekky in the Maccas at Gympie. It was quite nice and the lady brought me a refill for my coffee, so there you go!! We pushed on to Eumundi to catch the famous Sat morning markets after reading about Eumundi in the Woman's Day recently. Well...so had every other person on the East Coast of Oz read the same article because the traffic jam was humungous (sp?)....lines of cars trying to get into this little backwoods town with a tiny main street. We gave it up as a lost cause and headed against the traffic and found ourselves standing on Noosa Beach, not a bad alternative in the circumstances!!!! We had a lovely icecream and made sandcastles in the cool breeze. Even the sand was cool in the full sunshine of a Queensland day in July. Headed, after a shop at Noosa junction, to the Ginger Factory. Had a nice time there and rode the little train. We went there in 1988 so it was interesting to return. (I couldn't remember a thing...does this surprise my students??!!). Made our way, late in the day, to the Pineapple Factory but half an hour seemed to suffice for us, we are a little jaded about doing lots of touristy things at this stage. The kids are often just as happy to play in a good park now. We headed off late in the day to BliBli and entered the van park there. Yoiks. The less said the better. Ask me about this sometime. Anyway we locked ourselves in our van and slept the night!!
Today, Sun 7 July has been lots of fun. We revisited BliBli castle which we also visited in 1988, I think, and where we bumped into John and Betty Crawford on one of the battlements or staircases (back then, not today!!) We really enjoyed the castle as it has a vast collection of dolls and dioramas as well as providing breathtaking views from its towers. The lovely weather again made it a memorable visit. We had lovely devonshire teas and apple pie and muffin there, just topped off a lovely morning. Headed towards the coast and stopped off at another of these tourist experiences, the Nostalgia Place (or whatever, I forget the exact name). Just a bit too touristy for us, too. Great if you were on a short holiday but sitting in little trains or playing putt putt leaves us a little underwhelmed and the cost is a bit much too. We are saving our pennies for the 'worlds' as we call them on the Gold Coast, prob. Warner Bros and Seaworld, we hope.
Visited Maroochydore's large shopping centre for supplies but this took ages as it is enormous. Then parked on the headland overlooking the ocean and the yachts racing for a late lunch. Finally joined the crawl of people heading to Brisbane.
Well, I admire your staying power if you have read through to here. Thanks for that. Will head down to watch the Wimbledon final. Was great to catch up with Ian and Deb. Also rang Jon Honey tonight and he is nursing a bung shoulder after deciding to ski on his head instead of his skis. At least he did it Thursday and not on day one of their holiday to Thredbo.
Bye for now, heading south tomorrow, Gold Coast then the cold country!!!
Warwick, Lib, Kelsie, Brit and Naya.