Cairns

Living on only a few hours of sleep because of Glenn’s stomach flu which had her throwing up every 30 minutes until 3am the night before our flight, we made our way to the airport at 6am.  Glenn puked in the taxi down Joelle’s top and onto the poor cabbie’s back seat.  Rushing to clean ourselves up, we made it to the gate on time.  The 3.5 hour flight could have been worse, but there were definitely some tantrums thrown by both kids who’d had enough of being buckled in.

Arriving in Cairns, it was hot and humid (30C).  We got to the caravan rental place only to discover that the caravan we had booked was not available, so we were given an upgrade.  Although usually a good thing, the new caravan wouldn’t fit Glenn’s portable crib.  Two hours of bargaining and hunting another caravan dealer later, we were on our way in the upgraded caravan with a 50$ gift certificate to a grocery store from Gary the manager for our troubles. Glenn's crib will rest on top of the bed in the back- we'll make it work.   

We stopped at Subway where it was Joelle’s turn to get sick with the stomach flu.  Finally we reached the mother of all caravan parks – Coconut resort.  This place has 2 swimming pools, a big playground for kids, a huge bouncing pillow, tennis court, a mini golf, pedal quads and trikes, amazing facilities, BBQs and a mini-mart.  It took us a little while to figure out the caravan – how to get the power hooked up, how to use the DVD/TV, how to get water pumped in, how to dump the waste water, and how to set up the beds.  Finally after a family shower, Joelle (still sick) and the kids crashed.  Rob the superman, stayed up til 1am organizing all our stuff.