I decided we wouldn’t go anywhere these July school holidays, given that we’ve booked holidays every other school holiday period of the year but then I discovered my kids have not 2, but 3 WEEKS off and that’s a week too many of trying to entertain, book in carers, and schedule play dates so now I’m on the hunt for a getaway. Let’s talk caravan parks.

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

I’m sifting through my options of parks tried and tested as well as some parks that show potential but which we’re yet to book. You might have noticed that the humble caravan park is now commonly referred to a ‘holiday resort,’ which sounds much fancier than the caravan parks of my youth. Granted, caravan parks of today generally offer much more than the park of the 80’s/90’s and operate under much high standards (cleaner bathrooms) so they now doubt deserve their new title.

Yamba

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Blue Dolphin has become our Easter holiday go-to for the whole extended family. Between us all, we book out all types of accomodation from a one bed cabin, caravan site, villa, and 3 bedroom apartment. We love that we can all stay according to our varying budgets and accommodation needs and still be in the one place. The kids scoot/bike around all day ‘house-hopping.’ It has 3 x pools and a kids slide/adventure area. The pool bar is heated but at Easter time, the other pools are like jumping into a ice bucket (freezing). In addition to the jumping pillow and Go Karts, this park has just installed a mini golf course and second playground to amuse the kids. Although the park is on the river, we’re more beach goers which is a short car trip. The kids love to bike ride into town for ice cream and whilst I love the easy ride, for them it’s all about the destination. Sounds so ‘holidayish’ doesn’t it? Yamba itself is the real attraction with its multiple beautiful beaches and slow seaside town vibe.

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Blue Dolphin, Yamba

Clarke’s Beach, Byron Bay

Clarke’s  is where you come to get the best of Byron without the price tag. We used to be in the habit of booking sites last minute and ending up in the worst site in the park. ie. the one that backs onto the main road, as was the case with our experience here but even then I could see how good it could be with the right site. The park sits atop the beach and any caravan park that is walking distance to the beach is my kind of park. The location is in fact the main attraction. We’ve booked a cabin instead of a van site these July holidays because it’s too cold to be getting up in the middle of the night to use public bathrooms. They actually have some fancy new, very contemporary cabins which we didn’t book in time to secure but are worth checking out here.

Byron Bay

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Ahhhh Adder! North Straddie is my spirit home. We’ve been coming at least once a year since we were kids and whilst it’s only a 45 minute ferry ride I always feel like I’m far, far away. In 2011, the island which falls under Redland council jurisdiction, was granted Native Title status by the Australian government. The move officially recognises the Island’s original custodians, the Quandamooka people. Straddie or Minjerribah, its Indigenous name, meaning ‘island in the Sun,’ offers multiple camping options (Cylinder, Flinders, Amity) but we’ve been staying at Adder Rock since we were babies. It’s large but never feels crowded and it offers a patrolled beach, like Cylinder but is never as busy. The real perk is that there are heaps of trees and shade is important when you’re camping in the dead of a Queensland Summer. The amenities are limited, consisting of a playground and 2 x toilet/shower blocks that are never quite as clean as mainland standards but we tend to overlook that for the park’s superior location.

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Adder Rock, North Stradbroke Island

Cotton Tree Holiday Park

Someone has to die before you can get a spot at Cotton Tree Holiday Park. We stayed here pre-caravan days and set up camp in our camper trailer. You’ll be happy to know no one died for us to stay. My Auntie used to book the same spot for 6 weeks every year so we sub-letted her spot. She had the best unpowered site in the park, almost right on the beach with uninterrupted views of the water. The beauty of this park is it’s located where the river meets the sea so you if you want flat water you head left and if you want waves you head right. The downside is, it’s busy. A bit too busy for an introvert like me. It was packing up from this trip that sparked our caravan renovating journey. It poured rain the entire pack up process which meant for a very muddy situation and as you know means the trailer needed to be set up again to dry out once home. We were ready for the easy life! Cue vintage caravan renovation number one, Millie.

Cotton Tree, Sunshine Coast

Northstar Hastings Point

We’ve visited Northstar, Hastings Point a few times now mostly due to its close proximity to us on the Gold Coast. Although, we haven’t been there since it changed hands. It used to be apart of the Big 4 brand, which generally means clean amenities, a pool, water park, jumping pillow and kids club. According to the website, it’s undergone same fairly major renovations ie. the water park appears to be twice the size, which would have my kids very excited. You’ll be happy to know the onsite cafe does a decent coffee and a few minutes up the road at Cabarita, The Stunned Mullet does some mean fish and chips. If you’re a bit fancier, you could otherwise treat yourself at Paper Daisy in the very instagrammable, Halcyon House.

On the road

Carlene xx

You would have had to have been on a committed Instagram Hiatus to have missed our Summer holiday spam this past January. Sorry, not sorry. We book our North Stradbroke Island (a 60-minute barge ride from Cleveland, in Brisbane’s bayside) holiday a year in advance, every year and after the crazy Christmas lead up we’re always hankering for this trip. Michael and I have been holidaying at Straddie since we were babies and this year, again, it did not disappoint.  It’s our Spirit place and breathes life into us after increasingly fast-paced years.

The water is crystal-clear and you can usually always find a protected beach with slow, rolling waves. As soon as we land on the island you can feel a shift in the air and our attitudes. We love that it has barely changed in 36 years apart from a few more cafes and a health food shop. There are few decisions to make other than what ice cream flavour do I want and which beach today? And nowhere else do I go into full and complete holiday mode. My brain goes to mush and I’m ‘off’ until I hit the mainland again.

Last year, we caravanned at Adder Rock in un-renovated Dolly so it was a treat this year to take the old girl back over all done up and considerably more comfortable. I’ll camp or caravan but I have to be comfortable and it can’t involve too much effort. We work hard through the year so I don’t want my holiday to involve more work. I want to be comfortable and have running water and ideally, power. I also won’t do blow up mattresses. I take my bed situation seriously, complete with eye mask and white noise. You might argue we’re more like ‘glampers’ and you’d probably be right.

This was also the first time we’ve been also able to travel in comfort. Last year we partnered with Isuzu Ute and we’ve been driving their MU-X, which is worlds apart from Michael’s unloved work ute, which has been our mode of camping transport up until now. You should know too that Dolly is a 22-foot vintage van so she’s far from petite and the MU-X tows like a boss. You have to have your wits about you when towing anything, really but this is especially true with big van like Dolly and in this vehicle, Michael feels really confident and more importantly, safe. For me, I’m just happy to be enjoying the comfort of leather seats, a DVD player, reverse camera and automatic transmission.

Whilst on the Island we took the opportunity to do some beach driving. The vehicle beaches provide great pippies-seeking opportunities and one arvo we even found an idyllic spot in the sand dunes to BBQ some kebabs and marshmallows. It looks too good to be true, right?! On a side note, if you’re driving on the beach please slow down if you see children because despite our incessant, neurotic reminders to them to look left and right on vehicle beaches, kids are just not expecting cars on the beach and they can’t hear you coming over the sound of the ocean. Also, when kids get on a beach they run. Everywhere. Fast.

It sounds very indulgent, I know, but we squeezed in one more, different Island adventure before we dragged our sorry selves back to work, this time to a different island. We were back on the mainland for 2 days before we boarded our second barge destined to Moreton Island (a 90 minute barge ride from the Port of Brisbane), which locals already know is a 100 per cent sand island (no bitumen roads) so you actually can’t drive on to the island without a 4WD. Most visitors to the Island come to drive, fish and snorkel and we can vouch for the array of marine life because from our balcony we watched a 5-foot shark casually swimming horizontally along the shoreline 10 metres from the beach. I’m not exaggerating, people!

If you’re an avid four-wheel-driver like Michael and the kids (I prefer my car trips sans the rock n rolling) then Moreton Island is where you want to be. Some of the beach tracks on Moreton provide some serious sand driving, which I think visitors to this island drive along for the sheer fun of the challenge. Any male reading this right now is thinking, yeah dah! But I’m more of a let’s just get from A to B kinda gal, which is how I enjoy the MUX day to day but that’s a post for another day.

I know this post is a tease when we’re only freshly back at work but the Hot Cross buns in the supermarket are an indicator that the Easter holidays are not that far away so maybe we can inspire you to book an island adventure getaway.

Carlene xx