Cairns - Big 4

Today we find ourselves heading back to Cairns again - however this time there was alot of excitement in the car - the kids have hardly sat still the whole trip - we are going to a Big 4 Caravan Park. They are known to be great caravan parks and we have never stayed at one before because they are always too expensive - but this time it was Mum's shout - so why not?

The trip down the coast road from Mossman to Cairns was absolutely spectacular - I loved it!! For a fair bit of the drive you are driving right beside the ocean. There were lots of little beaches and holiday towns along the way - if we had known it was so pretty along the coast - we probably would have moved last night and stayed at one of these towns. Oh well, maybe next time.

Finally we arrived at the Cairns Coconut Holiday Resort - and boy do they roll out the welcome mat. They asked us all to hop out of the truck so they could show us around the resort - but you don't walk - you hop in their golf cart with a huge "Nemo" on top and they show you your site and all the activities they have available. As we were driving around we were showed our site and Lexie was amazed "look mummy", she said "they have green grass!" - we all started laughing and had to explain to the young girl showing us around that it has been a while since we had seen such nice grass.

The kids were amazed at all the activities there were to do here, 2 swimming pools, jumping pillows, mini golf, outdoor movies and go karts. They were in heaven - of course they wanted to do it all straight away. Mum and I took them down to the jumping pillows and the swimming pool after we got set up. The jumping pillows are great fun - they are filled with air and feel similar to a trampoline - but safer because they are at ground level. We even managed to talk Granny into having a go.

After we all got hot and sweaty from the jumping pillows - it was off to the main swimming pool. The pool was huge, it had a shallow kids end with whale slide, a main pool and two spas - a hot and cold one. The only thing missing was the bar in the pool!! That night we walked down and watched an outdoor movie which the kids also thought was fabulous! If you asked them - everything here was fabulous!!

The next morning I had promised the kids that we could hire the go karts for them, so from the time we got up they started asking "can we get the go karts yet?" After what seemed like a lifetime to them, we were finally ready to hire the go karts - and boy - did they enjoy it! Even Dad jumped on and had a go.

We all had a really fun few days at the Big 4 - but Monday morning came all too quickly and it was time to say goodbye to Granny. We were up early because we had to have Granny at the airport at 7:00am for her flight home. As you can imagine - there were tears - lots of tears - and not just from the kids. We had all really enjoyed Granny's visit and were sorry to see her go home. So with lots of kisses and cuddles we waved Granny goodbye and headed back to the van to hook it up and head off to Karumba.

We had a bit of a drama - which could have been a major problem while hitching the van up today. Usually I have the two-way radio and let Chris know how he is going, which way to turn etc to hook the van up - however today the two-way wasn't working properly, which neither of us realised. As he was backing back, the pin on the van was off centre to the hitch on the truck - so I told him on the two-way to go slightly left, keep going left, slow down, stop, stop! STOP!.......CRUNCH!!! Little did I know - he couldn't hear me saying stop - so he thought he was ok and kept backing up. Because the hitch was off centre it just pushed the van back - off the blocks of wood the front legs were on and made a terrible noise.

It gave us both a terrible fright - and luckily there was no damage but it could have caused a major problem. We tried again - this time testing to make sure the two-way was working ok before starting. We got the van hitched up and were on the road for the long drive towards Karumba in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

For more photos of Cairns Coconut Holiday Resort - click here http://picasaweb.google.com/travellingoakeys/CairnsBig4?feat=directlink