23 – 26 May
A few more great days with Marion and Terry. The boys have done some fishing – with limited success. Jeff caught a Bream – very tasty – but Terry was out of luck. Marion took me to see her Doc (they actually live not too far from here, and like us, they’re renting out their house whilst on their travels). I need a repeat prescription which the doc duly gave me, check BP too – all OK.
Went to the Sunday Market in Coolangatta – saw lots of interesting craft stuff.
We also had a walk around Burliegh Head, stopping for a great ice-cream before returning. The surf was still pretty good and there were quite a few surfers out, trying to find the best waves.
Betty G’s Rego expires in June, so we needed to head back to Tweed Heads (she’s registered in NSW) on 27 May. As we were driving around we spotted a car repair workshop which did Rego checks (Aussie equivalent of our MOT) and booked a service and check for 8:30 the following morning. We then booked in for a couple of nights at the Boyds Bay Holiday Park.
27 – 28 May
Jeff went off at 8:15 the following morning, leaving me with me carving stuff, Sudoku book, James Patterson novel and a bottle of juice. He had been told that the service and MOT would take a couple of hours. HAH he phoned at about 2 to say that they still hadn’t finished, But that he would still have to take the documentation to the Rego office so I was to expect him when I saw him. Anyway he finally returned at about 4 having got everything sorted. Betty in fact passed with flying colours – wot a relief. We were only going to stay the one night, thinking that we’d be able to go on our merry way after the service and check. We didn’t realise that Aussies make haste slowly around here LOL. A very nice lady in a nearby caravan made me a cup of coffee having taken pity on me sitting there with only a couple of trees for shade.
29 May
The next morning we finally left and headed up to the Main Beach Caravan Park in Surfers Paradise. Stefan, one of the Belgian guys we’d met at Port Macquarie had recommended it and as Jeff wanted to have a nostalgic look around we booked in for a couple of nights.
On our way we called in to see Jim, a member of the knotting Guild. We were made very welcome by him and his wife Carmel, and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours with them. We’ll be calling in again on our way back down in a few weeks time – hopefully to spend a little more time then. When we finally got to the Caravan Park we were rather disappointed. Unfortunately the park was having big renovations and the amenities left a bit to be desired, coupled with the fact that it was right in the middle of several high-rise apartment blocks – talk about feeling overlooked.
30 May
Jeff went off on his bike to have a look around – I stayed and did a bit more spoon carving.
31 May
We decided to head for the Newmarket Gardens Caravan Park in north-west Brisbane as it was on a bus route into town. We were quite lucky to get in as there were very few plots available – several had been flooded in the recent heavy rains and were still not sufficiently drained. We could see how high the water had come up – scary – glad we weren’t staying here then.