Our third day started with a swim at the lagoon in the morning, and then into the cars to head back around to the barge landing point. We parked up the cars, took some happy snaps (don't they look happy!), and headed down into Tangalooma resort for some lunch.
Along the way, Lilly found the starfish shown above, and the kids had a good look at it. Just one of the great things about camping out with kids - learning about nature first-hand!
The reason for coming all the way back to Tangalooma was that we needed to be near the barge landing point. Nate and Mel were arriving after lunch!
After a quick Gday and sorting out radios and the like, we headed back to the campsite to set up their camp, and give them a brief introduction to the island. They couldn't have picked a better day to arrive! Despite it being raining back in Brisbane as they left, we had perfect weather!
Now, I like a bit of space myself, but seriously - Nate and Mel have the world's most ridiculous 2-person tent. It's got 3 seperate rooms! Despite being so large, it actually went up surprisingly easy. That said, I wouldn't like to have to try and put it up myself! The extra hands certainly came in very "handy"!
The following morning we headed south, down the Eastern side of the island, to explore the bottom end.
We headed straight down to Rous Battery, the remains of a defensive WWII gun emplacement. Unfortunately not much remains of what was, at one time, a reasonably substantial outpost protecting Brisbane and the bay. At one point along the beach we had an hour's stop-over, to wait for the tide to go out a bit further, so we could sneak around a rocky outcrop that bisected the beach. The kids enjoyed playing around on the dunes, whilst the adults tried (very unsuccessfully) to work a kite.
At Rous Battery, we almost managed to get the Pajero stuck. I had the MaxTrax at the ready, but in the end Grant simply reversed back down the hill, much to everyone's (except his) disappointment.
From Rous, we headed a bit further south, and walked in to the Little Sandhills. It was quite an amazing feeling, walking through typical savannah bush, to suddenly step out into what appeared to be an authentic desert! Huge rolling sand dunes stretched away, in sharp bright contrast to the cooler, enclosed bush track.
We set our flag on top of one of the larger dunes, and played around for a while. The kids couldn't work up enough courage to slide down on the sleds, but eventually their sense of adventure got the better of them, and they were sliding down the hill on their bottoms. Lilly especially liked the grove of trees at the base of the hill, and spent the remainder of the week trying to talk us into going back there, since she needed to spend more time with the fairies that lived there.
After an exhausting morning spent climbing up tall sand hills in the full sun, we retired back to camp for lunch, and a well-deserved swim in the lagoon. Life's tough!
(Photo credit - Only half these photos are mine - the other half are Grant & Sam's. So that explains why some of the photos are considerably better than what I am usually able to manage!!!)
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