Bitti and I have settled into our life in sunny Queensland. I am quite comfy in the humid weather. In Adelaide there is a lot of sartorial whiplash as the thermometer plunges from 35 to 19 and back again within the week, here you can rely upon being warm everyday (although whether you will stay dry is another consideration). Surprisingly, Bitti hasn’t been as bothered by the heat as I thought she would be. Although there were a couple of hours each day when camping that it went too far for her.
After navigating an extremely rude Jetstar staff member at check-in, our flight up to Brisbane went smoothly and R picked us up from the airport. We were taken to her sister’s house in Fitzgibbon where we stayed the first night, all camped on the lounge-room floor. Bitti absolutely lost her mind with all the excitement and novelty, I had to physically hold her down still to make her go to sleep.
R has 3 kids, aged between 8 and 4, they are gorgeous and super energetic and fall asleep like normal small people after a hard day of antics. Bitti will not ever sleep unless all stimulation has been removed. She needs one of those sensory deprivation chambers for a bedroom. On the second night we moved to R’s nephew’s house in Chermside were we had our own room and that went more smoothly!
On Sunday morning Bitti and I ventured into South Bank on the train. I always like to take public transport in a new city, it’s such an adventure working out the lay of the land. I met up with an old friend and his family at Streets Beach, a man-made beach, and Bitti basically disappeared for two hours. After my friends left I found her at the top of a little riverbed having the time of her life pretending to be a tadpole. We had to get back to R’s place to leave for our camping trip but to lure Bitti out of the water I had to promise we would return to South Bank at the end of our holiday.
R had packed the two cars up that we were taking camping, just leaving the esky to be filled before we took off. Our destination was Sandstone Big4 Holiday Resort, an extra fancy caravan park. It was an hour’s drive and really easy to find located just before the bridge to Bribie Island. Our first night coincided with a concert next door where Missy Higgins and Paul Kelly were performing, whose songs we could hear drifting across as we set up the tents. There were several empty sites near us, but quite a number of extremely well-appointed caravans and RVs on the other side of the park.
R’s sister lent me her self-inflating mattresses to try for this leg of the trip. They were such an improvement on the air mattress I typically use. I think I will need to invest in a couple for me and Bitti.
R and I got wristbands to access the games room, gym and kids room. The pool area was perfectly set up with a large pool with shallow and deep end, that trickled over a ledge into a baby pool, then a water park with FIVE water slides, including one that was dark with disco lights! The pool cabanas had tables with QR codes attached, if you scanned them you could order from the menu and have food and cocktails brought out to you. We only needed all the kids to be slightly older, or more water-wise. We couldn’t quite relax as two of them couldn’t swim enough to be trusted. Nor could they be trusted not to venture into the deep end. The over-confidence was baffling.
The very first night, after setting up our tents, we headed to the pool area as the sun set to check it all out. The kids went straight in, of course. While they were swimming the announcement came that the pool area was closing at 7.30 pm sharp, so please GET OUT. I called Bitti to come to the edge and she decided to follow her friend across the deep end. Halfway across she started getting into trouble, spending more time underwater than above, after asking her if she was ok and her not responding, I took my shoes off and jumped in fully clothed for a short Bondi Rescue segment. That little incident took the confidence out of Bitti for the rest of the week as she realised how easy it can be to drown. From her point of view I had taken ‘ages’ to reach her and she had started to think she would die. Water safety peeps!
The kids wandered the campsite freely, meeting up with other kids, creating games, finding insects and mucking around. There was a jumping pillow and playground, but it was really too hot for either. It took me a few days to get used to not having daylight savings. By the time we had fed them dinner it was already dark and the play areas were closed. It was refreshing to not have to wrestle the kids into tents while it was still light, but I could have done without the 4.45 am wake up calls from both the birds and Bitti!
Our 5 days at Sandstone really passed by in a daze. Long days by the pool, trying in vain to administer enough sun cream for my white child not to burn. I managed to go for a run twice in the early morning. Although I started at around 7 am it was hot as heck in the muggy weather. Bitti managed to navigate the dynamics of the 3 siblings although she was perplexed by events at times. They fight a lot but are still each others’ best friends, which she struggles to accept. She is more likely to hold a grudge about a fight than to just dismiss it. I think she will end this trip with at least gratitude that she is an only child.
R and I had precious little relaxation time, not that we had really expected much of it. I did get a day to myself up at the tent after I had my 5-day COVID test, awaiting results. But it wasn’t ideal to be stuck at the hot, stuffy tent while everyone else splashed in the pool. We later figured out that I actually didn’t need to isolate while awaiting my domestic travel test result! Before we knew it the first week of our trip was complete and we were packing down the tents and driving back for our first Filipino Christmas Eve at R’s sister’s house.
Two Little Travellers 