Author: Steve

Keegan could have stayed all day, everyday at the beach.

We had no intention of visiting Australia and as we look back we really had no reason other than preoccupation with the rest of our trip.  However, this last minute decision to visit Australia was a great one!

Our flight took us from Tokyo to the coastal city of Gold Coast, Australia, which is in the state of Queensland.  Amy really wanted to hit the campsites that she had been reading about and she found a great one in Gold Coast on Main Beach called the Gold Coast Holiday Park. Just imagine an extremely family friendly campsite surrounded by huge condominiums and directly across the street from the incredible roaring ocean beach.  It was so ideal. We would get up slow, the kids would do a little homework and then by 10am we were walking across the street to battle the intense waves for about 2 hours and head back for lunch.  After a little more homework we went back for round 2 at about 3pm for more wave battles. The beaches are so incredibly majestic and to have access like we had was a true blessing.

Back for round two – we’re coming for the waves! You can see the surf lifeguards in yellow over my shoulder. Because of the intense power of the waves you are instructed to only swim between the flags. These strong waves come at you from every angle, repeatedly and the rip can be really strong so if you’re not careful it can be very dangerous . . . people can go missing very easily.

This is what surrounds the campsite. We immediately found Australia and its people to be so relaxing and laid back.

That’s our porch – and yes they have wifi. You can see the beach in the background across the street, we all really loved this place.

Amy celebrating – she just booked one of our last flights to the US – such a nice, relaxing place.

Very interesting to me is that while we were in China we learned more about the “one baby” rule that started back in 1979 and as we were in Australia we learned that the government offers a $5,000 “baby-bonus” to entice couples to have a baby.  Something else pretty interesting to me is that in the city of Beijing they have a population of approximately 30 million people – now take a look at Australia, who has the land size larger than the US minus Alaska, and they have a population of only 24 million in all of Australia.

There’s Kendal and Keegan – always nice to meet new friends in a campsite.

We were there during the Easter Holiday so the campsite was full with families and activities.  The kids met a number of friends at this campsite and through them we met some great parents as well.  These new friends invited us to their home while we are traveling about – so we’ll be blogging about that soon.  This was a great way to start off our Australian tour and because of this nice start we decided to extend our stay a bit before heading back to the US.  I can’t believe our time is almost over . . . wow how a year flies!