Bowen and Airlie Beach

We headed to Bowen and pulled into the only caravan park that would fit us. As we slowly cruised past the pool, we heard the 2 girls swimming in it say “Another bus! Dad – another bus!” Ooooh it suddenly got interesting!

There was indeed another bus there, and not only that, it had children in it who were the right ages! Maddie was 12 and Georgia was 9 and Duncan and Craig had a ball checking out each other’s rigs.

We basically barely left the caravan park so the kids could all play together the first day. Then Craig and Juliana left and we had the time to go and check out the sights of Bowen. Aside from the Big Mango, there was yet another free water play park, and what is left of the sets from Baz Luhrman’s “Australia” film, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The entire town was taken over, to the extent that the water tower now has “Bowenwood” painted on it! Fortunately we had a copy of the DVD on board, and neither Dunc nor I had ever gotten around to seeing it. We all watched it as a family and it was extra special to be able to recognize the locations and the issues raised. I LOVED it when the aboriginal King George character said “I take you where the 5 rivers meet” and Lexie yelled out “That’s Wyndam!”

We decided to follow Craig and Juliana to their caravan park in Airlie Beach, having confirmation that we would definitely fit! They had recently opened their new pool, so the kids had 2 to choose from. Airlie Beach also has a wonderful lagoon area, filtered like all the others, to keep those pesky stingers out. It’s positively enormous, and was jam packed with backpackers the day we were there. I really felt like I was 20 years too old. I was glad to be moving on though, as they were setting up for Schoolies week. I would have felt 23 years too old if we were there then!

The girls spent the day planning a “tropical themed dinner party” with our combined meals and we had a lovely dinner all together before Craig and Jules headed off in the direction of home.