Gold Coast & Sunshine Coast (3) – Rainbow Beach – Kayaking

Monday 18/12

 

We woke up without alarm clock, a bit before 8am.

 

I go and buy some food (for breakfast and lunch) at IGA supermarket.

 

In this town, it seems that they all have a boat, a kayak and a 4WD, with a hook of course to pull their caravan/trailer.

 

After breakfast, kids do some homeschooling, Isabelle books a motel for tonight and I prepare the salad for lunch. We have to have our lunch early today since we booked a ‘dolphin view kayaking’ tour for today (with Epic Ocean Adventure), which leaves from Rainbow Beach at noon. We go to a place called Double Island Point.

 

Isabelle and I first go to the post office. There is no postman in Rainbow Beach and it seems that this small shop is “the place to be”… The ‘owners’ seem to know everybody. We send 2 parcels: one to Brussels (11 kg) with things we won’t use any longer (our fins, e.g.) or haven’t used much / at all, and one to Auckland (7 kg), to the agency where I rented the campers, with the clothes we don’t need in Australia (we are here during the summer months and stay along the coast, thus no need of warm clothes such as soft gels…).

 

When we come back, we put everything back in the car before eating a salad on the terrace.

 

At noon we go to Epic Ocean Adventure. In fact, when we went there yesterday afternoon, they said that they only had 4 spots left for the dolphin view kayaking tour. Jules volunteered to do surf lesson (at the same place) instead.

 

To reach the spectacular Double Island Point, we first do a nice 20’ drive on the beach, into the Great Sandy NP.

 

Jules go to his surf lesson. He’s the smallest one (the others are between 20 and 50). 

 

I go with Ludivine in a kayak, while Isabelle and Florence go together. 

 

We unfortunately see no dolphin today. We just see a small green turtle breathing at the surface. It’s a disappointment since it was the main excitement of this tour. Girls are not overly convinced by the kayaking, to say the least.

 

Jules comes back super enthusiastic from his first surf lesson. He had a lot of fun and managed to stay in the board for a few seconds.

 

When back in town, we go and eat an ice cream at ‘Crème de la crème’. I take a banana smoothie.

 

We leave around 4:30pm.

 

We have a 3h30 ride to the Gold Coast, where we sleep tonight, for one night only, to go to a theme park tomorrow.

 

In the car, we try to select the park where we’ll go. We decide to go to Dream World (by DreamWorks), which is combined with WhiteWater World. Everybody seems happy.

 

We arrive in our motel, in Coomera, at 8pm. The lady is waiting for us (she already called us to know when we arrive). We take the key and go directly to the place where we saw many restaurants (2′ from here). The kids spotted a ‘Sushi Train’ restaurant. It’s, as usual, a great formula and it suits us well: very good and very fast.

 

This time, the motel is a “real” motel: the highway is just in front and on the back, we have another road… But it’s ideally located for DreamWorld: the entrance is less than 500m away.

 

Kids are exhausted: Florence and Jules fall asleep in less than 1′.

 

We read / write a bit but not very late (I think we were all asleep by 9:30pm).

 

 

 

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