A LONG ANZAC WEEKEND AT KINKA BEACH WITH BARB AND JOHN....

We decided before Easter that we would spend a few days away at Kinka Beach for five days and make our Anzac Day into a rather long weekend.... As I have Fridays off this year, it meant that I would only have to drive into work with Steve on Thursday and then I could spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the coast....

Steve still had to drive back into work on the Friday but he was OK with that...  When I was talking to my good friend Barb ( Barb and John spent about three months on the road with us when we did our lap last year) they decided that a week at Kinka for them would be great....

Yeppoon is Barb's home town and she loves to get back each year.  They arrived on Sunday and we went down on Tuesday evening after work...

View from our vans...

Dusk at Kinka Beach

Our setups..

Great place for Children with Shetland Ponies just behind our van..

 We love going down to the Island View Caravan Park at Kinka as it is right across the road from the beach and you can hear the waves distantly crashing in on the shore.  We have stayed there quite a few times previously so had our favouite site right  across from the beach under some lovely shady trees.  When I rang and booked the sites, I requested our sites so that Barb and John were right next to us.  

Barb on Kinka Beach

Love all the sunflowers that grow wild on the beach headlands. 

They were well and truly set us when we got there on the Tuesday night and blessed us immensely with a lovely hot roast chicken dinner for us as they knew we wouldn't arrive till dark after putting in a long day at work.  We were do excited to see them and had a wonderful night with lots of chatting and reminiscing especially about our lap the previous year...

 When we had talked a few weeks earlier we had talked about getting up for the Anzac Dawn Service at Emu Park, but John was feeling pretty lousy with a very bad head cold and nasty cough, so we decided to give the Dawn Service a miss.  Steve was also feeling pretty wrecked as he has had some really busy weeks, so a bit of a sleep in would do us all good. 

Cooking Breakfast

We woke and enjoyed a lovely cooked  breakfast of bacon and eggs which Steve cooked outside on our little Buntain burner...

Barb and I chatted.....

John was still feeling really lousy when we woke up on Anzac Day, so we had a very quite day with them both at the Caravan Park... Barb and I had a great time chatting and catching up (John can never understand how we never run out of things to talk about) and Barb and I sent some time crocheting for the Maleny Knitfest which is being held in Maleny on the last weekend of June and early July....

Barb also spent some time teaching me how to do Cryptic Crosswords... there is a real knack to them, and once you master the clues, it isn't quite as hard as it looks.  I have enjoyed playing an App on my phone called Crossy Word so I introduced Barb to that.  

We enjoyed numerous cups of tea and the odd Anzac biscuit ( I mean it is Anzac Day so one wouldn't be Australian if they didn't enjoy an Anzac biccie on Anzac Day).  Poor John spent most of the day in bed, and Steve headed off to the Causeway later in the afternoon to do a spot of fishing... He had some success and bought home a good feed from his couple of hours on the beach...

It was our time to cook dinner tonight, and I had packed in a roast chicken roll from our freezer at home, so we enjoyed a chicken roast two nights in a row.  Steve cooked it in our Weber and it was wonderful....

We enjoyed a lovely glass of red wine whilst dinner was cooking...

Carving the Roast

The next Thursday, both Steve and I had to head back into Rocky to go to work for the day.  Neither of us felt like going in, but we don't have the luxury of extra days off, not like some of our retired friends.... Mind you retirement is looking better all the time...

Barb had to take a couple of photos of us just before we headed into town....

Off to work...

 John and Barb decided to head to Doctor to see if they could get something to knock John's wog on the head.  He managed to get in early in the morning, and was prescribed some antibiotics.  They probably wouldn't have worries so much except that John had an Ophthalmology Appointment the following Tuesday to see about getting some Cataract surgery.  He wanted to be well enough to be able to have it...

He spent the afternoon resting and they cooked us another one of their wonderful dinners.  It was so nice to arrive back at the coast after a busy day and work and not have to worry about cooking dinner....  We enjoyed a very flavoursome stew and wonderful conversations again....

As I had Friday off, we all farewelled Steve as he headed back into Rocky for work...
Time for us both to get a load of washing done before we head into Yeppoon .  Once the washing was done and hung , we headed into Yeppoon to do a bit of grocery shopping and to look around for some more wool to continue our crocheting for Knitfest.

Wearing our hats we picked up on our lap around Australia..

 We both had our hats that Kathy, Barb and I had bought out at Yalara near Uluru, so we took a photo to send to Kathy of us wearing them.  Just wanted to let her know that we were missing her and let  her know how much better it would have been if they had been able to join us.

We had a good look at the beachfront in Yeppoon.  So much has happened there since we have been away with a fantastic beach front redevelopment happening.  there is also a lovely swimming lagoon going in there as well and it is due to be opened this weekend.  Judging by the amount of work that still looked like it needed to be done, I am not sure how they are going to make their deadline.  I do know though that once it is all complete, the beachfront at Yeppoon is really going to be a lovely spot to visit, and hopefully a draw card for tourism for the Capricorn Coast.

We didn't have any luck securing the black wool we needed, but we did get our grocery shopping done and then headed to the Coffee Club where we had a lovely lunch together before heading back to the Caravan Park to chill out for the afternoon.

It was my turn to cook dinner tonight, so I had decided to do a slow cooker lasagna which meant that I could get it on straight away and the rest of the afternoon was mine to enjoy as I wanted.

Once it was in the crockpot, Barb and I had a long chat to our friend Kathy who we discovered was in hospital.  Thankfully she was fine, and was just in for monitoring and observation, but it still gave us a bit of a scarce when we found out.

Once we finished talking to Kathy, we wandered over to the clothes line to collect and washing and ran into a lovely friendly lady who we found out was from Inverell and happened to have met a really good friend of ours who had moved there just this year....

We probably stood at the clothes line for a good hour chatting.  it is a very small world.
 Steve arrived home from work a little earlier today, and we enjoyed a lovely evening sharing a glass of wine and a lovely meal, and once again reminiscing about our adventures.   Having been on the antibiotics now for over 24 hours, John was starting to feel like his normal self again and it was probably 9.30pm before we headed off to have showers and retire for the night...

Saturday morning, we had a bit of a sleep in, and then up and I put our last load of washing on as I wanted to make sure that I had all Steve's work clothes washed and ready to iron for the new week ahead.

We decided to take off into Emu Park and visit "Jolt", a trendy little cafe for coffee, hot chocolate and treats for morning tea....

AFter morning tea we decided to head down to the War Memorial at Emu Park and go for a walk along the Anzac Memorial Boardwalk to the Singing Ship,  one of the icons of Emu Park...

This area has been done up in the last three or so years and it is a lovely spot to enjoy a walk with beautiful coastal views of the beach and Islands.

 Poor Barb lost her hat over the side and it fell down quite a way down the cliff, and Steve came to the rescue and climbed down to retrieve it for her...

 Since traveling around Australia we have come to appreciate just how beautiful our Capricorn Coast is, with the islands off shore and the rugged coastline...  We really do have one of the nicest coastal drives in the country...

 The track up the the Singing Ship has actually been finished since we last visited down here.  We had heard somewhere that they had stopped the ship from singing as it annoyed some of the local residents.  We felt a little disappointed when we heard this, as this ship and it's music has been an icon on the coast for over 40 years.

Obviously this wasn't right as the ship was still singing when we visited much to our delight...

Views of Fisherman's beach from the Singing Ship

The path from the ;lookout up to the Singing Ship... all new since we were last down here....

Views looking over Emu Park

 

 Barb and John left us here as they were heading up to Ross Park at Yeppoon to catch up with family members for a BBQ.  Steve and I were invited also, but decided not to go, as Steve really hadn't had much time down at the coast because he had to go in to work the past couple of days, and he just felt like chilling out and perhaps heading up to the Causeway again to do a spot of fishing...

We also wanted to stop off at the local supermarket and pick up some meat and  supplies for dinner as he had invited Neil & Jannett, and Tom and Ann to join us for a BBQ dinner as  the girls were keen to catch up with Barb also.

 Once we got back to the Caravan Park, Steve caught up on a bit of work and banking whilst  I did a little more crocheting for Barb before heading off to collect my washing which was still on the line...

Barb and John heading off to catch up with family

Once I collected the washing, I decided to take a walk around the caravan park and take some photos...

Time to collect the washing...

 It really is a lovely park and their pool area and Camp Kitchen area is really lovely. 

Family Pool...also new since we were last here..

 They also have an adults only pool which is quite a good size and is long enough to be able to swim laps in. 

Adults only Pool

 There is lovely entertaining areas around the pool, and in the past we have enjoyed BBQs in this area with friends....
They also have a great shed area which is like a camp kitchen, but also has a TV and lounge area...
This is usually where they hold happy hour..

 The park also caters for children with a playground and jumping pillow.

Swings

Jumping Pillow...

 

 The Amenities block has been revitalized with new tiles, great showers with hooks and a towel rack.  They also have hair dryers and although not as good as some of the parks we have visited on our trip last year, considering what they once were they are really quite good now. 

Little paintings on each or the shower and toilet doors.

Lovely large shower heads with great water pressure

Shelving in the showers for all your soaps and sharmpoos etc. 

Even a towel rack to hang your towel on. 

Lovely vanity units with hari dryers.

Even the taps light up when turned on. 

 

 Earlier in the morning we had both posted on the "Everything Caravan and Camping" Facebook site for their weekly  check in. We noticed that some campers just down from us had also posted with a photo of their rig (this is what helped us recognise them as we walked past their van everything we went to the amenities block..  We commented on their post and were invited to stop in and say hi....  We dropped in and had a lovely long chat with them..

Steve headed back down to the cause way to do a bit more fishing and came home with a bag of fish that he caught.  A very happy chappy.

Steve cooking the BBQ

Enjoying a chat

A great way to end our few days away was entertaining friends.  

It was so lovely and easy to entertain with a BBQ at the caravan park. We all sat out under the awning and chatted and laughed til late.

It was very sad to pack up the next morning. We had a wonderful time with our friends (despite poor John being unwell the whole time) It was very relaxed and chilled out and we hope to do it again soon...