Kirra Beach Tourist Park is a great park, secluded but only 5 minutes walk from the beach. As it was still school holidays they had plenty of organised activities for the kids, and this proved to be a hit for all the kids (all 50 of them) throughout the week. Such activities included an awesome magic/comedy show where Glenno was plucked out of the audience to have a steel rod magically placed through his neck, a kids disco, cupcake decorating, a treasure hunt, and something else we have forgotten! For the adults, the blokes were given a leave pass for the AFL grand final and went to a pub to watch it, as it was the first day of the reunion it got a bit messy! The girls were given the Sunday night off to go out and have a civilised meal and a gasbag at a Thai restaurant while the blokes had a quiet one putting the kids to sleep and a few night caps! We spent time at the beach, lots of time at the pool, and a long lunch at North Kirra Surf Club, but most of the time was spent wandering around the van park to the 6 villas, 4 camping sites and 2 van sites that all of the MGP crew occupied sharing stories and remembering other ones from at least 15 years ago. In total there were approximately 90 odd people there! It was a great catch up and one we will remember.
The time had come for the long journey home, pretty sad really and a horrible way to end it by spending two long days in the car, not really having a chance to sit down on a river bank/gorge/waterfall/beach to enjoy the last few moments. We left the Gold Coast at 7am after an early wake up from a kookaburra, Glen even managed to squeeze in a 5:30am jog to wake himself up. 12 hours later on ordinary NSW roads we spent the night in Dubbo (at the RSL club motel, not in the van) A great motel with massive beds, just what we needed but a terrible feed at the RSL!
We had parked Bruce and Nancy in a bus Zone and had to be out of it by 8am so off we set on our last day, another 10 hours in the car (some of which Mel actually got to drive!) via a very interesting stop at 'The Dish' in Parkes which assisted in the Apollo 13 Space rescue. We arrived home (after a quick stop at Tommo's in Gol Gol) where Mel Tommo had a ready made spaghetti Bol for us to tuck into when we got home.
Our home greeted us with a busted hose leaking everywhere under the house, a pool pump which had clogged dried and cooked itself and a cat who didn't care who we were and demanded to be fed. The kids ran straight into their rooms and made a mess of their rediscovered toys while we started the unpacking process.
After approximately 16000 kilometres, (about 13000 towing) we were home, the end of a once in a lifetime family journey with no major hiccups, 3400 photos, plenty of great memories that we are so lucky to have made that will stay with us forever! To the wonderful families we met along our journey, Michael, Sharon, Monique, Hayley and Will Zakic (Melbourne), Kylie and Matt (Mailtland), Craig and family (Musswellbrook), Brendan and Kim (Colac), Jacinta and Jim (Bendigo), Tony and Tash (Dubbo), Steve, Gita, Lily, Emily and Oscar (Melbourne), Mark, Tanya, Cooper and Bear (Caloundra), Shayne and Aeron (Western Australia), Jason, Annabel, Riley, Sebine, Sophie, Regan (Brisbane), Lee, Grant, Lily, Will and Mitchell (Sydney) and the MGP crew, you have all made our trip even more memorable. Thanks to everyone for reading and for those who gave us advice on places to see and things to do! We had a fabulous time and hope that everyone can see how magical Australia really is.
