Broadwater

What do you do when you hear your mates are headed down to the Broadwater for the weekend? You book of course! And that’s just what we did – jumped on the phone and secured our site for 2 nights.

We have been staying at the Broadwater Tourist Park on and off for years now, and we’ve always enjoyed our stay.

It’s a lovely, well-maintained park in a great location. Beautiful trees, lots of lush green grass out the front of the park, and a great little piece of beach right on the Broadwater. The park has its’ own boat ramp, making it an easy decision to take the Jetski down with us.

We did a bit of a shuffle to get everything down there. Chris towed the van down in the morning and then brought the truck back and went back down with the Jetski and the smaller hilux. I picked the kids up from school and went down in the truck.

Traffic was great, the weather was great, the kids were behaving as they usually do and I could tell straight off that it was going to be a great weekend overall. And it was.

We arrived about 5:00pm and Chris was already well into happy hour with the others. The kids ran off and I started dinner. Mexican is our traditional ‘night one’ dinner – always loaded up with lots of guacamole and sour cream and washed down with some homemade kombucha.

A few of the guys took the kids across to Maccas for waffle cones (tradition at Broadwater!) while I tucked into my homemade coconut custard, brownie and raspberries. (It was the last day of my gut cleanse which meant no dairy, bacon, mushrooms and so on for 2 weeks!)

The usual night time chats and drinks helped us wind down for what is always a great night’s sleep – man I love our bed in the van! Our eggshell mattress topper is tops (haha).

I was up at sunrise to capture the magnificence that is the sun peeking over the horizon, onto the water and through the palm trees; Chris was up to capture his coffee.    It’s always lovely to sit at the table and chairs down on the grass to watch the sun come up. If I drank coffee, I’d probably say ‘it’s lovely to drink my morning coffee and watch the sun come up!’

The sunrise held all the promise of a beautiful day, but it didn’t turn out quite that way.

The girls managed a (very) quick dip in the pool and emerged covered in goose bumps with lips turning blue. It wasn’t long before the ominous clouds started rolling in, the wind picked up and the rain started to fall – heavily. The clothes airer was blown over 3 or 4 times, and all the chairs got drenched as everytime the gusts of winds came through, the water poured off the awning like a river from the sky!

The girls took hot showers and then all the kids spent some time in the games room before coming back into the van to play 5 Second Rule.

Thankfully the clouds disappeared, the sun reappeared (just like it promised at sunrise) and the jumpers came off! On went our swimmers and into the Broadwater went our Jet ski.

The Broadwater is just great for skis and boats, especially on days that start cold, wet and miserable, and surprise everyone by becoming Summery quite quickly! We were one of just 3 skis on the water. Chris took the girls across to Straddie, and then we hooked up the tube and spent a couple of hours trying to flick the kids off and into the water. Everyone had a blast; the sun was shining and the water was warm. We played until the kids were exhausted and couldn’t hold on anymore.

 

Lunch was a BBQ, and the beers and wine was flowing again by 2:30. We all took our chairs to one van and settled in for an afternoon of good conversation while the kids entertained themselves.

The rain clouds returned, along with a few spits of rain, and the temperature dropped pretty quickly. It really was like 4 seasons in one day!

I left the gang engrossed in merry conversation and went down to Mermaid with my bestie to check out her wedding venue (in the pouring rain!). When I got back from our secret wedding business, Chris was in the van with the BBQ on and salad prepared and the kids were showering in the amenities. I took a quick shower to thaw out, popped by trakkies and ugg boots on and then dinner was served. Our plates were filled with Honey Soy chicken kebabs I’d made the day before and salad with some homemade sauerkraut and beetroot on the side. Strawberry kombucha helped to wash it all down.

After the kids had done the dishes in the camp kitchen, Chris and the kids made their nightly trek back across for more waffle cones, and I had my brownies and custard again.

We had a pretty early night as the kids were pooped, and Chris and I like to lay in bed and watch cooking shows on TV, especially Bizarre Foods. This particular night we watched Andrew eat lobster poop saying it was delicious! Hmmm. We are real party animals!

Sunday morning’s we usually take our time and have a bit more fun before packing up, but at this particular park, they’re pretty strict with check out times. So it went kinda like this:
Wake up, grab coffee from the Donut shop across the road, drink it looking out over the water, cook a big brekkie of bacon and eggs, pack up the van, say goodbye to everyone and start the half hour drive home.

The girls and I did manage to sneak in a quick photoshoot before pack up .. and some of the pics turned out rather well!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s always sad packing up, but it’s never long before our next trip away. We like to have a few adventures lined up to give us something to be happy about as we vacuum inside the van and wind up the awning.

It was more like a ‘see you in a few weeks!’ than goodbye – which left us smiling as we all hooked our vans up and headed out under the boom gate, across Marine Parade and made our way back to the M1 and home towards Brissy.