Max turns nine!!

Yesterday Max turned the ripe old age of nine! It is sometimes hard to believe that my little bundle from 2002 has grown into this amazing young man! We started the day off with balloons and streamers decorating the caravan, and then some small gifts. Trevor measured Max and he is 5'1" (155cm) already.

We packed up at Mullumbimby and started the exciting trek to Queensland. We drove through some windy roads and tall, tall trees that reminded us of being in the Otways in Victoria. Soon we made it to the twin towns of Tweeds Heads and Coolangatta and found we had once again made it to another state!


We set up camp in the quaint town of Canungra which is just under forty kilometres to the coast. It is lovely, with lots of little shops including a supermarket, a beautiful bakery, a library, a hotel and a school.


 Max had been thinking hard for a few days about what he’d like to do for his birthday and decided he’d like us to go to the movies, eat popcorn and have fish and chips for tea. So this is exactly what we did, getting to see ‘Cars 2’ in the nearby town of Nerang. I wasn’t expecting much from the movie but it was actually quite good! Nerang's fish and chips were excellent too.


On the way home we drove out to Sprinkbook National Park. It was a bit scary as it was pitch dark apart from a few illuminated information signs and there was only one car in the carpark.  We had a couple of torches in the car so used these to negotiate our way down steps to the ‘Natural Bridge’ – a formation created by a waterfall that has eroded rocks over millions of years to form what looks like a rock bridge across water. This was amazing in itself, but what we had really come to see were the glow worms. Glow worms are the larvae of a fly which looks a lot like a mosquito. They glow at night and have a sticky, muscus like coating which together attract and         apture flying insects such as midges, flies and even cockroaches and beetles, to feed on . 


We tried, but couldn’t get a good photos of what we saw so I’m showing you someone else’s….



images by Wendy Pyper from http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/glowworm/


What surprised us the most was that by the time we left, three big tourist coaches had arrived, each full of many visitors as well as several other independent groups of people. According to the ABC website above over 300 people visit the glow worms every day. Obviously we got there just at the right time to avoid this big rush. 





By the time we arrived “home” it was after 10pm. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Max and ate a piece of apple crumble birthday cake 
before the males in the family gladly hopped into bed.


Max was talking about what a great birthday he had had.


We’re so glad you enjoyed it gorgeous boy!!