Leaving Hervey Bay this morning we passed through Maryborough. We decided that this town could also be renamed “Town of Queenslanders”. Not as in people, but as in houses. Each side of the busy road was lined in this style of house. Some renovated brilliantly, some not. But there were plenty to look at and admire. It occurred to us that the last time we were here was after the floods and we now realised why there are so many Queenslander houses. They allow the houses to be lifted high off the ground and for the living areas to be located upstairs with storage or cars underneath.

We were counting down the hours and kilometers until our destination today because we were stopping off just north of the Gold Coast to meet up with our niece Hannah, her partner Sam and their gorgeous baby, Hazel. We decided to meet in a park near their house because parking our van is an issue in most residential streets.

It was wonderful seeing them again and spending some time catching up. I’ve been so excited for this reunion for the whole trip and it’s has been a definite highlight. They are such a gorgeous little family and Hazel is a delight, of course.

We returned to the van only to discover that we had a flat battery! We were so eager to meet up with them that we didn’t unplug the Anderson plug from the car battery (or something equally complicated sounding and not on my list of jobs to do which renders it Rays fault altogether).

I rang Sam and asked if he could come and jump start us. He was happy to help us out, but they had walked to the park with the pram and they were halfway home.

While we were sitting and waiting, a Nissan Patrol came past and asked if we needed help. Ray told him that we had some help coming. He said, “No worries. I’ll have you fixed up in no time.“ He did a quick U-turn and was in front of our car in three seconds flat. He seemed to know what he was doing because after he had jumpstarted our car, he said, “You just need to blah…blah…blah…blah more complicated talk that I didn’t listen to.

I was just thinking what he was going to go home and put on social media. His post would go something like this:

“Nissan Patrol with V-8 engine just jumpstarted Ranger Wildtrack 2022 model from Victoria. Poor bloody Victorians really are doing it tough. Got to feel sorry for those guys when their Ranger needs a jumpstart from a Nissan Patrol. Score one Nissan.” It would probably be accompanied with the sneaky pic his girlfriend took from the front seat. Look out for it on Facebook, Insta and TikTok.

I mentioned my musings to Ray but strangely, didn’t get a response.

We were booked into a caravan park at Kirra Beach. We had tried to get into a few others on the Gold Coast, but there weren’t many at all that were dog friendly. We wanted to stay somewhere in the middle of the Gold Coast, but we could only find three caravan parks that were pet friendly and because we haven’t really seen much of this area, we decided to go with this one at Kirra Beach near Coolangatta.