Port Douglas
Our Magical Paradise
Our 4 days actually turned into 5 months!!
After checking out the township and it was pretty flashy with all the pubs, cafes, boutiques, little Nick knacky shops. Not a very big town but it was choccas full of tourists all oozing out of the shops and pubs. We could really see ourselves heading out to a few of the pubs and having a nice cold drink and a juicy steak. The main street into Port Douglas is lined with coconut trees and five star resorts and when you see all the tourists you can understand why they come here. Its a very relaxed place, very beautiful to look at, easy access beaches, rainforest's just a short drive away and the weather...just perfect, warm all day and the nights just the same.Time to get into some home schooling, I'm excited...and then it starts the lack of concentration, I'm hungry, I need the toilet, I want to go and play, Oh Mum, oh mum!! Just about to strangle him when dad calls it, time out lets go for a drive. I had been trying to do the home schooling on the way up from Melbourne whilst travelling but even then its the same head to head drama with all 3 of them in the back seat and miss middle child piping in all the time, you can get a bit done but never feel like you've really done anything. Maybe its me I don't know, but I do know that I am not happy being the teacher, I rather love just being the mum.
Clint sends the kids off for a play and I sit and cry and Clint can see that I am not coping very well at this very moment. I throw my hands up saying 'Later in life he is going to hate me if I don't give him a good education, but he hates me now trying to teach him'. I remember my cousin Peter telling me that it was his mums fault that he's dumb because when he and his brother were little Aunty Rachel and Uncle Bill travelled in a caravan back in the 80's and they didn't have any home schooling but they occasionally went to school but thinks his mum should of given him a better education whilst enjoying themselves. I'm pretty sure he was just fooling with his mum, but that still did not vacate my memory bank.
We both decided to go for a drive and take a look at the locals schools...there is 1. So I said what the hell I will go in and see if they have any vacancies. School was about to commence for term 3 and the teachers were at the school getting things ready for the return of the kids the next day.
I was greeted by the assistant principal Glenys, as the principal was recovering from an eye operation. I told her of our situation that we were travelling and I had been home schooling but would like to see if they could come to Port Douglas State School for a term of two. Much to my delight she said yes and wanted to meet them both. I went to the car and told them everyone the news and we all went in to meet Glenys. She was excited to meet Slade and Shelby and made them feel very welcome, she sized them up for school polo shirts and told them they could start tomorrow. Glenys gave us some information on the school and it all sounded just superb!! I was not really concerned about the school I was just so happy that they could come to school and be taught by a professional....trained and a bit more patient than I.
Clint pays more attention to the finer details but I had a good feel about the place. The one thing that pricked my ears and Clint's was when she told us that the school had a "No shoe Policy" meaning that shoes were optional and thongs or barefeet was allowed. She then started to say 'We are very fortunate...' and I was waiting for her to say something like 'that we will be wearing closed in shoes very soon' instead she said ' We are very fortunate to still be able to do this'. Even the teachers wear thongs! You get used to it but it was funny at the start. We just assumed that due to wet seasons and humidity smelly wet feet don't mix.
I laughed at the kids because when they would get to school because they both would kick off their thongs at the school room door like they were at grandma's, with all the shoes at the front door!!
They were both very excited Slade a little more than Shelby as he was just keen to meet more kids. Both their teachers were lovely and everyone seems to be so relaxed. Slade made friends fast as he does, he only had one kid that annoyed him but he was handling it. Shelby had a problem with a girl named Bo, she would poke and probe her, or flick her with her fingers. During the first week Shelby awoke in the middle of the night screaming about this girl and I was not having this!! So I was going to approach the mother first and whack her in the face but decided that speaking to the teacher might be a better idea first and then assess the situation after. Miss Janelle was Shelby's lovely teacher very calm and friendly and I discussed the matter with her and apparently they have been working very close with Bo and were keeping an eye on her. Miss Janelle said to Shelby that she would make sure this didn't happen again. Later Miss Janelle told me that yes Bo had some issues with showing her affection with others by being Mean. So I just left it at that and Shelby managed to deal with her ok.
Other than that they enjoyed their time at the school, they both got a honour certificates which excited them and us! They got a chance to compete in the school sports carnival and both got blue ribbons for running events. Even Dad got involved in the Parents and Teachers Race which coming from last almost beat one of them. They participated in Surf Life Saving which was part of their curriculum and they thought that was just so much fun. And just before we left they had swimming lessons.
The days were now joyous with two kids gone what were we going to do with ourselves? Enjoy ourselves, do whatever we wanted, well for 6 hours till pick up anyway. I did forget that the mornings were going to be earlier and sandwiches needed to be made but they was manageable.
On the first day of school we decided to drive to Cairns for some retail therapy without the whining and toilet stops, Isla was easy and happy to please with a lollipop and a ride in a pram or a trolley. Everyone said Isla might of felt a bit lonely with her siblings going to school...NO WAY!! She was happy to be left alone and have her mum and dad all to herself, she would even be happy just playing for a few hours by herself playing her barbies and dancing in the tropical gardens of the caravan park like a fluttering butterfly.
Back to the drive to Cairns for the fun day of shopping while the kids were left at their new school not knowing a soul, making friends and learning more in one day than they did in a week! I cant remember if we actually purchased anything but we were enjoying our time, now Cairns was a 60km drive from Port Douglas and we suddenly glanced at the time and it was 2.20pm, school finished at 3pm. No problems we should make it, but we were about another 15kms inside Cairns with traffic lights and at least 20 roundabouts, as we wound around the crazy coastline back we could see where Port Douglas was and...the remaining kms and the time were not coming together at 3pm for the pick up.
We arrived at the school at 10mins past 3, I felt so bad my heart was racing and all I could think was, what a bad mother I was for their first day of school picking them up late. I had visions of them both sitting in their classes alone feeling sad thinking that we had packed up the van and taken off without them and how was I going to get them to go the next day. I felt selfish for leaving them to go off shopping and enjoying myself. When we arrived at the school Slade was standing out the front waving and smiling but no Shelby, so before the car had even stopped my door was open and I bolted to her classroom. There she was alone sitting with the teacher and when she spotted me she just smiled, phew I hadn't caused her any grief. I did however get a quiet whisper in the ear by the teacher saying 'perhaps you could be a little earlier just for the first couple of weeks'. Hmm I felt bad enough lady, but yes we will need to manage our time and distances better for school days. The next week and most weeks we were always sitting in the carpark 10 mins prior to the bell. Lucky for us no harm was done.
We met a few of the parents from school and was greeted by a father who's boy Daniel was in Slade's class, Harry was his name and he was a Captain on the Quicksilver boats that went out onto the Barrier Reef, he was very nice and we had many chats after assembly's on Fridays. We went to every Assembly which was a great experience for Clint because if we were home he would probably not see too many of these. They were great assemblies, first they would sing the national anthem in their own made up tune, then they would state their grievances, give out the awards, and the principal would advise the students 'to focus on their goals for the year and work on making them happen' (this would always make Clint and I giggle, would these primary kids be paying any attention? probably they were)
So for awhile we mainly stayed 'loco' until we did a couple of practise runs to Cairns to test the kms, if we didn't have too much to get we could get back in time for pick up.
When we arrived at Glengarry it was pumping busy with travellers. We were on the south side of the park near the new cabins on a grassed site, it was ok but a slab is definitely needed if we were going to stay for a few school terms I ideally would want to be closer to the amenities for the kids. We did consider renting a unit and storing the van, but I really enjoyed the caravan experience of meeting people and plus we had no furniture. After looking around there wasn't anything that we liked and at the time we were paying $360 a week for the site as it was peak season.
I went to the office and spoke to Margy, Shayne and Tennille at different times asking about available site and about staying for a length of time. Margy was ok with that as they did have permanents in the park anyway. So they gave us some sites to look at and some dates that they were available. We managed to move to site 40 on the 4th of August (Tuesday)which was a good time because Grandma Norma was arriving on the Saturday early in the morning...here's another story...
Grandma was due to leave Friday night on Jetstar at 10.30pm flying directly to Cairns arriving about 3am in the morning. All good we were going to have an early night bundle the kids into the car in their pj's drive to the airport 60kms...all set and organised. Kids could not wait Slade was counting the days to see Grandma. They all went to bed early and had the alarm set for 2am we were still up when the phone rang around 12. Grandma's plane had been delayed on the website and it wasn't departing until a later time, but as grandma hadn't checked in Jetstar thought they had all their checked in passengers and left already. Grandma was not happy and neither were we, she booked another flight for the Monday but that was going to cut her holiday short. So we checked Qantas online and booked her a flight for first thing in the morning that way she hadn't really missed a day. Everyone was pleased to see her at the airport after a disappointing morning when they woke and we weren't going to the airport. Lots of hugs and kisses were had.
So we moved to site 40 and it was a nice sized site with a slab and right across from the amenities and camp kitchen. We also had some nice grass around us and the backdrop was a tropical paradise...yes this was going to be enjoyable. The park was still buzzing with activity lots of comings and goings and lots of spectator enjoyment with backing in vans. Every site was filled on every night.
Going to post this but there is more...stay tuned and I promise it wont be long xx
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