camping out without earplugs

australia doesn't have as many free campgrounds as new zealand does. that is of course because there's more urbanized area's. in new zealand a sign of being a "top ten" quality campground (of which there were not ten but fifty) was enough to try and find out if there maybe was an other campsite in the area. (sorry, mieke, we did like your top ten, that's why we stayed for 5 days!) also because in new zealand you can camp wherever you like in the wild, a commercial campground was considered to be for whimps.
in australia the family became a member of big4 (the sister organisation of new zealands top ten with the same membership card!). they have spacious sites, electricity for the microwave and often wireless internet so we can post our pictures.
when you travel off season, you're accompanied by mainly retired people who camp about four spots away from you, so it's all nice and quiet.
not so during easter. everyone goes out camping with their kids and their grandmother and it's all full. against all our principles we had to call ahead to get the very last spot for one night on good friday and every morning there would be kids shouting and fathers baking aussie brekkie bacon for their breakfasts at 6 in the morning in the campkitchen next to our spot - that's why this spot was least popular. the neighbors, who are now of course at the next site instead of four sites further, turn out being almost deaf and watch the 6 o'clock morning news at full volume. geeee, no fun! also no fun because mette and allard think it's 7:30 instead of 6.
this went on for a whole week: friday through monday was the fraser lodge big4 in hervey bay. then monday through thursday the municipal campground in the town of 1770, where james cook landed on may 24, 1770 and - i'm sure - left a few days after but ever since the whole world decided to stay some more days after easter.
on thursday we arrived near rockhampton to a town, seriously, called "the caves". here are the capricorn caves and they have a campground with a swimming pool right next to these caves. once more calling ahead. yep, all fine. and we're all happy.
the lovely lady at the cave reception tells us that we can camp wherever we like on one of their 25 sites if not yet taken, and after we pass four kanagaroos and drive up a hill, it turns out there's a beautiful green slope with trees and NO ONE there! we hear the birds, we smell the fresh air, we play the lego zoo, we light a fire at night (the first since nz), we swim alone in the swimming pool and we visit the caves. wow! the caves rock!

so, what else is new? the visit to the great barrier reef at lady musgrave island. the great barrier reef stretches out for 1000km between port douglas and town of 1770. and only at those two tips, the reef is one hour by boat. off the voute family went. on the way there, the waves were high and many people got seasick. but not the voutes. not seasick at least. mette we sitting on the bench with her drawing board and with the 93rd wave, she tipped over and instead of dropping the board, she held on to it and fell face down on the edge of the table. she had two big bruises, one horizontal and one vertical and a scratch which we think is going to cure nicely but still, not so good.
lady musgrave island is a coral reef that has grown out of the water. there are many sea turtles hatching there. laurian went scuba diving. she saw two sea turtles, two manta rays and a shark. in the meantime tom was going to swim with allard and mette but allard thought the water was too cold and kept crying and mette managed to explain over allards crying that she didn't like the snorkeling mask on her bruised face.
instead the three of them went in a glass bottom boat (the same of the book "the widower" that kluun went on with his daughter!) but still got to see a turtle and a shark.
on the way back to the main land laurian complained about a screaming pain in her ear. it made her nauseous (on the way back, the waves went in the same direction and no one threw up but her) and deaf and it just didn't go away. late at night, when the pain got worse again, tom and laurian found on internet that this was quite common for divers and that a doctor should get consulted.
the next day, in rockhampton, the doctor cleaned the ear and gave eardrops. laurian is still a bit deaf so she doesn't need to wear earplugs if tom snores.

ps allards corner:
* allard is actually managing to move forwards with a sort of skip-hop (he pulls his legs under him, stands on all fours and throws himself forward on his belly and then all over again - exhausting!)

pps mettes quotes:
* het hondje staat op zijn achterpoten. hij probeert high-five te doen/the doggie stands on his hind legs. he tries to do a high-five.
* (tom: wat doe je daar in die bestekla?) lepels vangen/catching spoons (answer to what are you doing in the cutlery drawer?)
* wat zegt die meneer? (laurian: dat weet ik niet. dat kan ik niet zo goed horen) doe de deur maar open/what does that man say? (laurian: i don't know? i can't really hear it) why don't you just open the door?
* (tom: als je iets leent dan moet je het daarna ook...) pakken!/(tom: if you borrow something then afterwards you have to...) grab it!
* (tom sings children's song: trot trot trot, go and never stop... hop hop hop hop hop, paardje in gallop) eigenlijk is het trot trot/actually it's trot trot
* platypus. ben je een platypus, mamma?/platypus. are you a platypus, mommy?
* (laurian to tom: wat is hier veel land to koop/there's a lot of land for sale here) ga je land kopen? in de winkel?/are you going to buy land? in the shop?