The Grand Summary - or the Kennojus family's best and worst of 2012

Kms travelled: 40,425 (approx)
Days away: 325
States and territories visited: all of them!
Longest drive: From Tenant Creek to Lawn Hill - 798kms
Most expensive tourist 'experience': Swimming with the whalesharks (Exmouth, WA)
Number of hospital/doctors visits: 3 (2 for Sash, and 1 for Bill)

Best campsite
Zara + Sasha: Bussleton Big 4 Caravan Park (WA)
Bill: Big Lagoon, Francois Perron National Park (WA)
Kate: Shelly Beach, Albany (WA) + Conto Campground, Margaret River (WA)

Best Day
Sasha: my birthday in Bussleton (WA) and Movieworld (Gold Coast)
Zara: Movieworld (Goldcoast)
Bill: Fishing with George in Kalumbaru (Kimberly) and day at Michael and Julia's in Hobart
Kate: Hiking at Mitchell Falls (Kimberly) + walking in Bungle Bungles (WA)

Best tourist 'experience'
Zara: swimming with the whalesharks (Exmouth, WA) and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef
Sasha: swimming with the whalesharks (even though he stayed on the boat!)
Bill: Tasman Island Cruise (TAS)
Kate: Ord River canoe trip (WA) and watching the total solar eclipse (Mareeba, QLD)

Worst moment
Zara: saying goodbye to Melbourne visitors
Sasha: crashing off bike on Mariah Island (TAS)
Bill: driving 5 hours to Kununurra (WA) with offensive boring guy
Kate: eye infection and chat to racist Perth couple in Alice Springs

People we loved from Melbs:
Cam, Greta, Dash and Jett
Jane, Sasha and Nina
Prue and Graham
Dave, Liz, Ada and Henry
Anna and Thu

Best fishing spots:
Lincoln National Park (SA)
Denham (WA)
Big Lagoon, Shark Bay (WA)
Honeymoon Bay, Kimberlys (WA)

Longest hikes:
Freycinet National Park (TAS)
Uluru base-walk (NT)
Pound Walk, Ormiston Gorge (NT)

Best hikes:
Frenchman's Peak, Cape Le Grande National Park (WA)
Mt Tubyularup, Stirling Ranges (WA)
Hollow Mountain, Grampians (VIC)
Pinnacles, Grampians (VIC)
Wineglass Bay, Freycinet National Park (TAS)
Rainforest Walk, Cape Tribulation (QLD)

Nicest beaches:
Turquoise Bay, Cape Range National Park (WA)
Cape Tribulation (QLD)
Shelley Beach, near Albany (WA)
Bay of Fires (TAS)

Worst bities (mozzies and sandflies):

Ubir, Kakadu (NT)

Kalumburu, Kimberly coast (WA)

Francois Perron National Park (WA)  

Number of flat tyres: 2 

(1 on Gibb River Road, Kimberlys (WA), 1 on Hume Highway (NSW))

Number of tow-trucks used: 3 

(Gibb River road to Kununurra, Litchfield NP to Katherine, Tully bridge to Tully)

Favourite driving songs:

Sasha: Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotye

Zara: Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac

Bill: Signatune, DJ Mhedi

Kate: Oh Yoko, John Lennon

10 Spots (in no particular order):

Kate and Bill

1. Gunlum, Kakadu (NT)
2. Karijini gorges (WA)
3. Bungle Bungles (WA)
4. Lincoln National Park (SA)
5. Cape Range National Park (WA)
6. Litchfield National Park (NT)
7. Zebede Hot Springs, El Questro, Kimberlys (WA)
8. Lawn Hill, Budjamulla National Park (QLD)
9. Uluru (NT)
10. Mitchell Falls, Kimberlys (WA)

Zara and Sasha

1. Theme parks (QLD)
2. Tim and Stephanie's house (NSW)
3. Tanya's house (NT)
4. Cow Bay (QLD)
5. Great Barrier Reef (QLD)
6. Bussleton (WA) 
7. Marg's place (WA)
8. Louise's place (WA)
9. Big Lagoon and Monkey Mia, Francois Perron NP (WA)
10. The Katherine Public Library (NT)

Hurrah! Back in Vic and nearly home (Dec 2012)

To be completed (soon!)

Last night in Wodonga - beautiful campsite.
Back to Melbs

Questacon and a night with family (Dec 2012)

To be completed (soon!)

Drove to Canberra, visited Questacon for a couple of hours, then to Gundaroo to stay with Tim and Stephanie.

Bright lights, fireworks and caravan park residents in Sydney (Dec 2012)

To be completed (soon!)

Tall Timbers caravan park in Kemsey. 1 night thankfully.

To Sydney - 3 nights in funny caravan park with lots of permanent residents - almost all old guys with tatts on their necks, beer bellies, missing teeth and well-tendered gardens. Sash loved them and kept dissapearing into their caravans to watch telly with them while they drank beer. Bit awkward.

Went to carols in the park without really realising that they were run by the local christian church and so contained a lot of singing and talking about Jesus. At one point they called all the little christian kids down the front and so our kids, ragged, dirty and wide-eyed ran to the front and stood staring while the chirpy lady onstage talk to them about the true meaning of Christmas. They were confused but happy enough. Still we left early and scooted across town to watch an amazing Christmas fireworks display over Darling Harbour. Sash, who had never seen fireworks before, ooohed and ahhed then checked with me that I would still read him a book before bed that night, and then assured went back to oohing and ahhing...

Next day we took a ferry across the harbour to Taronga Zoo where we spent a happy day checking out the animals. The rest of our time in Sydney was spent doing a little Christmas shopping, checking out amazing residential christmas lights, going to see 'Rise of the Guardians' at the cinema and trying to extract Sash from other people's caravans...

Hippies, babies and plans for a commune in Nthn NSW (Dec 2012)

To be completed (soon!)

To Whian Whian (near Mullumbimby) - camping with hippies
Drive through gorgeous northern nsw mountains. Bill planned his commune.
Visited Bec and Nick and met baby Benjamin.

All class on the Gold Coast

Throwing all cynicism and class to the wind, we braced ourselves for 3 days of theme-park madness. After a year of rustic living, open spaces, peace and serenity, we were ready to go bananas! So we packed a bag of healthy snacks (ok not toooo bananas...) and headed for our first day at Movieworld (Hollywood on the Gold Coast!!). And we had the best day ever. Bill again displayed his incredible lack of fear by going on almost every single super scary ride there. Zara showed that she is truly her father's daughter by going on every scary ride she was allowed on. And Sash reminded us that he is still only 4 and finds the snail-paced merry-go-round quite thrilling indeed. Me, well I loved the Spooky-coaster with Zara, the stunt cars with the kids, the roller-coaster with everyone, the 4D movie experience, and the gluttonous bottomless buffet lunch... But most of all I loved how excited Sash was by the people dressed up as movie characters and how he lined up so many times to meet them that they all knew him by the end of the day. He wasn't interested in having his photo taken with them - he just wanted to hug and kiss them with pure adoration all over his beautiful face. He even kissed Tweety-Bird's feet...

We had planned to hit the water-slides at Wet N Wild the next day but the light rain was a bit off-putting (standing in endless queues in wet bathers), so we headed to Sea World instead. Again, a great day. We ooohed and ahhhhhed along with the crowd at the performing dolphins and seals - but felt slightly uncomfortable with the whole concept at the same time. Education verses exploitation and all that... Giant moving dinosaurs were cool though. And the Dora show. And Sash got to meet Spongebob and Squarepants and a whole heap of other characters who he did not recognise but loved all the same...

And yes, the next day we actually returned to where our hearts were - Movieland! You see, Bill had run out of time and had missed out on one of the scary rides. And the rest of us didn't need much encouragement to go back...

Gotta love the Gold Coast!

Old friends, an Xmas frenxy and dizzying heights in Brisvegas

Still shaking off the salt water and dreaming of incredible underwater scenes, we hightailed it to Brisbane - stopping for a forgettable night in Gladstone en route. Sash was pretty keen to check out the Giant Pineapple (being of the age where giant things appeal) but when we pulled in after a brief de-tour, everything was shutting for the day. A young attendant took pity on us and let us climb the pineapple and check out the history of pineapple production in Australia. We also took the obligatory photo of the family waving from the top of the pineapple, just below the stalk...

Upon leaving, I did a very unusual thing for me - I checked my facebook account. Much to my delight I happened to notice that a very dear old friend from Melbourne, Anna O, had posted that she was in Brisbane with another lovely friend, Thu! Turns out that they were just in town for the weekend and it just happened to be the very weekend we were passing through on our whirlwind tour of the east coast... I was thrilled at the chance to see two of my fave peeps from Melbourne so I rang Anna and we arranged to meet up the very next day in the heart of Brisbane.

We checked in at a caravan park near the water (for final fishing attempts by BT) and made plans for our brief time in Brisbane. Early the next morning we took off into town and headed straight to Myers to meet Santa and ride the santa-land train. Not surprisingly it was insanely crowded and took forever, but the kids enjoyed every second so it was totally worth it. The year in a tent must have addled our brains a bit because we actually purchased a copy of a really weird photo of the kids with Santa where they held their hands out and then someone photoshopped some reindeer eating out of their hands. Weird...

Following our Christmas frenzy, we met up with Anna and Thu for a lovely long lunch of catching up and laughs. It was truly wonderful to see them and a timely reminder that there are people in Melbourne who we were longing to see - and that our homecoming wasn't something to dread!

After fond farewells and promises to catch up soon in Melbourne, Anna and Thu headed to the airport and we headed for Brisbane's big wheel. It was huge and provided an amazing view over Brisbane. We ended our day in town with a peculiar dinner at a funky and outrageously expensive Korean restaurant. We were totally exhausted when we caught the train home - but excited about the next leg of our journey which would take us to the Gold Coast theme parks!!!