Yesterday I had a visit from my cousin and her partner. Until the start of 2013 she had been living and working in London so we hadn’t seen each other for some time. They were having long weekend out of Brisbane staying at Burrum Heads national park and they zipped up to Bundaberg for the day. We had a lovely time eating fish and chips for lunch by the river. Then we visited the haunt of our childhood summer camping holidays with a walk down Mon Repos beach. Mon Repos is famous as a turtle rookery and as the place where aviator Bert Hinkler used to try out his planes.

I’m the short one on the right

We spent nearly 10 years camping there each summer after Christmas with our respective families. We worked out we started these annual holidays when I was about seven and finished when I was 17. There were no more holidays at Mon Repos once I finished high school. (I’m not sure why). My cousin’s family would drive the 4-5 hours from Brisbane. My family would drive the 15 minutes down the road from Bundaberg. As we walked down the beach we reminisced about

• prowling the camping ground at night in our little gang of cousins and friends playing spotlight. No doubt this was highly annoying to other campers.
• playing games on the beach in the late afternoon. Games included French cricket, ordinary cricket, Fly (a hopscotch kind of jumping game), sometimes flying a kite
• attempting to body surf
• swimming in the ocean in a big tractor tyre inner tube
• building giant sandcastles
• our fathers checking the tent ropes during summer storms
• learning not to touch the tent canvas from the inside when it was raining
• getting ice blocks from the kiosk on hot afternoons
• the time my brother ate WAY TOO MUCH ice-cream and threw up
• the evening board games
• the hammock strung between the trees in the sand dunes
• shell collecting
• sunburn
• the time there was a snake in the ladies amenities and the park owner came in and shot it
• going out for Chinese food on New Year’s Eve
• packing up on the days we went home

Mon Repos no longer operates as a camping ground which is a shame. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. But as we strolled up the sand to the second group of rocks I was reminded of the beauty of those childhood holidays. Simpler times.