Bramston Beach MAF Camping weekend

This weekend was the first combined MAF Cairns and Mareeba camping weekend at Bramston Beach - about an hour south of Cairns. We arrived Friday - Daniel went first with Ruben to put up the tents and I picked up the older ones from school and drove down separately. We were planning to take two cars anyway as we couldn't get all the camping gear and us in one car! It had been raining most of last week and the camp was almost called off  but at the last minute it was decided to go ahead. I drove down there in pouring rain, but amazingly when we got there the rain had stopped and it held off 'til most of us got our tents up. After a BBQ dinner we went to sleep to the sound of curlews crying and waves crashing on the beach. Just in case you're jealous, the sound of Curlews is like a high pitched baby wail and the waves crashing on the beach was very loud and it was hard to shake off the feeling that a tsumani was headed your way. Added to that, one of the tents leaked and we had to abandon it and move into a different one. To round it off  I was sharing an air bed with Ruben which does not aid the sleeping process! Feeling better now? :)

We woke the next day to the raucous laughter of kookaburras in the trees above us, who both mornings decided to wake the campsite up at 6am. Ruben beat then to it and woke me up at 5:30am! Saturday dawned with mostly fine weather and we walked, swam, dug holes in the sand, played games, drank coffee at the café and watched our children jump the waves whilst praying they didn't get eaten by crocodiles. All part of the Australian experience! (The lady at the front desk said not to let the children swim too far out as there were crocodiles in the sea) After another joint evening meal we had a  bonfire on the beach toasted marshmallows and the kids had fun waving sparklers around. Again just to paint the picture more accurately, it's not that relaxing having a sparkler spun round really near your head by a 2 year old!!

We started Sunday with communion on the beach at sunrise before packing up and returning home.

Sorry, not that many photos as we spent most of the weekend chasing Ruben round the camp-site!!! If you can spot him, that's Ruben in the middle of the top picture and Joshua and Caleb swimming with other kids in the bottom one.