My favourite, summer holiday-spot in
Queensland has been Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast, for as long as I can
remember. More particularly, Golden
Beach, where my grandparents owned a beach shack.
Every Christmas we would pack up,
along with various aunts, uncles and cousins, not forgetting of course grandad
and grandma, meet up with more aunts, uncles and cousins and
proceed to have a whale of a time. At least, we kids had a whale of a
time. Apparently, that’s not quite how
the adults remember it. Sometimes we’d go at Easter time
but Christmas and those hot summers, complete with Christmas beetles and the buzz of cicadas, are the
memories I recall most fondly.
It seems it was only we children who
thoroughly enjoyed sleeping on the floor or camping downstairs; trooping off
for another glorious day at the beach; counting the hours till Santa (or the
Easter Bunny) delivered the goods; thinking up some new trick on play on the
adults or just generally having a great time. Isn't that what kids are supposed to do?
Today, I might think kids like we were, a tiny bit.... well, feral, not to put
too fine a point on it.
To our parents it was just another
hectic time and hardly a holiday for them. No doubt, they dreaded the bath time
hysteria and bedtime scramble; feared the times it was their turn to watch the
brats at the beach; slaved away in a hot kitchen feeding the hungry hoards; counted
the hours till said brats finally went to sleep before falling into their own
beds, girding their loins to get ready to do it all over again the next
day. I don’t remember the Mothers having
any fun but surely they must have. Why else would they turn up year after year?
The Dads got to go fishing and escape the rabble. I believe one year the record
was set at 19 adults and 23 children – not bad for a two bedroom, high-set
house with sleep-out, wood chip hot water heater and one outside toilet!
Fifty years on, the house was long ago
sold and our holidays at dear old Golden Beach are just memories. Whenever I am
over that way though, I am almost overcome by those memories - whether it was trying
to stay awake to surprise Santa; building huge sandcastles; hiding from the designated
adult behind moored dinghies waiting for their hysterical calls when they
realised they couldn't see us; planning how to booby trap our sandcastles to
stop other kids kicking them down or happily walking into town, if we were very
lucky, to see a movie. Summer meant
excitement.
Two things I'm aware of as an adult is
that despite our lack of technology or even transport while we were there, none
of us ever said, “I'm bored” and, nowadays, Queensland summers are to be
endured.Condensed version originally published in Sunshine Coast Daily 1/2/92 © SMG
