SUMMER MEANT EXCITEMENT...


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; slaving away in a hot kitchen feeding the hungry hoards and 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

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