There are soooooo many blog posts floating around in my head at the moment with our whole camping holiday to share still, but I’m going to start with a post from a few weeks ago to fill you in on the awesome weekend I had with my mum and two sisters. This weekend really kicked off ‘holiday season’ for me as this is the best, and really the only time of year, that we can squeeze a bit of time off from the farm at Blue Sky.
A few years back when my mum turned 50 – my two sisters and I decided to take mum over to Bangkok for a girls week away to celebrate! We had such a great time and we decided to do an annual girls weekend from that point forward. However, life got in the way a bit, with the arrival of 8 grandkids for my mum over the following 8 years and we only managed one more girls weekend in that period!
We bit the bullet this year and decided to coincide my sister Beth’s visit to see our new bub, with a long overdue girls weekend and Palm Cove was chosen as our destination for this trip! 
And boy was it good! Who knew that Palm Cove was so stunningly beautiful??? And only an hour away from the farm here in Mareeba!!!
Palm Cove is the ‘premier beach destination’ of Cairns. It is tropical, quiet, relaxing and beautiful. There are lots of hotels, apartments and restaurants, but Palm Cove still seems to retain its idyllic and intimate beachside feeling. We had the best weekend!
Palm Cove
View to Double Island from Palm Cove
Palm Trees at Palm Cove
Beautiful and big paperbark trees line the esplanade at Palm Cove
We kicked the weekend off with a family breakfast on the Esplanade. Dad joined us for this as Beth flew in on the red-eye flight from Perth so Dad went down early to collect her from the airport, then Mum and I followed a bit later collecting Kate from the airport also.
The ‘Bell’ family plus Kipp on the Esplanade in Cairns
Dad paid for breakfast (the life of a father of 3 girls!!) for all of us then made a speedy getaway once we decided to hit the shops at Cairns Central for a few hours before heading to our apartment at Palm Cove. After some retail therapy we stocked up on a few groceries and tasty treats for the weekend and headed off to check in to our apartment.
We found our apartment on Stayz.com and it was awesome. It had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, was modern, very clean and very spacious, and as a bonus – came equipped for a baby with pram, portacot, highchair etc all provided. Rebecca, the owner, was really lovely to deal with – we can’t recommend this apartment enough. There is also a great caravan park on the beach at Palm Cove which I would love to bring the camper and Matt and the kids back to sometime.
Our Apartment – Palm Cove
Although we didn’t have ocean front views/access, it was only a short and very easy walk down to the beach. The apartment was right beside the swimming pool and a very short walk to the fitness centre and lap pool. We felt right at home there!
We didn’t do much over the weekend. Read our books, talked, laughed, ate, shopped, went out for dinner and cuddled Kipp. It was so relaxing! We did manage a few walks on the beach to balance out all the yummy food!
Wallaby we saw beside the pool at our apartment as we headed out for a walk.
The boardwalk from the estate our apartment was in down to the beach.
A walk along the Palm Cove Jetty
Palm Cove Jetty is very popular with the fishermen
Jetty – Palm Cove
A morning walk along the esplanade – Kate putting us to shame with her fitness!
Miss Fitness!
Beach Walk
Kipp Relaxing
We spent an afternoon shopping at DFO in Cairns and also headed to Port Douglas on the Sunday to have breakfast and check out the markets. We had a lovely day there despite the overcast weather dulling the usually spectacular drive from Palm Cove, with the road hugging the coastline all the way there.
It was a really, really great weekend and there was no fighting at all! Such a treat for us all to be together these days as it seems to be so hard to find the time between kids, husbands, jobs and life in general. It was definitely worth the effort to get away and we hope that we can try to make our girls weekend an annual event from now on!
Have you ever been away on a girls/boys weekend? What fun did you have? I’d love some ideas for what we could do for Bell Girls weekend 2015???
‘Bell’ girls 2014
Loved it !! and Kipp “just chillin’ ” is the best photo !!
The photos are great Jess! It was a great weekend.
Love the blog. So personal and informative. I might take a legs out of your book and start making mine not so travel related. More about how we or I enjoy a destination.
Kind regards Kev Sent from my iPhone
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aww the memories – was awesome!! and yeah jess fantastic photo’s! the one of beth and i at breakie – Beth’s face – “Kate what crap are you going on with now??” hahahaha
liked the way Kip was just chilling contemplating the universe and how he might improve it–cause he is my grandson—yea probably just wondering how long till tucker time—
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