Sunshine Coast

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Monday evening we joined Carlene and Rex for a meal at the Maroochydore RSL. We were amazed to find that Elvis was actually “in the building” at the same time! We had very nice meals but I was the only one to receive snow pea sprouts with my salad. This did prove to be somewhat disastrous later in the evening after lights out. With not enough time to make the hundred metre dash to the amenities block, the caravan toilet came in very handy for the upward expulsion of the evening meal. A short time after returning to bed, it was realised that a downward expulsion was also imminent and an attempt was made, with assistance, to make it to the amenities. After collapsing in the middle of the road after about 20 metres, it then took some time to make the return journey to the caravan facilities, with frequent lay downs in the middle of the road – as well as much anxiousness on the part of the carer! Alls well that ended well.

Tuesday we decided on a drive, rather than something more energetic, and headed south towards Caloundra before turning inland and passing Australia Zoo on the way to Beerwah and Peachester. This was a lovely drive through the bush with some scenic views towards the Glass House Mountains. We stopped at Mary Cairncross Park for a bit of a walk and talk, and a look at the mountains and some of the nearby houses. There would appear to be some quite serious money living in this area, as there were some quite seriously large houses! We stopped for lunch at Maleny before continuing on to Montville, which is when we realised our mistake in stopping at Maleny. The coffee shop was very nice but we did become a bit concerned when Paul the Snake Remover pulled up outside and a water dragon suddenly appeared in the middle of the terrace! Montville was a lovely little touristy village, and we thoroughly enjoyed poking about in the various shops, especially the cuckoo clock shop. On the way to Montville, we had a brief halt at a lookout towards the coast and were surprised to find a couple (about our age) having lunch in the shelter – white linen tablecloth, Stuart crystal wine glasses (know the pattern), cheese board, fruit platter, etc. We thought it was a rather public place for what was obviously a special occasion (or maybe that is how they eat lunch when travelling!!! Doesn’t everyone?). As we were passing the Big Pineapple on our return, we stopped for a look and a photo opportunity. This once iconic tourist destination is now just the pineapple and a small souvenir stall – so different to what we remembered and rather sad.

Today our first stop was at the Bli Bli post office to mail a VIP (very important parcel) to Jack, who will be six next Monday. We then continued to Eumundi and the famous market, thinking Wednesday would be a quiet day. Wrong! The new section of the market was very nice, with lots of different shops/stalls, while the older section was more craft, hand made soaps, Bali style clothing, loud music, etc. I did manage to add to my hat collection.

Next stop was Noosa and we were lucky enough to find a parking spot in the main street. I thoroughly enjoyed Noosa, found a lovely shop that stocked my kind of gear, as well plenty of other nice shops to browse in. It was great to see clothes that weren’t all made from cheesecloth or designed to be added in multiple layers; very easy to add some frequent flyer points via the credit card. We returned to Maroochydore along the coast – beautiful blue sea and blue sky – but did get a bit of a fright when a Jetstar plane nearly landed on us (we didn’t realise we were near the approach to the airport runway).

The weather the last couple of days has been much nicer than Monday, with the temperature around the 25 degrees mark.