Oz - the final chapter!!! (part1)

PELICAN WATERS – the last 3 weeks!!

Back to the lovely, sunshine again! We have visited some of the same places, and done some of the same things in our last 3 weeks but here is a snapshot of some other things we have done on The Sunshine Coast.

NOOSA
Noosa is the most northerly settlement of the sunshine coast and the gateway to The Great Sandy National Park. It’s a very prestigious area with million dollar houses. The ones on the river had their own little private beach. Noosa has a complete river system all of which falls within the national park. The main street has loads of designer shops. We had a look at one of the lovely beaches and then went a walk in the national park which is home to koalas but we didn’t see any this time as we were doing only a little coastal walk.

BEACHSIDE BARBIE

Australia is laden with bbq areas in parks, by the beaches, National Parks, etc and they are free! So we decided to live like the Aussies do and have barbie by the sea. Emily was a dab hand at cooking the sausages.

Every weekend you see Aussie friends and families all getting together in these places, having a bbq and a drink in the sunshine, it’s really lovely to see. Most of them are by playgrounds so Daisy was occupied and Emily and Oliver fished by the jetty afterwards. 

MONTVILLE AND MALENY

Montville is a village in the Glasshouse Mountains. It is a lovely, quaint place with lots of cafes and shops many of which are selling local arts and crafts within lovely, wooden quaint buildings. There are examples of traditional Queenlander houses on stilts. Emily looked up the reason for the style of these houses and a there was a number of different reasons:- floods during the wet season, to get a cool breeze through during hot summers and prevention of snakes entering the houses! They also used to keep livestock under this space. Maleny is a similar place with a shop which sells award winning cheeses, coffee and ice cream. I have never tasted such gorgeous ice cream as their macadamia! Maleny is also a place where platypus can been seen, we had a walk along the boardwalk but saw none!

BRISBANE CITY

We weren’t sure what to expect of Brisbane as a city after Sydney and Melbourne but it rated very high on our view of cities in Oz. Brisbane is built on a river, so doesn’t have a beach. But they have a man made beach called Streets Beach on the south bank which is huge. When we went it was a beautiful, sunny winters day of about 20 degrees. There were families sunbathing on the beaches, children playing in the graduated pool and it even has lifeguards!

We ended up staying on the South Bank the whole of the time as it was so laid back and relaxing. We went to the Streets Beach and mooched around the markets along there, sat and had some junk food on the bank overlooking the river and went on the Brisbane wheel, similar to the London Eye.


We didn’t get to see anymore of the city as didn’t feel like we needed to rush around like maniacs just to see the sights. We were going to another of Richard’s work colleagues who lives in Brisbane now with her husband formerly from Bakewell! We had a bbq at their house which was about 30 minutes from the central city.

STRAWBERRY PICKING!

We decided to go strawberry picking which seems very odd in the winter! But here it’s pretty much all year round. 


We picked 2 punnets then drove into the mountains again to have a picnic and eat them!

SALTY SEA DOGS!

Today we decided to hire a tinny. A tinny is a small boat with a small engine. You can see loads of the Aussies fishing off the side of them in the middle of the bay drinking another type of tinny! Idyllic!

We are in such a lovely area here at Caloundra (Pelican Waters is a suburb of this very small town). The Pumicestone Passage is a bay protected by the most northerly point of Bribie Island and is ideal for fishing and boating. 

We sailed across to Bribie Island and moored up on a little beach. Oliver and Emily had a little bit of a fish then we decided to walk over to the other side of the island where we could hear the surf from the quiet side. It was a few minutes walk and I was conscious of the snake situation again since I had no shoes on walking over the dunes! Luckily I didn’t see any. 


The beach at the other side was stunning. Lovely surf waves, pure, virgin white sand which stretched for miles. There were loads of unusual shells which the girls and I picked. We had our picnic on this beach which we had completely to ourselves!

Although it was tempting to sit there all day, we decided we ought not to waste using our boat, so all aboard again for a sail down Pelican Waters. This is how the other half live and some of the riverside houses along here are out of this world.

We still had an hour left so decided to go back to Bribie. Oliver wanted to fish so the girls and I went to build a sandcastle and collect more shells from the other side of the island while Richard and Oliver fished at the opposite side. We had a walk along to the lighthouse but lost track of time and distance and Richard had to come searching for us as the boat was due back in 10 minutes, 15 minutes drive away! 


Because Richard thought we would just be on the beach at the other side of the dunes, he left Ol on the boat, unanchored.  We were at least ½ a mile down the beach so we all had to run back which seemed forever (good bit of exercise though!). Ol was way out in the middle of the bay and he drove the boat into us with a beam on his face. Think he like being in charge of the boat, but was also a bit nervous since we were a long time and he got some strange looks from some of the other boaters! We raced back to take the boat back, only being about 10 minutes late!

A couple more lazy days at the house and beach enjoying the sunshine before our hectic last week ahead at Moreton & Fraser Island.....