PELICAN WATERS, CALOUNDRA - THE SUNSHINE COAST – the first 3 weeks.
After a 1 ½ hour flight from Sydney to Brisbane, then an hours mini-bus journey, we arrived at our 2nd house swap at Pelican Waters.
Pelican Waters is a very nice area with massive houses a lot of which are waterfront properties, many with a pontoon and boat! Our house is on the opposite side of the road to the river and backs onto a golf course. The house is fab, really big and we can all really spread out. The girls share a bedroom and Oliver has his own, these are all downstairs with our master suite upstairs, complete with a balcony!
We can only get so far up for a close up photo and because one of them has a joey, they are extremely protective and we don’t want to risk a ‘punch’ from one of them!
Our second night, we had our first bbq in the outside room. Although the temperatures here are in the early 20’s for winter, it’s a bit cooler at night but we were able to put the blinds down and eat ‘outside’ which was great after the cold nights in Sydney.
The town nearest to us is Caloundra, a small seaside town. The Sunshine Coast is made up of a series of beaches on the coast and stretches to the hinterland which includes the Glasshouse Mountains.
3rd June - Dicky Beach
Our first beach visit was to Dicky Beach which has a shipwreck on the beach. The children and Richard went body boarding, it was a bit too cold for me! We found 2 body boards in this house, 1 blue, 1 pink so Oliver grabbed the blue board, so guess which colour Richard was left with?!
This was an eventful day for Daisy. We were having our 2nd bbq and her first tooth fell out! She was extremely pleased, it had been loose for a while and she wanted her first visit from the tooth fairy!
Oliver, Emily and Richard have been doing a lot of fishing whilst we have been here. This area is a really laid back place, with no hustle and bustle of a major city. There is a lot of focus on outdoor activities and fishing is one of them.
Emily seems to be racking up the numbers when it comes to fishing much to Ol’s annoyance! The main fish caught has been Bream, but Oliver caught a poisonous toad fish and a fish called ‘Happy Moments’ which despite its quaint sounding name is just the opposite. If it stings you from its spiny back, you can be really ill. Richard got part of a spine (off the towel we wrapped it in to get the hook out) in his finger, his finger swelled up, went red and really itched for a good few hours!
STEVE IRWIN’S AUSTRALIA ZOO – 9TH JUNE
There a plenty of zoos where we have been in Australia but we had been saving a zoo visit to go to Steve Irwin’s. When the children were younger we used to watch Steve in his Crocodile Hunter programmes and were really sad when he died.
His wife, Terri is carrying out all the plans they made for the future of the zoo and his children, Bindi and Robert play a part in it too. There is a huge conservation message behind most of what they do and you have to have a huge respect for what they have done and are still continuing to do.
Dotted around the zoo are rangers with different animals that you can have a look at, maybe pet and have a photo taken with it. We went to a show which showed snakes (luckily you are sat a long way back!), birds flying around the stadium which was great and crocs!
Daisy was determined for us to have a family picture holding a snake. The snake was a huge python. The kids guilted me into doing it. As you can see, my smile is fixed, it felt horrible, warm and heavy! I was glad when it was all over!
We saw all sorts of Aussie animals – wombats, koalas, echidnas (porcupine), possums, eagles, parrots, Tasmanian devils – but one of the favourite parts of the day was hand feeding the kangaroos. They were so lovely. This is me with a piccie of my favourite. I named it Bambi-roo because it had the markings of Bambi!
SURFING LESSON
We had a family surfing lesson just for the 5 of us. Our teacher was called Maui and he was very good (and patient) with us!
First we had to learn the basic positions on the land, then after 20 minutes it was time to venture into the ocean! We were a bit apprehensive but Maui reassured us that we weren’t going very deep, only up to our waists. He also reiterated that shark nets are in place on this beach for a reluctant Emily! It is surprising how strong and fast the waves are though even from this distance from the shore.
Daisy was the first to have a go and there she was first time standing up on the board like a real pro! Oliver and Emily were not long behind, managing to stand up. It was proving a bit more challenging for us two though. I managed to get up onto my knees but then my dodgy old knees would let me down and I couldn’t manage to stand up properly before the wave had dissipated! Richard managed to do some knee ones and a couple standing up! We had more time than we had booked which was great and it went really quickly! We came away with a few bruises and grazed knees but it was fab and it makes us want to go back in to have another go. We may hire a board and have another go on our last 3 weeks on the Sunshine Coast.
GLASSHOUSE MOUNTAINS
The Glasshouse Mountains are about a 30 minute drive from Caloundra and can be seen from the coast line. They are an amazing shape and Lieutenant James Cook named them glasshouse mountains because they reminded him of the glass house coolers back in his home town of Yorkshire. They are actually volcanic plugs which were originally inside volcanic cones. The cones have since eroded over 25 million years, leaving the odd shapes that are the Glasshouse Mountains. 
History lesson over, we had a nice walk around the lookout point then drove to The Ginger Factory and Macadamia nut factory and what the kids had been waiting to see – The Big Pineapple!!
This is basically …well a big pineapple at the side of the road. It is the iconic symbol of a place (think its for kids, a small theme park and farm animal place) which is currently closed down and is being done up but we took a photo anyway! Not sure of the relevance of the pineapple, although there are a lot of pineapple farms around that area!
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