19 – Sunshine Coast & Brisbane

And it poured and it poured.  So much for the Sunshine Coast!

Our apartment in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast was on a street not too far from the beach. 

We had a sea view or would have if the low clouds and rain would disappear. 

We had booked the apartment for five days hoping to spend some time on the beach watching the surfers but it wasn’t to be.  The rain was constant and the forecast was for more to come.  They predicted monsoon rain which would lead to flooding.  They weren’t wrong.  We were stuck.  The roads throughout the Sunshine Coast were not advisable and the roads in the Gold Coast were flooded and impassable.

We went out for groceries and ended up soaked.  The supermarket car park was ankle deep in water and with the cars going through we got thoroughly drenched. 

One morning the rain reduced to a shower, so we decided to go to the Queensland Aviation Museum which was not far away. 

Most of it was undercover so at least we wouldn’t get too wet.  The museum was quite interesting.

Got our flights out of the flood zone sorted Sandy!

They have lots of different types of planes and other types of air craft.

There were so many planes in the hangers that it was difficult to see the details of each one, but it passed some time in an otherwise boring few days.

Thursday 26^th was Australia Day.  It was actually clear and bright when we got up. 

Crikey he ain't got any kegs on!

We decided to go to Australia Zoo.  The zoo was quite busy.  It is home to mainly Australian animals

 but it is gradually adding a new part which houses Asian and African animals. 

We saw some animals that we’d never seen in the flesh before, Tasmanian Devils, Echidna and some other Australian natives. 

They had a show in the Crocoseum.

The late Steve Irwin’s wife Terri, daughter Bindi and son Robert took part in the show because it was "Australia Day"  a special day. 

They explained about the crocodile and how it attacks. There was also a display from some of the native birds.

The zoo is very well laid out with plenty of space in the animal enclosures.

Yuck this Scot's meat's a bit chewy!

The dry weather didn’t last.  We decided that we would move on to Brisbane instead of the Gold Coast once our time at the apartment in Caloundra was up. 

We booked a motel just on the edge of the city centre in Brisbane. 

The journey there was okay, but we could see from the amount of water sitting at the sides of the road that it wouldn’t take much more rain for the road to be submerged.

Our motel was situated near to the museum and art galleries. 

On our first night we decided to drive to the water front and see what it had to offer.  We parked the car and had a walk about.  The rain came on again and we got drenched.  Then we had a shock when we went back to the car park.  The minimum charge for parking is $15 for up to three hours.  This increases to $35 for four – seven hours then $109 for up to twelve hours.  Needless to say that was the last time we took the car out in Brisbane.

We borrowed an umbrella from the motel and walked to the museums and galleries.  They were all located next to each other which meant we didn’t have to get too wet. 

The museum houses all types of artifacts from the age of the dinosaurs to last year’s floods in Queensland.  There was a lot to see. 

The Queensland Art Gallery is quite large with a wide variety of Art.  Something for everyone’s taste.

We then went to the Gallery of Modern Art.

  They have a section which is interactive.  There is a room which was painted white and furnished with white furnishings.  When you go in you are given a sheet of brightly coloured dot stickers.  The idea is to cover the room in the bright stickers to get rid of all the white.  It was good fun.  All the kids were having a great time. Emily and Douglas would have loved it. 

They also have an area where they have created fairytale lands. They are very brightly coloured and made out of sand and sugar. The children were enthralled.

It had stopped raining by the time we’d finished so we went for a walk along the waterfront where they have some street cafes, a lagoon for swimming and a parkland area. 

 There was a Sunday Market while we were there and open air pubs with live music.  We sat and had a beer and soaked up the atmosphere.

The city centre was just across the river from our motel.  We walked across to the shopping area.

 There is a mixture of old and new buildings.  Some of the streets are pedestrianized with street cafes where you can stop for a coffee and people watch.

We had intended to travel south to Sydney by car, but the roads are still unadvisable and more rain is forecast. News bulletins are full of film of the floods.  We have had to change our plans.  We’re returning the car and flying south.

18 – South from Cairns

We had hired the car for the whole time we’re in Australia, so we packed everything into the back of the Yaris and set off.  We were heading for the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane.  It’s over 1700km to Brisbane. We’d decided that we’d travel about 5 hours a day then find somewhere to stay for a night or two.

On the first day we headed south on the main highway.  It follows the coast but is inland a bit. 

We travelled through the mountains and passed fields of sugar cane and bananas.  Every so often we would pass through a small town.  The road was very good but the speed limit is lower than the speed limit at home. We eventually decided to stop at Townsville, a reasonable sized town 350km south of Cairns.  We booked into a roadside motel for one night.  Townsville is on the coast and has a nice beach. 

We went for a walk through one of the town’s parks. It was a lovely evening, quite cool.

The next morning we set off hoping to get to Mackay.  The road was quite monotonous, no real scenery just the same trees and shrubs.  We’d both had enough travelling when we saw a sign for Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday coast, so we decided to head for there. From the main road we had to travel about 16km to the beach. 

 The area around Airlie Beach is lovely.  Lots of small beach towns. We booked into a small motel for two nights.

 The town was small but had a lovely lagoon where we spent some time sunbathing and cooling off. We went further along the coast to Shute Harbour and took a walk through the forest to Coral Beach.

 The walk through the forest is the only way to reach this secluded beach.

As we walked through the trees you could hear all sorts of rustling and noises.

We came across a four foot long monitor lizard which quickly scrambled up a tree.

The beach is covered in crushed coral which has been washed up in the high tides. The water was nice and cool but we didn’t go swimming,

the signs said to beware of crocodiles. 

The woman at reception suggested that we go to Castaway Bay a 45 minute drive but it would certainly worth it.

The last part of the drive is dirt track through the scrubland.

We saw quite a few kangaroos, both brown and grey kangaroos.  One of the bigger brown kangaroos hopped across the road just in front of us. 

We also saw a couple of dingos.  We eventually reached the beach which was quite beautiful and unspoilt. 

There was a family fishing from the seashore, but the only other sign of life were the dingo prints in the sand.

We decided to carry on south the next day.  We headed off and spent about six hours travelling before turning off the main road at Rockhampton and heading towards Yeppoon on the coast. We drove through Yeppoon and onto the next small villages before finding a nice motel at Kinka Beach. This was quite a quiet place but there were lots of places nearby.  We went to Emu Park which is a small town with a monument dedicated to Capt Cook. 

The monument is a sculpture in the shape of the rigging of a ship (looks a bit like a harp) but some of the rigging is hollow and when the wind blows it plays a tune. They call the sculpture “The Singing Ship”.

It has been sited on the headland looking out to the sea where Capt Cook sailed his ship when he discovered Australia.

The next day we decided to see some of the sights in the local area so we went to the botanic gardens and zoo in Rockhampton.  It was very hot so we didn’t stay too long before we headed off to view the caves.

These are caves just north of Rockhampton which were discovered about eighty years ago and are now a tourist attraction. There is a large cavern which is often used for weddings. It is said that the acoustics in the cavern is better than the Sydney Opera House.  Every year they host events where opera singers come and sing in the cave. 

We then went to the Heritage Village.  This is a large area where old buildings dating from the 1850’s to 1950’s from all over Queensland have been erected in the form of a village.

 All the buildings are dismantled and removed from their original sites and rebuilt at the Heritage Village. There are several piles of wood lying around the village waiting to be erected. The Heritage Village relies on volunteers, so it takes a long time to get everything done.  It was really interesting. 

is the tucker ready yet Sandy?

They have a hospital, school, fire station, sheep shearing shed, shop and several houses and barns.

Come on Skippy! We've a bush fire to put out.

There are also many carriages, cars, military vehicles and steam engines. We could have spent longer there, unfortunately it was closing time.

We decided to head south again the next day and set off for Maryborough.  The road was quite good, so we went passed Maryborough and stopped at Gympie. We weren’t too far from the Sunshine Coast so it would make the next part of the journey quite short.

Gympie is a small town. It was quite pretty.

The next morning we set off for the Sunshine Coast.  We had booked an apartment in Caloundra at the southern end of the Sunshine coast for five nights.  It was only about an hour’s drive so we decided to go onto the coast road and travel down passed all the other beaches.  We had just turned off the main road when the heavens opened and the rain started to pour down. We should have stayed on the main road.  The coast road does pass all the beaches but you can’t see the sea for the rows of trees at the side of the road. The rain was constant and the road was getting covered in water so we were glad when we reached Caloundra.

Welcome to the Sunshine Coast