After a near miss at Auckland airport when we almost missed our connecting flight, we finally arrived in Brisbane from Santiago after a brutal 18 hours in the air.
We picked up our hire car and started the drive up the M1 to Noosa. After an hour we decided to stop at Caloundra for a spot of lunch. Such a lovely little seaside town! After some eggs benedict for sustenance we decided to walk around the coastline to the next bay.
Like most Australian beaches, the beachside facilities are fantastic – public toilets and changing areas, showers, children’s playgrounds, benches, shaded areas and bbqs to sit and eat.
The beautiful costal walk was also a memorial walk with plaques and monuments along the path honouring local and national Australian veterans and a hospital ship that was sunk in the area during WWII.
We then headed on up to Noosa. We had a fantastic apartment in a resort with 2 bathwater temperature largely inhabited pools and a 10 min walk to the beach.
Noosa National Park is a beautiful stretch of greenery hugging the coast. We took the coastal trail around the headland before heading into the park where we saw monitor lizards, bush turkeys and butterflies.
That afternoon we headed to see ‘Iphoneman’. Earlier Dan’s Iphone had annoyingly given up the ghost all of a sudden when midway through our Patagonia trek and nothing we attempted since had made it come back to life so with Google’s help we found ‘Iphoneman’ down a residential street not far from our apartment. An hour and $50 later and it was working again! The joy on Dan’s face said it all!
The evening’s meal was on the main street – Hastings Street and we decided to go for the highly recommended Bettys Burger and Concrete – the concrete being custard based ice creams mixed with various toppings.
After some beach time on the main beach we headed to Noosaville for a walk, a small pretty community of cafes and boat/SUP hire along the river.
The next day we drove to Mooloolaba, a big seaside town further south towards Brisbane. On the way we stopped at some of the smaller, less busy beaches – Yaroomba and Mudjimba. These were wild stretches of sand and ocean with very few people on them save the odd surfer or dog walker. We enjoyed these stunning beaches and enjoyed jumping the big waves as they crashed to the shore.
We arrived at our lovely little Airbnb (our formidable hostess mellowed as the stay went on!) and after another lovely coastal walk, decided to go to the recommended take away fish and chip shop, Rays. The unassuming shop, down a residential street served us delicious fresh crumbed barramundi and red snapper with chicken salted chips! Coupled with some lovely NZ ciders from the bottle shop next door – it was quite the feast!
The following day, which was Australia Day, we walked Mooloolaba beach watching families celebrate together before heading into the hinterland for a rainforest walk where we saw flying foxes, birds and butterflies. Lunch in the pretty town of Maleny was followed by the drive south to McDowell to our final destination – my friend Kat’s house, where we were staying for the weekend. Our Australia Day was completed with a proper aussie BBQ and some drinks to celebrate!
Tiredbuthappytravels 