Living out of a Backpack 2

Whoa! It's been about 3 weeks (at least) since I last wrote on here! Sorry everyone. I'll try to give a brief summary of some of the stuff we've been doing. I have a lot of photos taken but it takes a long time to upload them, so I don't have too many new ones to share.

Our time on the Sunshine Coast has been, in a word, terrific. The weather really has been impeccable, and aside from a few spots of rain and thunder in the last week we had seen day after day of cloudless, blue skies, hot weather, and nice breezes. The ocean water has warmed up to about 23 degrees C (73 F), which really is warmer than it sounds once you get in (Anna might disagree), and the waves up picked up nicely. Disappointingly, the surf picked up too late and I haven't had a chance to stretch my surfing muscles again yet, but I might give it a go in NSW, and definitely will in NZ and when we come back to the Sunshine Coast.

Anna and I took advantage of all of this and got to do some more exploring. We went up to Coolum Beach one day for the annual Coolum Kite Festival. There were tons of people, most of them families with kids, so it was a fun atmosphere. Little stalls selling food, treats, and knick-knacks, and of course a ton of colourful kites of all sizes. There were little shapes and critters, and massive squids. It was a pretty cool event.

Other days, we just drove around the countryside, going through little towns and a lot of farm fields. The Hinterland, as it's called, is really beautiful here... dry rolling hills, farms and ranches, forests sprinkled with palms with little winding roads twisting through them, and lots of nice views. We even came across a massive pineapple.

We also went up to Noosa for the day to hang on the enormous beach on a bay there. Noosa is a really nice spot, with lots of high-priced resorts/condos and beach homes. It's nestled in on the edge of Noosa National Park, which is in itself a huge parkland spreading across much of the Sunshine Coast coastline. Anna and I hiked there for a good part of the afternoon and got up pretty high from the ocean. Views with like Hell's Gates give an idea of the things you'll see... towering, rocky cliffs, huge waves crashing onto outcroppings, and the hills themselves covering in thick semi-tropical forest. We lucked out too and even saw a koala napping way up in a tree.

One of our last outings was to Mount Coolum, a huge mound that rises up not more than half a kilometre from the ocean. It's a big green mole on the face of the Earth and you can see it clearly for quite a distance up and down the coast. The climb up was nothing short of exhausting, probably not helped by the fact the sun was beating down on us and the path was pretty steep and rocky. But the view was more than a fair payoff. You could easily see for many kilometres around the mountain, and it was cool being able to pick out the little towns and locations that we've come to know. Even the Glass House Mountains could be seen in the distance over the ridge.

So now our time in Mooloolaba is done, for now, and we've off on another leg of our trip. This part is going to be quite a bit more fast paced and packed with new things, so you can expect to get a lot more updates. Our first stop is Sydney, to stay with my old friends Phil and Kathy Macarthur for a few days. After that I think we'll be heading up to Newcastle, but we'll keep you posted.

I leave you with this: