Thursday 31st August Gwydir Thermal Pools Motel & Carapark, Moree

We are on our way home so this will probably be the last post for the blog. We left the beautiful Noosa quite early, bidding farewell to our friends who had made our stay there, lots of fun. It was a big driving day for Rob and he did a fabulous job. We had a couple of short stops and arrived in Moree around 4pm. We had travelled a distance of 640kms. I passed the time, reading, knitting and listening to my audio books. The park we are staying in at Moree has its own artesian, thermal pools that are only for the use of people staying in the park or motel. They have 5 large pools all beautifully, clean and tiled. We spent about an hour relaxing in the pools, spending most of the time in the pool that was 36 degrees c. So relaxing after a big driving day. Rob enjoyed the pools even more than those we visited when we were in New Zealand as they weren’t quite so hot and didn’t have the sulphur smell!

The worst photo of the blue super moon from Moree

Wednesday 30th August Ingenia Holiday Park, Noosa North

After a lazy start to the morning having a coffee catch up with our friends in the caravan park, Rob and I headed to the main street of Noosa, Hastings Street. We found a park and walked up and down most of the street, finding a food court for lunch. I visited most of the shops but didn’t find anything I desperately needed, although in one of the art galleries, Rob just mentioned to me that he quite liked a painting (only going for $14,800) and the art gallery worker must have heard this because she came over straight away to tell us about the artist! I said that we would not have a wall large enough to hang the painting on and she then said that the artist can do commissioned work. Anyway, I continued talking to her and Rob walked on! We stopped for some lunch and then set off on a longer walk down to the spit, where the Noosa River enters the sea. We had fun watching the water rush out into the ocean. Returning to the vehicle, we headed back to our caravan park to start to prepare for our departure tomorrow.

Tuesday 29th August Ingenia Holiday Park, Noosa North

This morning a group of 4 of us decided to kayak into the main part of Noosa. Our caravan park is only about 300mt from the river that leads to the main centre of Noosa. It was a lovely kayak of about 4 kms and so nice to do it with company. We met the rest of our group at the Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club and stopped here for a break and a coffee. After some fun here, I continued on with my kayaking but lost my kayaking buddies as they all had decided that they had done enough. I enjoyed my kayak continuing on to the very up-market area of Noosa. I circumnavigated the “millionaires island” with the very spectacular homes and huge beautiful boats. Rob met me and we headed back to the caravan park for the afternoon. Some of us went for a swim in the beautiful pool. Later in the afternoon, other friends arrived from Adelaide. There were now 10 of us staying at the park! We all enjoyed a BBQ dinner together in the evening.

Monday 28th August Rob’s Birthday Ingenia Holiday Park, Noosa North

We had another easy drive from Burrum Heads to Noosa. It would take us about 2 and ½ hours. We needed to purchase fuel and Rob had found a place in Gympie so we decided to also stop there for coffee. As Gympie is a large town, I looked for a café that wasn’t in the busy centre of town and close to where we were to purchase the fuel. I found delightful little corner shop that not only had coffee but specialised in decorated cakes, cup-cakes etc. We enjoyed an apple slice with our coffee (as a birthday treat) and I decided to purchase 8 cup-cakes to have after our dinner tonight, with our friends who we were meeting in Noosa. Even better, when I went to order the delightful looking cakes, I was told that they were a lot cheaper than normal because an apprentice decorator was decorating them. We collected our cakes and made good progress, arriving at our park in Noosa just before lunch. We quickly set up and spent the afternoon catching up with our friends. A few of us went to the pool as it is was a lovely day and the water was quite warm. The eight of us, enjoyed a fabulous meal at the nearby RSL Club. I had booked a table a week ago and they had asked if it was for an occasion. I just said a birthday and our table had a group of lovely balloons as a centre piece.  We returned to the caravan park and went to a cabin that one of the couples are staying in, where we enjoyed our cup-cakes and a few more drinks!

Sunday 27th August Burrum Heads Tourist Park

I had decided that I would like to try to kayak across the entrance of the Burrum River, over to the opposite side of the heads. The best time to do this was first thing in the morning before the wind became too strong.  I had a coffee and then headed out just after 7am.  The kayak across the expanse of water was fairly easy as I had the wind behind me. The wind started to become a little stronger but it took probably half an hour to reach the opposite shore. The return journey was not as easy as I was kayaking into a strong wind and it took nearly an hour to make it back.  Rob was keen to go off to play golf so once I’d safely returned he drove to the town of Howard and played a round of golf while I spent the rest of the morning at the caravan doing washing and other jobs. Once Rob had returned from golf, we went for a drive to explore the nearby towns of Burrum Heads Beach and Toogoom. We returned to Burrum Heads and went for another long walk along the beach and esplanade.

Saturday 26th August Burrum Heads Tourist Park

What an adventure we had today! We had been told and had also read, that inland from where we are now are some beautiful water-holes so we thought we’d take the kayak out there and have a picnic lunch. The road into the Wongi Waterholes wasn’t too bad but it was mainly gravel. Arriving at the waterholes we noticed that there were a few people camping. The area around the waterholes looked quite dry (as everything is in this area at the moment) and unfortunately the waterholes were covered in waterweed which would have made kayaking difficult. The Burrum River is nearby and has been dammed up to form a reservoir/lake. We decided to drive to the lake and thought that maybe I could kayak there. Unfortunately by the time we arrived at the lake, the wind had really sprung up and it would not have been that pleasant out on the water. We went for a walk and noticed once again, the fantastic infrastructure set up for visitors around the lake with, toilets, BBQs, shelters, etc.  A couple of families had set up their caravans on the shore of the lake. From here we decided to drive to the nearby town of Howard. Rob had wanted to check out the golf course and we thought it might be a lovely spot to have our lunch. Google maps took us on a bit of a “wild goose chase”. We travelled on many minor, dirt roads around state forests and in a couple of places I had to open gates due to grazing cattle. Finally we could see through the bush the main highway we were trying to get to. We drove along the track to where we thought we would meet up by the main highway but couldn’t believe what we saw. A new fence had been erected here and we were not able to make it to the highway! We had to back-track on all the rough roads and tracks before finally making it to the highway.  We enjoyed our stop in the small town of Howard and I was in my element due to the fantastic history boards around the town. The town’s main industry was coal mining in its early days and from what I read, many of the tunnellers used in WW1 came from this area due to their expertise in tunnelling. Returning back to Burrum Heads, I decided to venture out in the kayak, despite the wind being up. I had an enjoyable 2 and ½ hours spending a very peaceful time in a small, mangrove lined creek. Out in the main river I did see a huge stingray in very shallow water, so shallow in fact, that it’s tail and barb was out of the water! As I had a tail wind heading to the mangrove creek, returning to the caravan, took me a little longer.