I know it sounds to everyone like we live a life of leisure, but in fact, in between the adventures is a fair amount of work. It's just no one pays us for it. Plus work is both boring to write and read about. Lately the work has been on Tackless II's interior cosmetics, and once again, Don has been the main miracle worker and his media has been sandpaper, a little Golden Oak stain, and varnish. An experiment in touching up a corner looking a bit shabby produced such unexpectedly impressive results, that he has been working his way through the entire boat. Wow, what a difference! No one is going to be able to resist her!

So that's what the day off was from, and how it was spent was in the company of our across-the-dock neighbors, Rod and Sue. Rod and Sue live on a 70' powerboat named Idlewise. Idlewise is also a mature lady like Tackless II, but with very gracious interior spaces and an engine room to make us rag-boaters weep. After having up to 12 family members visiting over the holidays, Rod and Sue were ready for a break themselves, so they invited us to join them for a beach drive.

A beach drive is executed in a 4WD vehicle, which in Rod and Sue's case was a cushy Toyota Land Cruiser. Unlike America, where most of the coastline is developed, Queensland still has miles and miles and miles of natural shoreline. Our drive took place on the approximately 50km of beach we'd sailed past in November between Double Island Point on the north end and Noosa Head on the south.





The beach is backed by hills and cliffs of colored sand behind which is a wide wedge of preserved forest through which flows the Noosa River. It is part of the Great Sandy National Park which also includes all of Fraser Island, also renowned as a 4WD destination. Given unlimited time, we could have caught one of the ferries we'd seen at Inskip Point and continued driving another 75 miles right up the outside of Frasier.

It was a bright sunny day with a good swell running, and the turquoise waves were crashing close by on our right. We were not alone on the beach.



There were plenty of cars traveling at what feels like a breakneck pace in both directions. According to Rod, however, regular road rules apply, which means the speed limit is 50kph and northbound vehicles keep left. Of course, left is where the softer sand was, so things could get a little swishy when we'd pull left to give southbound cars room between us and the surf. Clearly Rod was eating this up. He's been doing this for years and never wavered in his assault!





We stopped twice to explore sand canyons and scramble up through soft stuff to reach various vantage points for photographs.










The sand got very hot with every step away from the water. Although we had worn swimsuits ("swimmers" in Aussie-speak), the sea was rather rough-looking plus there was evidence a blue bottles, a small, blue stinging jelly fish. Rod demonstrated the Aussie sport of stamping on the dried jellies' bodies, which pop just as if they were bubble wrap.

At various stretches along the way were avid fishermen working the surf as well as clusters of campers, their tents pitched above the water line.



Most camps looked like they'd been there a while. Rod explained how the campers could dig a pit in the sand a the base of the cliffs and collect fresh water! Indeed in many spots along the beach there was enouch fresh water seeping out that the waves became discolored. Every camp site would sport a distinctive flag to facilitate residents finding their own tents. Some groups got quite creative, bringing kiddie wading pools to sit in, solar panels, satellite dishes, etc. The best was an elaborate group "beach bar" complete with pool table.

The beach ended abrupt at rocky Double Island Point where several vehicles were parked for swimming in a little cove.



One can climb up to the lighthouse if one has the energy, or one can purchase Magnum ice cream bars from an enterprising vendor who has been driving the beach with his wares for 20+ years! Our timing was perfect, because the vendor sold us our snacks, and when we turned around, he was gone!

We caught up with him shortly at the track that leads across the Double Island peninsula to the protected bay on its backside. This would be the anchorage that southbound boats can choose to stop at after crossing the Wide Bay Bar. That day it was very placid, and a bar of sand had built up to make an enclosed swimming pool.



After our swim it was determined that the tide was advancing enough that we'd better not attempt to drive back home on the beach. We did have to backtrack enough on the much shortened beach to get on a track that led out through the park to the village of Rainbow Beach. Every time we entered or exited one of these tracks to and from the beach, my heart was in my throat, because, of course, we had to cross through the band of deep soft sand at the top of the beach. We saw several vehicles stalled up to their bottoms in the sand, the driver out shoveling. Then, as you slew your way onto the track, there's the next scary moment of sliding into your "lane" as defined by stumps of telephone pole dividers. Man you could do some damage if you miscalculate.

Speaking of miscalculation, we weren't far up the track to Rainbow Beach when we encountered a ute (Aussie for truck) flipped onto its back.



The incident had just happened, and two young guys were standing around looking dazed. That they were standing was the good news. It seems they had been traveling a bit fast for the curve, and, over-correcting, had run up the opposing bank and flipped. We walked up to see if help was needed. Aussies are very resourceful, and no one comes to this part of the country without tow equipment. All the men on hand ganged up to right the truck and tow it out of the way. Good thing, because traffic was stalled in both directions, and the tide would be blocking the only other way out! The driver's spirit was probably as crushed as his truck. Seems he was a carpenter's apprentice and his job depends on his ute.

It was a long way out through the forest, but it was beautiful: Big tall trees, very dense growth. At the other end was the village of Rainbow Beach where we stopped for a late lunch in a very handsome, recently renovated pub and for a pass through an underbody car wash. From there we stopped off to visit some friends of Rod and Sue's who own a neat little compound on an inlet overlooking Tin Can Bay, from which they supply bait, ice and rental boats for the campers in the camp ground opposite. Now there was a nice set-up!

Rod and Sue apologized for the trip home being inland, but in late afternoon the landscape on the way to and south on the Bruce Highway was just gorgeous. The hills are lumpy and the land good farmland, much of which, Rod told us, is due to be inundated by a reservoir. We have been reading about this in the news, and it is a plan that has all the residents up in arms, as evidenced by homemade billboards against the project all along the highway. The Bruce Highway, which would have to be moved to accommodate the reservoir, is the major north-south highway of Eastern Australia. Even so, in these parts it is but a two-lane road!

So, a big thank-you to Rod and Sue for a great day out. Every time we get out and see some of the countryside, it strengthens our resolve to get out and do more. And we will, just as soon as the boat is done and back on the market.

Labels: Inland Travel, Road Trip

Jim and Paula, of course, have been out cruising most of the past year aboard their boat Avior. They took off at the beginning of the last cruising season with a rally from Australia to Vanuatu, spent four months there followed by the same 6-7 weeks in New Caledonia that we did, which, of course is where we got to know them. It might seem a relatively short acquaintance to landlubbers, but Jim and Paula have gone out of their way to extend these two Yanks an exceptional hospitality in their home country.

They have been trying to get us up to see their house since we got to Mooloolaba, however without wheels, it pretty much meant that we had to rely on them to come get us and bring us back. And much of that time, they were tied up with a haul out in their home anchorage of Tin Can Bay as well as working on the house to get it ready for new tenants. It finally worked out for all of us for them to pick us up in Mooloolaba Saturday evening before the Sunday Party on their way home from a Christmas party with Paula's former co-workers.

It was an hour's drive up the Bruce Highway to Eumundi where we turned inland into the hills of the hinterland. It makes for a big change from the long strip of suburbia that hugs the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane. It is not unlike a subtropical Vermont! Here are rolling hills and eucalyptus forests with winding roads, grazing cattle, and country homes with plenty of land and flowers around them. The evening light was waning fast thanks to dense thunderclouds rolling in, and we turned into their driveway in the nick of time to get our bags up the steps before the thunderstorm let loose. How glorious it is to sip cold beers and dine on a great supper of kangaroo sausage, sweet potato and salad under the eaves of a snug porch while the rain and lightning do their thing.

Because the house was between rentals, there was not much furniture in place. Jim and Paula's big accomplishment of the previous weeks was the bringing in of a container (which required a crane to hoist it over the house!) in which to store all their furniture while the house was rented. They had, however, excavated a guest bed for us, which was a pleasant surprise because we had anticipated a mattress on the floor. We fell asleep to the flashing and booming of the thunderstorm and woke the next morning to tiny wallabies nibbling on grass shoots in the front garden.

Since Paula and Jim are later sleepers, we got up, made ourselves coffee to sip on the front porch. By morning light we were able to get a better look at the house and grounds. The house is a single level home, projecting on stilts from the steep hillside that slopes down to a pond in a eucalyptus glade, where lotuses float and frogs croak. The hill puts the fairly open canopy of the glade on a level with the porch enabling very easy bird watching. We'd woken to the inane cackle of an Australia kookaburra (although we never saw him) and during coffee a flock of crested white cockatoos set up a ruckus as they passed through.

After coffee we set out for an hour's walk around the country neighborhood. That first morning we saw three more kangaroos, including a big fellow in the middle of the dirt road. We also saw a lot of cows and calves plus a few bulls, most of them with the hump-shoulders of Brahma blood. Neighbors were spread out in a mix of everything from older cottages up to some bigger modern haciendas, and we met several residents out walking as we were, one of them accompanied by a huge dog (Mastiff and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix) named Tyson like Tiffany's Yorkie. Aussie are very quick to be friendly, and these rural dwellers were no different.

The party itself started about 10 am and went on until late with people coming and going. Since Paula and Jim had been away for many months, it was a great reunion with friends who had missed them. There were lots of kids about, and the food, which Jim and Paula had been working on for days, seemed unlimited.

The birthday cake was a huge rectangle of chocolate decadence called a mud cake, and the mounds of empty beer and wine bottles spoke clearly of the Aussie capacity to party.

Monday morning, Jim gave us a tour of the 4.5 acre "estate." One thing that fascinated me was that he had cut down the eucalyptus forest uphill from the house (eucalyptus are a big fire hazard) and replaced them with a grove of eliocarpus saplings. In Australia, the eliocarpus is knows as the Tasman Blueberry tree, and Jim's had doubled in height in just a couple of years. What made this interesting to me was that it is the same species that I planted in the corner of our garden in Crystal River, FL. No one gave me a hint it would grow so tall so fast! Cool!

There is a famous organic farmer's market in nearby Eumundi, and like many of the people living in this part of Australia, Paula and Jim lean heavily toward green living techniques. Jim explained his system of organic vegetable gardening (when they are in full time residence) via which he uses six chickens in a movable, geodesic dome-like coop that he rotates through twelve sections of his garden in two-week intervals. All food scraps and grass clippings are thrown into the coop, and the chickens' natural scratching till the soil while their poop fertilizes things. Evidently in Australia, where conditions tend to be dry, it is highly desirably not to open up the soil to till it like we do in America.

All in all, it seemed like a very agreeable lifestyle (even without furniture), and we could kind of see why Paula's could be having a little trouble mustering enthusiasm for moving back aboard their 40 foot sailboat for another year!

Labels: Inland Travel